All-Time Cleveland Cavaliers draft bust starting five

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Anthony Bennett, Cleveland Cavaliers. Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images /

All-Time Cleveland Cavaliers draft bust starting PF: Anthony Bennett

Here we have it. The granddaddy of them all. If the Pistons will always have Darko, and Portland will always have Sam Bowie, and the Kings will always have everyone, the Cleveland Cavaliers will always have Anthony Bennett. If this lineup was ranked based on how epic of a bust each player was, Bennett would have been first.

Anthony Bennett spent one season at UNLV and had a decent freshman season, averaging 16.1 points and 8.1 rebounds. Heading into the 2013 NBA Draft the public sphere was buzzing with opinions about Bennett, one of the late risers in the draft process. Which team in the Top 10 would take the risk with Bennett and swing for his upside?

Then the draft came, and the Cavs shocked the world by not taking Victor Oladipo or Nerlens Noel but rather Anthony Bennett. Current ESPN employee Bill Simmons was on set at the draft, and you can actually hear him shout out “whoa” when David Stern announced the pick.

Shane Battier interviews Bennett at the end of that video, and starts it off: Jabbar. Magic. LeBron. Bennett. He should have said: Olowokandi. Kwame. Bargnani. Bennett had nothing going for him from the start, unable to even earn the starting role on a 33-win Cavaliers team as a rookie. He shot 35.6 percent from the field and averaged only 4.2 points per game.

When LeBron James return to the Cavs the next summer, Bennett was essentially a throw-in as part of the Kevin Love trade. He had a career year that season with the Minnesota Timberwolves, starting a whopping 3 games and averaging 5.2 points per game. He would tally just 151 games and four starts for four different teams before his NBA career disappeared just four years in.

Who else could the Cavs have taken? Literally anyone. The Cavs epically bombed this entire draft, taking Sergey Karasev and Carrick Felix in the first 33 picks. Instead of Bennett the Cavs could have taken Victor Oladipo or Nerlens Noel, as most expected. Giannis Antetokounmpo was of course the gem of the 2013 draft, but no one was talking about him at first overall.