Cavaliers Anthony Bennett on pace to have worst rookie season by No. 1 pick ever

When the Cleveland Cavaliers selected Anthony Bennett out of UNLV with the first overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, there were understandably a lot of shocked faces.

There’s no doubt that Bennett was expected to be drafted early – likely in the top ten picks, but first overall? Even going top five was considered a stretch and top three would have been nearly improbable. But first overall?

Cleveland, much like the year before when the selected Dion Waiters fourth overall, took a leap of faith on potential.

So far, so bad.

Bennett has been awful during the first half of his freshman campaign. So terrible, in fact, that according to SBNation, Bennett is on pace to have the worst rookie season by a number one pick – ever.

"Anthony Bennett is having the worst rookie season of any No. 1 pick in the past 24 seasons and it isn’t even close. His PER — a whopping 1.1 — is 10.1 lower than Kwame Brown, a player considered one of the biggest busts in draft history. That’s the next closest player to him. The rookie-year PER gap between Bennett and Brown is nearly equal to the gap between Brown and Kyrie Irving (10.2)."

Ouch.

Hopefully there’s a second half turnaround for Bennett because if not, this season is going to go down as one of the worst in NBA history.