Los Angeles Clippers: 15 best draft picks of all-time
By John Buhler
The 2003 NBA Draft has gone down as one for the ages. Four of the top-five picks will be obvious Basketball Hall of Famers in LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. However, the Clippers did make a great selection at No. 6 that summer in taking center Chris Kaman out of Central Michigan.
The seven-foot Central Michigan Chippewa was the MAC Player of the Year at the time of his draft selection. Kaman would play eight of his 13 NBA seasons for the Clippers. His best year in the NBA came in 2009-10 when he was a member of the Clippers. Kaman would average 18.5 points, 9.3 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game that year, as he made his only trip to the All-Star Game that February.
Kaman would play his first eight NBA seasons with the Clippers where he would average 11.8 points, 8.3 rebounds, 1.4 blocks and 1.3 assists in 29.7 minutes per contest. He would spend his final five NBA seasons with the then New Orleans Hornets, the Dallas Mavericks, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers before retiring in 2016 at 33 years old.
Kaman may never get the respect he deserves for being a great center for the Clippers for close to a decade. The team wasn’t very good and the players drafted ahead of him in the 2003 NBA Draft sans Darko Milicic would go on to have hall of fame careers. That being said, Kaman’s career in the NBA was an overwhelming success and the Clippers should be pleased of their selection of him No. 6 overall back in 2003.