Only two lottery picks from the 2003 NBA draft won a championship before leaving the team that picked them. One was Dwyane Wade. The other was Darko Miličić. This quirky little fact does not change the Pistons’ Darko mistake, but it does put it in context: The draft is a means to an end. Botching a pick and winning anyway is a much better outcome than nailing it and failing to capitalize.
The Miličić choice (which did not seem foolish at the time—Jay Bilas gushed about him on ESPN that night) is usually framed as a what-if for Detroit. What would it have meant for the Pistons if they had drafted Carmelo Anthony instead of Miličić? But in the wake of Anthony officially retiring, let’s flip that around:
What would it have meant for Anthony?
