Brooklyn Nets: Impact At No. 29? Good Luck With That

Think of the Joe Johnson trade from the summer of 2012 as the gift that just keeps on giving … to the Atlanta Hawks.

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The newly minted Brooklyn Nets shipped five players—Jordan Farmar, Anthony Morrow, Johan Petro, DeShawn Stevenson and Jordan Williams—along with a 2013 first-round pick and a 2017 second-rounder to the Hawks to get Johnson, then a six-time All-Star with four years remaining on a gargantuan contract.

And as Johnson’s production has continued to slide—not shocking, considering he will turn 34 late next month—an addendum to that trade has come back to bite the Nets … hard.

The Nets were in full-fledged win-now mode when they made the move from New Jersey to Brooklyn, which is why they wanted to add an All-Star such as Johnson.

The thought behind giving Atlanta the right to swap first-round picks was simply that Brooklyn expected to be a major player in the Eastern Conference and would have a better record than the Hawks in 2014-15.

What is it 18th century Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote in “To a Mouse”? Oh, yes … “The best laid schemes of mice and men/Often go awry.”

This is apparently also true of NBA general managers. Hell, Billy King has made a career of schemes gone awry—ask any Philadelphia 76ers fan.

King’s plan for “winning now” didn’t pan out. In 2014-15, the Nets finished 38-44. The Hawks were an Eastern Conference-best 60-22.

So not only did Brooklyn get the privilege of being the eighth seed that got pummeled by the top-seeded Hawks in the first round, the Nets also get to give their 15th overall pick—the first pick outside the lottery—to Atlanta.

Fantastic!

That leaves the Nets with Atlanta’s pick at No. 29 overall.

The 29th pick didn’t even move into the first round until 20 years ago, when the Toronto Raptors and then-Vancouver Grizzlies joined the NBA and expanded the ranks to 29 franchises.

To say there has been a lack of impact players taken with the No. 29 overall pick since it moved into the first round in 1995 would be akin to declaring the New York Knicks were slightly below average in 2014-15.

The table below really does speak for itself when discussing the value of the 29th overall pick over the last 20 years.

		Per Game	Shooting
Rk	Year	Tm	Player	College	G	PTS	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	FG%	2P%	3P%	FT%
1	2003	DAL	Josh Howard	Wake Forest University	507	14.3	5.7	1.6	1.0	0.5	.448	.471	.332	.770
2	1998	UTA	Nazr Mohammed	University of Kentucky	1000	5.8	4.7	0.4	0.4	0.6	.486	.487	.000	.639
3	2001	CHI	Trenton Hassell	Austin Peay State University	644	5.8	2.8	1.8	0.4	0.4	.445	.457	.318	.765
4	2009	LAL	Toney Douglas	Florida State University	309	7.6	2.2	2.2	0.8	0.1	.405	.451	.352	.816
5	2011	SAS	Cory Joseph	University of Texas at Austin	204	5.2	1.8	1.9	0.5	0.2	.474	.500	.314	.769
6	2000	LAL	Mark Madsen	Stanford University	453	2.2	2.6	0.4	0.3	0.2	.457	.465	.063	.527
7	1996	CHI	Travis Knight	University of Connecticut	371	3.4	3.1	0.6	0.4	0.6	.438	.447	.259	.696
8	2008	DET	D.J. White	Indiana University	138	5.9	3.2	0.6	0.3	0.4	.507	.507	.333	.720
9	2004	IND	David Harrison	University of Colorado	189	5.0	2.9	0.2	0.3	1.0	.530	.530		.525
10	1995	SAS	Cory Alexander	University of Virginia	307	5.5	1.6	2.7	0.9	0.1	.389	.417	.354	.756
11	2010	ORL	Daniel Orton	University of Kentucky	51	2.8	2.5	0.5	0.4	0.5	.485	.490	.000	.597
12	2005	MIA	Wayne Simien	University of Kansas	51	3.3	1.9	0.2	0.3	0.0	.469	.469		.854
13	2007	PHO	Alando Tucker	University of Wisconsin	51	4.1	1.0	0.3	0.1	0.0	.423	.453	.294	.783
14	2013	OKC	Archie Goodwin	University of Kentucky	93	4.6	1.7	0.7	0.4	0.2	.421	.474	.221	.710
15	1999	SAS	Leon Smith		15	2.2	2.2	0.2	0.3	0.1	.393	.393		.647
16	2012	CHI	Marquis Teague	University of Kentucky	88	2.3	1.0	1.4	0.2	0.1	.349	.377	.220	.686
17	2006	NYK	Mardy Collins	Temple University	189	3.9	1.8	1.7	0.6	0.1	.380	.396	.299	.599
18	1997	HOU	Serge Zwikker	University of North Carolina
19	2002	GSW	Steve Logan	University of Cincinnati
20	2014	OKC	Josh Huestis	Stanford University

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/26/2015.

I mean seriously … Josh Howard is the best of the bunch?

And the Nets have some experience with a recent guy at No. 29, Marquis Teague. How’s that go again?

But if one goes back to the beginning of the common draft era in 1966, it gets a little bit better.

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In 1992, the Nets themselves drafted P.J. Brown out of Louisiana Tech, the player with the most career win shares (89.8) of any player taken 29th overall from 1966-94.

Hall of Famer Dennis Johnson went 29th overall to the Seattle SuperSonics in 1976. In 1981, the Kansas City Kings took smooth-shooting Illinois forward Eddie Johnson, who lasted 18 years in the NBA.

In 1990, the Chicago Bulls selected Croatian forward Toni Kukoc, an integral piece of the second three-peat by the Bulls in the late 1990s.

Other notables taken at No. 29 include Johnny Newman (1986, Cleveland Cavaliers), Phil Smith (1974, Golden State Warriors), Vinny Del Negro (1988, Sacramento Kings) and John Long (1978, Detroit Pistons).

And for what the draft could have in store for Brooklyn at No. 29 this year?

In its latest mock draft, DraftExpress has the Nets taking Syracuse freshman forward Chris McCullough, he of the 9.3 points and 6.9 rebounds per game in 16 games last season—a season shortened by a torn ACL.

HoopsHabit’s own mock draft also has the Nets on McCullough at No. 29.

Yeah, two mock drafts have the Nets taking a guy with a bum knee.

NBADraft.net has Brooklyn on UNLV sophomore forward Christian Wood, a talented kid with a physique that makes Chris Bosh seem like Charles Barkley by comparison.

Yes, I’m saying he’s thin—as does the 6-foot-10, 215-pound frame. Wood averaged 15.7 points, 10 boards and 2.7 blocks for the Runnin’ Rebels last season, so he’s got some skills, but he will have to get some bulk to play consistent minutes as a 4/5 hybrid.

Chad Ford’s latest mock draft for ESPN.com has the Nets taking Terry Rozier, the Louisville guard who impressed in the five-on-five play at the draft combine in Chicago.

As a sophomore, Rozier averaged 17.1 points, 5.6 rebounds and three assists, but underwhelmed with his 31 percent shooting from deep.

There’s a chance the Nets strike it big and one of the guys available at No. 29 goes on to be a franchise-changing star.

There’s also a chance I will be named ruler of the planet Earth and live out my days as the benevolent despot I always wanted to be.

I’ll leave it to you to decide which of those has the better chance of actually happening.

Next: Our Latest NBA Mock Draft

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