NBA Draft: 2013 historical redraft shows vast differences

Actual selection: Otto Porter, SF, Georgetown

This draft was so long ago that CJ McCollum was still known to all of us as C.J. McCollum (those of us who have to pay attention to where the periods are and are not, that is). Would the Washington Wizards have gone shooting guard in back-to-back years, having taken Bradley Beal in 2012? Maybe not, but it was Ernie Grunfeld, which meant anything was possible.

McCollum’s stock took a bit of a hit after being limited to just 12 games as a senior at Lehigh due to a broken foot, an injury that plagued him well into his rookie year with the Portland Trail Blazers after he was taken with the 10th overall pick.

But McCollum, who played only 38 games and 476 minutes in 2013-14, emerged as a rotational reserve the next year and has been a starter and a 20-point-a-night scorer since his third NBA campaign in 2015-16, when he was named Most Improved Player.

Porter similarly took some time to grow into his role in Washington, playing 37 games and 319 as a rookie, becoming a reserve in the rotation in 2014-15 and a starter in 2015-16.

But while Porter developed into a solid complementary piece, he’s never approached McCollum’s level of production and he’s also coming back from a serious foot problem of his own that sidelined him much of this truncated 2019-20 season.

If nothing else, having McCollum and Beal would have given Grunfeld a surplus of backcourt shooting to deal from. Not that, you know, he would have gotten the trade right or anything, but theoretically, it could have given the Wizards assets from which to build.