Former No. 8 pick Joe Alexander: Bucks should share in 'bust' label
When a No. 8 overall draft pick lasts just two seasons, 67 games and 745 minutes in the NBA, there's little question that fans and analysts will call said player a bust.
That's the resume for West Virginia product Joe Alexander, who the Milwaukee Bucks selected eighth overall in the 2008 draft. A hyper-athletic dunking machine, it was hoped that the more raw aspects of Alexander's game - he entered the league without much of an outside shot and was anything but a terrific defender - would be outweighed by his athletic ability and off-the-charts intangibles.
It didn't work out that way. Alexander averaged 4.7 points and 1.9 rebounds as a rookie and was dealt to the Chicago Bulls midway through his sophomore campaign, sparsely seeing the floor. He later got a quick cup of coffee with the New Orleans Pelicans nee-Hornets but didn't play.
Along with stops in Russia and Israel, Alexander is once again plying his trade in the D-League and looking to catch on with an NBA team. He's averaging 21.7 points and eight rebounds, shooting 55.3 percent from the floor and looking to erase the word "bust" from his Wikipedia page.
Not only does Alexander think it's an unfair label, but he actually attributes blame to the Bucks for development issues. As he told David Pick of Basketball Insiders:
I don’t think there is a hard definition of what a ‘draft bust’ is. Ultimately not being in the NBA is on me, but as far as ‘who is a bust?’ you have to look at Milwaukee and the management that drafted me. If you want to label anyone with the term ‘bust’ - it’s the Bucks. When Milwaukee drafted me, I was touted as a ‘project’ and someone with a lot of potential who could contribute had I learned to play the game. That’s what the Bucks told me. I needed time. I didn’t start playing basketball until I was 16 years old, but I was the most athletic guy in the entire draft. The Bucks knew that. Everyone understood this. I could’ve been drafted by any other team in the league and they would’ve given me time to develop.
Obviously the No. 8 pick is expected to have an illustrious and longer NBA career than I’ve had, so that’s fine, but I think that Milwaukee should certainly share that (bust) label. They contributed heavily to it. Heavily. For the Bucks to pull the plug on me, I thought, was dramatically irresponsible on their part.
Alexander's issues with the franchise may rub some wrong, and nobody knows what he was like behind the scenes, but he's absolutely correct that he was expected to need development time and didn't receive it.
He's taken a circuitous route, but at age 28, Alexander may finally have the requisite development time under his belt. It may conclude with a team taking a chance on him with a 10-day contract down the stretch, just don't expect it to be the Bucks.