Markelle Fultz: Buyer Beware?

I remember it like it was yesterday. The year was 2007, the Celtics had the second-worst record in the NBA, and I even created this group on Facebook back when that was a thing. I was posted up in my living room for the lottery, and as the No. 5 overall pick was unveiled for the Celts, I distinctly recall rolling off of my couch in disgust.

You know the rest. Losing out on a top-2 pick persuaded Danny Ainge to trade for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, yada yada yada.

Fast forward to last night, roughly 10 years to the day, for the most important lottery for the Celtics since that fateful night in '07. Wouldn't you know it, the ping pong balls popped a different way and all of a sudden, no team in recent memory is playing with house money quite like the Celtics are. Getting swept by the Cavs will barely merit a paragraph in sports sections across the region as Boston turns it's eyes towards that No. 1 overall pick, who I keep hearing should be Markelle Fultz.

If you're thinking to yourself "huh, I remember watching a lot of the NCAA Tournament this year, seeing great games like URI vs. Creighton, but I don't remember seeing any game featuring this Fultz guy..." you wouldn't be wrong.

Fultz played for the Washington Huskies (9-22, 2-16 Pac-12). Eleventh out of 12 is where the Huskies finished in their league, in a league that wasn't exactly your Big East of the glory days.

Fultz was simply outstanding, averaging 23.2 points per game, 5.7 rebounds and 5.9 assists. He was basically Jackie Moon, floundering away on a sad sack team. A team so bad that it cost Lorenzo Romar, who'd been at the school since 2002, his job.

The question is...why was Fultz at Washington to begin with? He said here, among other places, it was his close relationship with Romar. 

Fair. It's not like the Huskies were Fultz's lone option; he had offers from a myriad of perennial powers including Arizona, Cincinnati, Florida St., Georgetown, Kansas, Louisville, Maryland, Memphis, Miami (Fla.), NC St., Oklahoma St., Penn St., South Carolina, UConn, UNC, USC, 

Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, West Virginia and Xavier.

So it's pretty clear Fultz had his pick of the litter in choosing schools. By my count, all but five of the above schools qualified for the NCAA Tournament last year.

Precedent was set one draft ago that missing out on the NCAA Tournament doesn't matter in the eyes of certain NBA executives when evaluating potential top picks, as the Philadelphia 76ers took Ben Simmons out of LSU (19-14, 11-7 SEC). 

Simmons was injured in the preseason and ultimately missed the entire year for the Sixers, so the grade remains somewhat incomplete on that pick.

But going back in the annals of draft history - in both the one-and-done era and yesteryear - you'd be hard pressed to find a No. 1 overall pick who hailed from a team that performed as badly as Fultz's Huskies this year. Take a look below; I'll go all the way back the last 25 years with No. 1 picks and their team results, excluding high school and international picks:

2015: Karl-Anthony Towns, Kentucky

Team result: 38-1; Lost in Final Four

2014: Andrew Wiggins, Kansas

Team result: 25-10; Lost in second round of NCAA Tournament

2013: Anthony Bennett, UNLV

Team result: 25-10; Lost in first round of NCAA Tournament

2012: Anthony Davis, Kentucky

Team result: 38-2; Won National Championship

2011: Kyrie Irving, Duke

Team result: 32-5; Lost in Sweet 16

2010: John Wall, Kentucky

Team result: 35-3; Lost in Elite 8

2009: Blake Griffin, Oklahoma

Team result: 30-6; Lost in Elite 8

2008: Derrick Rose, Memphis

Team result: 38-2; Lost in National Championship

2007: Greg Oden, Ohio State

Team result: 35-4; Lost in National Championship

2006: Andrea Bargnani, International

2005: Andrew Bogut, Utah

Team result: 29-6; Lost in Sweet 16

2004: Dwight Howard, High School

2003: LeBron James, High School

2002: Yao Ming, International

2001: Kwame Brown, High School

2000: Kenyon Martin, Cincinnati 

Team result: 29-4; Lost in second round of NCAA Tournament

1999: Elton Brand, Duke

Team result: 37-2; Lost in National Championship

1998: Michael Olowokandi, Pacific University

Team result: 23-10; Missed NCAA Tournament

1997: Tim Duncan, Wake Forst

Team result: 24-7: Lost in second round of NCAA Tournament

1996: Allen Iverson, Georgetown

Team result: 29-8; Lost in Elite 8

1995: Joe Smith, Maryland

Team result: 26-8; Lost in Sweet 16

1994: Glenn Robinson, Purdue

Team result: 29-5; Lost in Elite 8

1993: Chris Webber, Michigan

Team result: 31-5; Lost in National Championship

1992: Shaquille O'Neal, LSU

Team result: 21-10; Lost in second round of NCAA Tournament

1991: Larry Johnson, UNLV

Team result: 34-1; Lost in Final Four

You get the idea. Everyone with the exception of Ben Simmons and the immortal Michael Olowokandi led their teams to at least the second round of the NCAA tournament in their final (only) collegiate campaigns.

Now you're probably thinking "uh hey Lev, you realize Anthony Bennett and some of these other stiffs never amounted to squat in the NBA, right?" 

Glad you asked. Of the above list, lets call Bennett, Oden, Brown and Olowokandi busts. You can call several others disappointing (Barganini, Smith, perhaps Bogut), but for the sake of this argument, the four above unquestionably returned the least amount of value on their No. 1 overall selections.

How did the No. 2 overall picks in said years look in their final years of college?

2013: Victor Oladipo, Indiana

Team result: 29-7; Lost in Sweet 16

2007: Kevin Durant, Texas

Team result: 25-10; Lost in second round of NCAA Tournament

2001: Tyson Chandler, High School

1998: Mike Bibby, Arizona

Team result: 30-5; Lost in Elite 8

One future Hall of Famer and three other reasonably good players.

A few other things: how many of the No. 1 overall picks in the selected window went on to win NBA Championships? Or more directly, how many were a key reason for a championship (sorry, Andrew Bogut). I've got Shaq, Duncan, Bronny and Kyrie as pivotal players on title teams.

On the flip side, being a great winner in college doesn't equal automatic success in the NBA, either. Going beyond the top pick, look at guys like Carmelo Anthony, any of the mid-2000s Florida guys, etc. Goes both ways.

There's no shortage of permutations to crunch the numbers and shift them to fit an argument on whether or not Fultz is potentially a cautionary tale because he played on a godawful Washington team. And that's before we get into who the likely alternative No. 1 overall pick could potentially be, from the House of Ball.

All this to say I'm not declaring Fultz a bust before a single NBA minute, nor am I entertaining the notion the Celtics should trade the pick. Just something to think about here as Danny Ainge tries to solve a problem, which is a great problem to have.