NBA Draft 2015: 5 Players Who Will Be Busts

The 2015 NBA Draft is complete and we know where the top prospects and the guys you’ve probably never heard of will be playing basketball at the next level. Predictably, Karl-Anthony Towns went first overall to the Minnesota Timberwolves, but the Los Angeles Lakers shook things up with the second pick by selecting D’Angelo Russell. A bevy of surprises, trades, and everything in between ensued after.

Now that the draft is over, though, it’s clearly time to look at how these players fit with their new teams and what their outlook is for their NBA careers. Despite the insanity that always occurs during the draft and how difficult that is to predict, it’s even harder to look into the future and predict how players will perform as they make the transition to playing professionally.

While a player like Towns is someone that most people will safely predict to be a star in this league given the skills he already has to go alongside his upside, not everyone is that easy to forecast. However, we do have enough analysis and situational awareness regarding players and teams to make educated guesses and assessments.

Perhaps more interesting than singling out players who will be superstars is looking at the players that fans will regretfully look back at as draft-night mistakes. In simpler terms, it’s a fun exercise to predict which prospects will be busts for one reason or another.

One thing that makes that interesting is that “bust” is a wide-ranging term. There are busts like Darko Millicic who were drafted exceedingly high and amounted to nothing in the NBA. Then there are busts who had high expectations and pedigree coming into the league, but never lived up to those expectations or where they were drafted. Busts come in all shapes.

While I can’t definitively say who will fizzle out from this draft class, I can certainly try and predict a few players who will do so. These guys may not be the next Darko, but there’s a chance they’ll be busts in their own rights.

Looking at the newly minted 2015 NBA Draft class, these are the five players with the highest bust potential:

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