2008 NBA Draft Winners and Losers

Who Made the Best and Worst Moves on Draft Day?

The 2008 NBA Draft is the most underrated sporting event in all of sports. Every year this glorious day can give bad teams hope and bring new worries to once proud franchises. The 2008 NBA Draft is not only fun for NBA fans, but for college basketball fans who are rooting for former members of their favorite university to be selected higher than players from rival schools. Wild picks and unexpected trades create more excitement than a die hard sports fan can take in a day. This years draft was very odd compared to the last several drafts. There was a very high number of foreign players selected in the 2008 NBA Draft that many of us had never heard of. Serge Ibaka, Tadija Dragicevic, and Semih Erden are just several of the unknown foreign players that were drafter this year. Another strange occurrence was that 10 out of first 30 picks were freshmen and only 5 of the first 30 picks were seniors. This is a by-product of the NBA rule that a player cannot enter the draft directly out of high school.

Several times throughout the draft teams made great picks, only to trade them away. The Detroit Pistons drafted the perfect player in D.J. White only to trade him to the Seattle Supersonics for two second round picks. Before the draft started there were two former NBA all-stars that were traded in Jermaine O'neal from the Pacers and Richard Jefferson from the New Jersey Nets. Only time will tell if these moves and many of the other moves made on thursday will pay off. Remember when the Boston Celtics were 24-58 at the end of the 2006-2007 season? In just one year after some magnificient trades the Celtics won it all in 2007-2008. There won't be any turnarounds that drastic this year but there were several teams that made moves on draft day to improve their team. Check out the complete draft board on yahoo.com. Here is a quick rundown of a few winners and losers from draft day.

Winners: