The worst NBA Draft picks for every team

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26. Orlando Magic: Mo Bamba

Another team that has drafted just well enough.

They’ve had some disasters, mind you — Mario Hezonja, for one, and Fran Vazquez, who never played a minute of NBA basketball, a decade prior — but there was no reasonable opportunity cost associated with either of those picks. Would Willie Cauley-Stein, Emmanuel Mudiay, Stanley Johnson or Frank Kaminsky really have made Orlando that much better four years ago? What about Yaroslav Korolev or Sean May ten years earlier?

The Domantas Sabonis trade should probably be mentioned, as he was dealt along with future All-NBA guard Victor Oladipo for Serge Ibaka in a move that made no sense at the time and even less sense now, but in keeping with the spirit of this list, it’s not truly applicable.

So instead, we’ll go with the most recent entry for any team: Mo Bamba. It’s unclear whether any of the guys picked immediately after Mo will wind up being remotely special, but the odds are in favor of at least one popping.

Bamba, meanwhile, had about as disastrous a rookie campaign as one can put forth before a tibia fracture mercifully ended his season in March. His name had surfaced in trade rumors even prior to that injury, and with Nikola Vucevic’s emergence as a star, here’s betting the Magic wind up having some regrets, if they don’t already.

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