Mr. S£im Citrus said:
. Martin and Garcia were taken with the 26th and 23rd picks of their respective drafts, not exactly two position known for being a hotbed of NBA talent...
2003 #28- Leandro Barbosa, #29 Josh Howard
2002 #23 Tayshaun Prince
2001 #25 Gerald Wallace, #26 Samuel Dalembert, #27 Jamaal Tinsley,
#28 Tony Parker
1999 #24 Andrei Kiralenko
Let's look at the Kings history of developing young talent:
1998: Jason Williams
1999: No 1st rounder
2000: Hedo Turkoglu
2001: Gerald Wallace
2002: Dan Dickau
2003: No pick
2004: Kevin Martin
2005: Francisco Garcia
Admittedly, the kings have not been in a good draft spot, although other teams have made do with similar spots. But lets be honest. For all the ballyhoo about the Kings talent scouts and whatnot, developing young talent is not our strength.
Peja is the only one that comes to mind, and look at what he's developed into. Mike, Brad, Bonzi, and Shareef all came up elsewhere.
Jason and Hedo are still contributing elsewhere....Dickau and especially Gerald are showing promise of turning into great players.
When you consider that Jason brought us Bibby, and Hedo helped bring Brad, it looks better, and I am in no way questioning Geoff's ability to turn lemons into lemonade....but developing talent here at home is a weakness.