2012 NBA Redraft: How wrong we were in real time

#5 Pick: Khris Middleton (Originally: Thomas Robinson)

In an example of another pick I would have gotten completely wrong at the time, I loved Thomas Robinson when he played for Kansas and thought he was going to make it big in the NBA. That being said I was skeptical of the pairing with DeMarcus Cousins and clearly a different choice needed to be made. After his mishandled rookie season in Detroit (sigh) Khris Middleton fits the bill as a top-five pick and would have fit with Cousins well.

Middleton is efficient and effective and has been a double-digit scorer since getting to Milwaukee in his second season. Spacing the floor for Cousins while not commanding too many touches would have been perfect for both to grow.

Obviously the coaching carousel that persisted in Sacramento could have hindered the former second-round pick from developing the way that he did. But Middleton is intelligent and level-headed and seems like he would have found a way to succeed in spite of it.

If nothing else he would have had more staying power than Thomas Robinson. Low bar obviously, but the Kings of the 2010s are a plethora of low bars looking for anything to jump over them.

With the sixth pick in the 2012 NBA Redraft the Portland Trail Blazers select…