NBA Draft 2024: 10 biggest lottery "busts" from the past 10 years

Months after the conclusion of the college basketball season, the NBA season finally came to an end last week as the Boston Celtics won their first NBA championship since 2008. The Celtics’ success culminated another fascinating season of men’s basketball full of storylines and intrigue, though now the attention at all levels turns towards next season.

We’re now just a couple days away from the 2024 NBA Draft, where 58 competitive basketball players will watch their dreams come true and their names announced on the big stage. Prospects alike both at the international level and in the stage of college basketball have prepared for this moment and we’re about to see who exactly will be playing in the NBA in the future.

Much of the attention in the draft goes into the early picks; after all those are the best prospects with the highest upside. The lottery picks (the first 14 picks of each round) often become the greats of the NBA and having a selection in the Top 14 is obviously desirable. This week’s draft will see some of those bottom-dwelling teams making those lottery selections and hopefully finding a new catalyst for their franchise.

However, these picks don’t always work out and that’s exactly what we’re thinking about today. Any one of those 14 picks could turn out to be an amazing star and potential Hall of Famer, but they even more easily bust or become wastes of picks. Today we’ll be looking at the worst lottery picks of the last decade, looking as far back as the 2014 NBA Draft. Not every poor selection will be included, but these ten selections certainly could’ve been better made.