#2 Pick 1998 - Keith VanHorn
#1 pick 1999 - Olowokandi

Don't know if I'd call Van Horn a bust... he scored effectively, rebounded fairly well, made over $100 million during his career; sure, he was butter-soft and never a superstar, but of the players drafted after him only McGrady reached that level, and he was selected many picks later.

Here's my list of busts from the '97 to '06 draft classes:
1. Nikoloz Tskitishvili
2. Darko Milicic
3. Kwame Brown
4. Adam Morrison
5. Shelden Williams
6. Drew Gooden
7. Stromile Swift
8. Darius Miles
9. Raef LaFrentz
10. Tyrus Thomas

Honorable mentions include Andrea Bargnani, Jonathan Bender, Marcus Fizer, Jay Williams, Michael Olowokandi, Mike Dunleavy, and Seinfeld Harris.

Biggest busts?

Dolly Parton.

Have you followed him this season in Indiana? He is perhaps their most consistent player. His numbers have been outstanding.

I would substitute Oden for Morrison. At least Morrison got one full year in before spending a year on R & R.

Gooden did not live up to expectations as a #4 pick but with a career ave of 12 ppg and 8 rpg he is definitely not a bust.

All of these guys were top 12 picks which means that should have become very good players. Some were bigger busts than others but all of them returned a lot less value for their draft position than one would expect.

Antonio Daniels - 1997 4th pick
Oliver Saint-Jean - 1997 11th pick
Jonathan Bender - 1999 5th pick
Trajan Langdon - 1999 11th pick
Marcus Fizer - 2000 4th pick
Jerome Moiso - 2000 11th pick
DeSagana Diop - 2001 8th pick
Kedrick Brown - 2001 11th pick
Dajuan Wagner - 2002 6th pick
Mike Sweetney - 2003 9th pick
Rafael Araujo - 2004 8th pick
Luke Jackson - 2004 10th pick
Fran Vasquez - 2005 11th pick
Yaroslav Korolev - 2005 12th pick
Randy Foye - 2006 7th pick
Patrick O'Bryant - 2006 9th pick
Muhamed Sene - 2006 10th pick
Greg Oden - 2007 1st pick

I didn't include anyone from this year's draft class; that would be premature, although I have my suspicions that Oden won't be as good as he was billed. I included Morrison because he's a lousy player without much upside, and he was picked ahead of Brandon Roy and Randy Foye, who are not only currently much superior players at the wing guard position but have more room to grow.
I agree that he's a borderline case, but his and Dunleavy's being picked ahead of Stoudemire and Butler makes it questionable to me.

I didn't bother to go past the top 5 picks from each class, but surely there are many more when you look at the entirely lottery. As for Antonio Daniels, the same reasoning as with Keith Van Horn applies. That was just a lousy draft, and the few gems are scattered fairly randomly.

Too much plastic........Gotta go old school with.......
Jayne Mansfield or Anita Ekberg........

I can see your position on Morrison but I think he will improve a lot. He only played one year before his injury this year. A lot of guys that are big time scorers in college have trouble shooting a high percentage in their rookie year. Durant is shooting only about 40%.

I think you are using bust rather broadly. I would not call someone a bust just because someone drafted behind them turned out to a much better player. That is a GM draft choice bust, not necessarily a player bust. But if you are looking at it from a GM making a choice then I would agree.

But then I am sure that almost every player taken ahead of Boozer could be considered a bust. Many players taken ahead of Milsap could be considered a bust using the GM approach. So on and so forth.

I can see limiting it to top five picks, because those are the guys that are supposed to difference makers.