Golden State Warriors Number 1 Draft Picks: Looking Back At Joe Smith

Golden State Warriors Number 1 Draft Picks: Looking Back At Joe Smith (Photo: NBA.com)

The NBA draft lottery has never been kind to the Golden State Warriors.

From the failure to land Patrick Ewing in the first NBA Draft Lottery to countless wasted picks, the Warriors have nearly always been an NBA symbol for ineptitude.

The one time the Warriors lucked out and had their logo’d ping pong ball be selected first was in 1995.

Their pick was 6-10, power forward Joe Smith out of the University of Maryland, a rangy low-post player with the propensity to score and block shots at will.

Just two seasons later Smith, who turns 39 today, was gone and another sad Warriors tale had been written.

1994-95 WARRIORS

Fresh off the Chris Webber debacle, the ’94 Warriors more than earned their spot in the Draft Lottery with a 26-56 record.

Though they didn’t have the worst record that season, there was a sense that, after the Webber-Don Nelson feud that tore apart the organization, the basketball gods owed it to a rabid fan base to “right the ship”.

Winning the lottery would return the organization to prominence. As Bill Simmons once wrote:

Within four months, Nelson resigned as coach and GM, just a couple of weeks before Golden State flipped Gugliotta to Minnesota for the perennially disappointing Donyell Marshall. The Warriors won 26 games and the No. 1 overall pick, taking Maryland star Joe Smith ahead of the next four selections … Antonio McDyess, Jerry Stackhouse, Rasheed Wallace and Kevin Garnett. Defensible at the time. I swear.

Smith, coupled with the emerging stardom of Latrell Sprewell, was to be the start of a new successful Warriors era.

It never happened and the wasted pick only served as a microcosm for the dark period of Warriors basketball under owner Chris Cohan.

A MERE TWO FULL SEASONS WITH THE WARRIORS

Smith would only last two-and-a-half seasons with the Warriors before being traded to the Philadelphia 76ers in 1997, en route to a  16-year career  spanning twelve different teams.

Though he wasn’t tearing up the court on either end, Smith still managed to be named to the NBA All-Rookie team his first season as well as second in voting for Rookie Of The Year behind Damon Stoudamire.

In fact, Smith led the club with 717 rebounds, 134 blocks and was second on the team in points scored with 1251 during his rookie campaign.

The padded stats, however, didn’t transform to wins as the Warriors only improved to a dismal 36-46 record.

In his second and last full season in Oakland, Smith continued to lead the club in the same stats, but the team regressed to a 30-52 record.

With free agency looming, Smith was shipped to the city of brotherly love for the less than stellar household names Clarence Weatherspoon, Jim Jackson and Brian Shaw.

A LONG BUT NOT IMPRESSIVE CAREER

It’s not as if Smith had a terrible career, just not one you would envision for a Number One pick in the lottery.

His career stats ended with an average of 11.6 points, 6.7 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 0.6 steals, 0.9 blocks after his final season in 2011 with the Los Angeles Lakers.