In the wake of Kwame Brown being forced into the Lakers starting lineup until Andrew Bynum recovers from his knee injury, it brings to mind just how highly regarded Brown was coming into the 2001 draft and what a big hit Michael Jordan took for taking him No. 1 overall for the Washington Wizards.

So we figured it was time to take a look at the drafts beginning in 2001 to see just who has been the biggest bust. It used to be that three years were required to really get a feel for a player, although that has lengthened somewhat with so many high school players going so high (until the rule changed last year).

Clearly, Brown has been the biggest bust of the 2001 group, particularly when you compare the varying degrees of success Tyson Chandler, Pau Gasol, Jason Richardson and Eddy Curry have had after being taken immediately after him.

In 2002, Yao Ming was a no-brainer first overall pick and he's the best all-around center in the game today. Immediately after Yao were Jay Williams, Mike Dunleavy, Drew Gooden, and get this one ... Nikoloz Tskitishvili by the Denver Nuggets. Williams is impossible to gauge because a motorcycle accident after his rookie year ended his career. Dunleavy and Gooden have had solid, if slightly disappointing careers. Tskitishvili? He quickly faded into the woodwork and back to Europe. To make matters worse, the Nuggets took him instead of Amare Stoudemire or Caron Butler.

Unlike the lean 2002 draft, it was tough to go wrong in the 2003 draft, led by LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, et al. But somehow in a quirk of fate that gave them the second pick after a previous trade with the Grizzlies, the title-contending Detroit Pistons did blow a golden opportunity. With James the first pick overall, they gambled on this talented but completely unproven 18-year-old from Serbia & Montenegro -- the now infamous Darko Milicic. While the other guys became stars, Milicic languished on the bench before finally being traded to Orlando. Perhaps, ultimately, the pick the Pistons got in the deal that brought them Rodney Stuckey this season could help a lot, but Milicic failed to develop in Detroit because of no playing time on a contender. He improved in Orlando, but now seems to have completely stagnated on a Memphis team that badly needs him.

The 2004 quintet of Dwight Howard, Emeka Okafor, Ben Gordon, Shaun Livingston and Devin Harris didn’t have particularly great expectations, but Howard has already become a young superstar, Okafor an All-Star caliber power player, Gordon one of the great streak shooters in the game, and Harris has been solid in his growth at point guard for the Mavericks. But the best talent of all is Livingston, who had physical concerns in high school and they have manifested in the NBA. He is a spectacularly skilled point guard, but he could be out the rest of the season after a horrible knee injury last February. Will he ever become the player he teased to be? We can only hope.

The group from 2005 has been solid across the board. Top pick Andrew Bogut isn’t the immediate All-Star some had figured him to be, but he is a very good all-around center with every skill well developed. He’s just not the kind of aggressive personality necessary to dominate. Second pick Marvin Williams didn’t get it going until this season, but he’s got the skills to be a top-level player in the league for many years. Nonetheless, the Hawks may never get over taking Williams instead of Deron Williams or Chris Paul, the third and fourth picks. The Hawks needed -- and still need -- a point guard. Those two guys will be stars in this league for the next decade, with every team hoping to find the next Williams or Paul in the draft. Although not at the same level, Raymond Felton is just a notch below as a point guard who would have helped the Hawks immensely. Because he has been buried on a bad Bobcats team until this season, a lot of people haven’t recognized what a superb talent Felton is as well.  But to the Hawks credit, they stuck with Williams and he is becoming the impact player he had hoped.

It’s too early to really gauge 2006 and 2007 because the players are so young and undeveloped, but the 2006 crew of Andrea Bargnani, LaMarcus Aldridge, Adam Morrison, Tyrus Thomas and Shelden Williams has already shown enough to get a read. Bargnani is struggling after a great rookie year, but has already shown why he was No. 1. Aldridge has been exceptional this season, Thomas has been up and down, and Morrison unfortunately suffered season-ending knee surgery. But the Hawks took another forward named Williams and this guy looks like a marginal NBA player at best -- again passing on a guy who could have been their point guard -- Brandon Roy. Too bad this year’s top pick Greg Oden never saw the end of training camp due to microfracture surgery, but second pick Kevin Durant is already showing all the skills that made him Mr. Everything of college basketball as a freshman at Texas last year. The Hawks got it right at forward this time with Al Horford, proving if you get enough top five picks, eventually you’ll hit a couple. Mike Conley Jr. is finally coming around at Memphis, and Jeff Green looks solid with Durant in the rebuilding of the Sonics.

It’s just too early to declare busts out of the last two drafts, although it doesn’t look like Shelden Williams will ever be much more than a good guy to fill out a roster.

So just who is the biggest bust since 2001?

To me it comes down to three players -- Kwame Brown, the name that began this whole scenario in 2001 with the Wizards; Denver’s Nikoloz Tskitishvili in 2002; and Darko Milicic in 2003 with the Pistons. None of them are with their original team, with Tskitishvili not even in the league. So let’s break it down.

