Indiana Pacers April Fools’ Day: 5 NBA Draft blunders we wish were jokes

The Kawhi Leonard draft. All of it.

Here’s the good news — like many other picks on this list, the Indiana Pacers were not the only team to mess up. For most of these players, greater than 15 teams also passed on them and are kicking themselves today for that.

The same can be said for Kawhi Leonard (13 teams passed on him, Cleveland twice), but man, every one of those teams needs to sit and think long and hard about this one.

The Pacers need to triple the amount of time they spend thinking about what they did wrong here because they actually drafted him. At 15th overall, the Pacers took Leonard out of San Diego State and traded him, Davis Bertans (another mistake), and Erazem Lorbek to the Spurs for George Hill.

Hill is a fine player. He had a strong run in Indiana and contributed heavily to the teams that fought hard against LeBron James and the Miami Heat.

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Kawhi Leonard and the Spurs fought harder, beating James and the Heat in the Finals in 2014.

There’s no way to spin this one. It’s a blow to the draft history of the Pacers in a major way. Leonard is a four-time All-Star, two-time champion (and two-time Finals MVP), two-time Defensive Player of the Year, five-time All-Defensive Team, and three-time All-NBA.

Underrated no more, Leonard has a legitimate case for being a top-three player in the NBA when healthy.

That health is a big question mark, but given his accolades, it’s well worth the risk.

The Spurs are great at identifying talent and developing it. A good rule of thumb when they ask for a prospect is to realize that they probably see something in that prospect that you don’t.

This is a good picture of how hard drafting and talent identification can be. Leonard didn’t feel like a sure thing coming out of college. In retrospect, of course, this was the wrong decision, but at the time Hill felt like a piece that could propel the Pacers past James and the Heat.

Leonard, a quiet, get-to-work type of player, would have been accepted and celebrated in Indiana. Assuming there was no rift between him and the medical staff like there was in San Antonio, it’s possible he may have stayed in Indiana for his entire career. Then again, it’s possible Leonard forces his way out of Indiana just like Paul George (who ironically teamed up with Leonard on the Clippers this offseason) did. Who is to say?