NBA Draft 2016: Every team’s most underrated pick ever
By Brad Rowland
Brooklyn Nets: Sleepy Floyd, No. 13 pick, 1982 NBA Draft
The NBA Draft history of the Nets franchise is checkered to say the last. There have been “wins” like Bernard King and Brook Lopez, but for the most part, the team’s tenure in New Jersey was marred by misses in the draft and that has largely extended to Brooklyn.
In the case of Sleepy Floyd, it is almost as if both things are true.
Floyd was an excellent draft pick, playing 957 NBA games and averaging 12.8 points and 5.4 assists over the body of his career. Unfortunately for the Nets organization, Floyd only took the court on 91 occasions in a New Jersey uniform before being dealt to the Golden State Warriors, and that proved to be a mistake. The talented guard would go on to average 17.7 points and 6.7 assists over his time in the Bay Area (i.e. his NBA prime) and Floyd made the Nets appear quite silly for moving on from him that quickly.
Sleepy Floyd isn’t lighting up the record book for this particular franchise, but when forced to choose between the (very) obvious candidates at the top of the draft list and the bottom of the barrel, he certainly seems to fit the “underrated” criteria beautifully.
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