In Brown’s case, it was the first class filled with high school kids at the top, and it wasn’t as if there was a lot distinguishing them at that point of their lives. In 2002, it was a weak draft, but what could possibly been more intriguing about a young Tskitishvili than a young Amare Stoudemire or an already proven All-American in Caron Butler?

But even with a championship caliber team with the Pistons and the logic of taking a young 7-footer to develop in Darko Milicic, it’s tough to get past the Pistons not taking Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh or Dwyane Wade. Even if you believed Anthony could have caused chemistry problems, Bosh would have been perfect. Or how about a three-guard offense with Wade in the rotation next to Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton?

And you want to know how much worse it looks even now, compare what Milicic has done to the last two picks of the 2003 first round -- Leandro Barbosa and Josh Howard. Ya think maybe the Pistons might prefer one of those two guys right now?

So it’s a wrap. You win Darko, hands down ... the biggest bust since the 2001 draft.

This is and was clearly a case of should he or shouldn't he?

One was clearly right and one definitely wrong … unless you think differently.

The subject matters are Larry Bird, president of the Indiana Pacers and Mitch Kupchak, general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers.

As the Lakers are cruising along at 23-11 after Wednesday's games, just 1.5 games out of not only first place in the Pacific Division, but the Western Conference, the screaming for Kupchak's head in the wake of Kobe Bryant's off-season foot-stomping has ceased. In fact, you might take a look at what Kupchak has done with the roster, bringing back Derek Fisher -- and even adding Trevor Ariza -- and say, "Gee, maybe we were just a little harsh with ol' Mitch."

But that isn't even the point. We know the health of Lamar Odom as the yang to whatever Bryant opts to yin, is paramount to their success. And lately, it's been OK. But that's only part the equation. The other half is The Kid … Andrew Bynum. Yeah, you know the guy.  He's the 20-year-old center Bryant belittled through every mode of communication imaginable from coast-to-coast: radio, television, web sites, cell phones, land lines and rumor has it he was so irritated at one point about the lack of action he picked up a megaphone and just started ranting from his SoCal rooftop.

Well, four months and 34 games later, Bynum is averaging 12.9 points, 10.0 rebounds and 2.1 blocks under the tutelage of one Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And don't forget Bynum never went to college and had such little basketball experience through his senior year in high school, that it's a little awe-inspiring to consider what he'll be like as he physically and mentally matures.

So what does this have to with Bird, the erstwhile superstar player, good coach and unproven Pacers prez?

Well, Bird probably could have had Bynum in a package that would have brought Jermaine O'Neal to the Lakers. On the surface, it would have looked like a steal for the Lakers, considering the 6-11, 260-pound O'Neal was just shy of 29, a five-time All-Star and a legit 20-point, 10-rebound, 2-block possibility.

That's the perceived J-O, not the J-O of today. He's the one whose numbers aren't any better than Bynum's – averaging a few more points at 15.6, a tick more blocks at 2.2, but only 7.3 rebounds. Oh, and we might add he's played in 30 of the 37 games. That wouldn't necessarily be an issue had it not been an issue for the previous three years too.

Bynum is a young 20 by NBA standards. O'Neal is an old 29, having entered the league at 17. His numbers have dipped each of the past three seasons. You can look at his knee, shoulder, ankle and any other number of body parts to know he's breaking down. Including what he's played so far in 2007-08, he will average about 56 games a year and he makes $20 million.

This isn't to say Bynum will ever be a 20-10 guy. But the potential is certainly there and Kupchak now has a team that is improving daily for coach Phil Jackson and gaining confidence to the point that they will be dangerous late this season – health permitting. Kupchak did the right thing.

And to be fair, although O'Neal only has had two seasons during which he averaged at least 20 points and 10 rebounds, he was close a few other occasions. But he's missed so many games, the line is blurred. Bird reportedly turned down a deal of O'Neal for Richard Jefferson and Nenad Krstic (who's battling back from his own knee surgery but is only 24). The buzz was also out that there were clusters of good young players available from the deep but redundant rosters of the Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns.

Why would they all be interested? The NBA is preoccupied with size and O'Neal has it, provided he can actually run and jump on occasion. Has Bird waited too long? The perception was out there all off-season that O'Neal was the next best thing available to Kevin Garnett. Five year's ago he was a poor man's KG. Today, he is perhaps the broken down version.

He'll never get star quality in return at this point and the Pacers are 2.5 games out of the last playoff spot in the East. Isn't it time to cut and run with the Feb. 21 trade deadline looming?

And let's best honest, they're not going anywhere with O'Neal. They may as well take a shot at reconstruction using him as bait.

Just know that you won't find Bynum and Odom-plus for him now.

Christmas Day in the NBA … seeing the Los Angeles Lakers every year doesn’t quite have the same allure as the NFL tradition on Thanksgiving Day, but at least it allowed for one game out of three to live up to it’s billing. And with the way the Lakers beat the Phoenix Suns 122-115, it certainly makes the race in the West a lot more interesting.

 

But that was the middle game -- and unless you already knew better, that meant you had to survive the first game, leaving almost no possibility of staying awake through boredom and a second day of turkey to see the nightcap.

