The 30 most painful NBA Draft pass-ups since 2000

NBA Draft Mistake #7: Minnesota drafting Derrick Williams over Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson, and Jimmy Butler.

Ahead of the 2011 NBA draft, which is one of the best of the last 20+ years, many were excited about Derrick Williams. Williams came around at a time when the NBA began to get smaller and seemed like a perfect fit as an athletic 6’8 forward who was a super efficient scorer in college. In his last season at Arizona, Williams averaged a stellar 19.5 points on 59.8% shooting to go along with 8.3 rebounds per game.

Unfortunately, his shooting didn’t translate after being taken second overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves. In his rookie season, he shot 41.2% from the field and made just 26.9% of his threes. As teams began to sag off him, that took away his ability to attack bigger and slower defenders.

Less than a year into the Derrick Williams experience, the Timberwolves reportedly wanted him out. They shopped him in a deal for Pau Gasol, who was 33 at the time, believing that he would be a much better fit with Ricky Rubio and Kevin Love. That was probably true, but that trade never materialized and prevented the Timberwolves from salvaging any future value from the former number two pick.

After his third season and having played just 156 games, he was traded to the Sacramento Kings for defensive specialist Luc Mbah A Moute. Williams bounced around the NBA but never averaged more than 12 points per game and failed to become a reliable 3-point shooter.

Although it might be hard to fault Minnesota for taking a standout college player, they missed out on similar-sized future superstars like Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson, and Jimmy Butler. Therefore, drafting Williams definitely qualifies as a mistake.