 

Oh, we did manage not to nod out before seeing the upstart Portland Trail Blazers extend their NBA-best winning streak to 11 games in an ugly 89-79 win against the Seattle Sonics Tuesday night. It wasn’t supposed to be about the rivalry in the Pacific Northwest, though. It was scheduled in July to have provided enough time for the highly publicized top two picks of the 2007 draft -- Greg Oden and Kevin Durant -- to get their feet on the ground and excite everyone with a glimpse of the NBA’s future superstars.

 

As we’ve learned ad nauseum, Oden is out for the year never to play a game this season after microfracture knee surgery. And Durant continues to show flashes of his superlative scoring skills amid the other immature aspects of his game on a bad team. The best part of the Blazers is still seeing how 2006 rookie of the year Brandon Roy has blossomed into the floor leader that coach Nate McMillan had dreamed about (even if Sergio Rodriguez did show sparks of spectacular ballhandling and passing skills). Maybe that lock of another lottery pick in the wake of Oden’s absence won’t happen after all, and the Blazers slip into the playoffs. That would be one of the great stories of the season if they can sustain … but they are so young.

 

The first game was in Cleveland, with the underachieving Cavs hosting the pathetic Miami Heat. Of course all eyes were on LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.  But all the Heat had in them was one good quarter, and it’s hard to imagine Wade making it through this season healthy after offseason surgery on his shoulder and knee from which he certainly returned too soon. It’s one thing to carry his teammates with Shaquille O’Neal. It’s quite another for Shaq to be jumping on his back. At least coach Pat Riley showed Shaq enough respect to yank him after he had just picked up his fifth foul with just less than seven minutes left. It saved him from tying the all-time record of six consecutive games of fouling out, but didn’t prevent everyone from witnessing just how unproductive he has become. At 8-20, they are astonishingly bad and Wade didn’t even score in the second half until there were eight minutes left in the game.

 

The Cavs, carrying the moniker of Defending Eastern Conference champs, were made to look like chumps on Saturday night by the wacko New York Knicks. For the first time, James stormed out of the arena without a word. And things looked pretty bleak Tuesday when they went dead in the second half. But they did bounce back and manhandled the Heat in the second half, led by James’ 25 points, 12 assists and 6 rebounds for an easy 96-82 win. The key for the Cavs though, was what happened around James, with Andy Varejao coming around quickly from his late contract signing – averaging 11 points, 11 rebounds and 2.8 steals in the past three games. And Drew Gooden is still very capable of a double-double on any given night. The key is in the backcourt, where Larry Hughes didn’t put up numbers, but ran the offense and had four steals, while Daniel Gibson was deadly from the perimeter. All of this was predicated by getting back to their defensive roots that had seemingly vanished. The good news for them is after the Celtics and Pistons, and the rapidly tumbling Magic, everybody else is lingering around .500 for the fourth seed. And the Magic have played their way back to the field losing 8-of-12 after their great start.

 

Nonetheless, the Lakers' win over the Suns lived up to its billing and more. Even though Kobe Bryant scored 26 of his 38 points in the second half, it wasn’t about him for the most part.. It was about Andrew Bynum, the precocious young center with his tutor Kareem Abdul-Jabbar looking on.  The seven-point win wasn’t the story as much as Bynum was just too much for the Suns All-Star center Amare Stoudemire to handle, making 11-of-13 shots to finish with 28 points, 12 rebounds and 4 assists. We have yet to see a skyhook out of the 20-year-old Bynum, but you have to figure at some point in time, with the touch he is already showing, that it’s coming.

 

The other eye-catcher for the Lakers was Trevor Ariza, earning a start in the wake of Luke Walton’s ankle sprain. Ariza, acquired from Orlando for mechanical Brian Cook and erratic Maurice Evans, gives them much needed athleticism and defense on the perimeter. And Tuesday, he added eye-popping dunks like he had at UCLA. It’s no wonder coach Phil Jackson signed a two-year extension, you can tell he’s having fun – bow-ties and all.

 

Despite continued great play from Steve Nash, the Suns just couldn’t keep up and they’re looking more vulnerable every day. Not only do the Lakers now have more speed and depth, but with Bynum and Lamar Odom, they now have two players the Suns can’t control inside – thus the Lakers 2-0 record with them this season. Even more to the point, although the Suns (19-10) still hold a one-game lead over the Lakers (18-11) for the top spot in the Pacific Division, the Suns built that record playing teams in the East. They are a surprising 7-7 against the West this season, and that’s got to be a huge red flag for coach Mike D’Antoni and new general manager Steve Kerr. They are asking more of Nash, who turns 34 the first week of February, than ever before. And teams like the Lakers, Blazers and Golden State Warriors now are showing the ability to run with them … or even outrun them.

 

And that’s why the middle game was interesting Tuesday. No longer are we hearing a peep out of Bryant about wanting to be traded. The Lakers look eminently capable of at least a top five finish in the West and maybe leapfrogging the Suns to get a second seed. All of a sudden, it’s the Suns that are beginning to look like a team that needs to make a move … which means those Shawn Marion rumors are bound to start bubbling up again.