Hoffa revisited
Admittedly, I don’t follow college basketball much from April through February. From what I understood though, Andre Iguodala was a solid NBA prospect – an athletic swingman expected to go anywhere as high as third overall in the 2004 NBA Draft. So when Iguodala was still available when the Raptors chose eighth, I was excited.
It was then that David Stern delivered those fateful words: “With the eighth pick in the 2004 NBA Draft, the Toronto Raptors select Rafael Araujo from Brigham Young University”.
Sweet. I can’t believe Iguodala was still available that late. He’ll definitely help out our perimeter defense, considering Vince Carter stopped trying a couple years ago. Wait…hold on…Rafael Araujo? From Brigham Young University?
It was true, and Rob Babcock officially became “Lord of the Idiots”. Iguodala, who was drafted by Philadelphia with the following pick, led the Sixers to the playoffs last year, averaging 19.9 points and 2.1 steals per game. Araujo, in the meantime, also enjoyed his best professional season in 2007-08, averaging 11.5 points and 7.8 rebounds per game – for Spartak St. Petersburg of the Russian Super Basketball League.
That answers the question of “Where is he now?”. However, in order to fully grasp how horrible of a pick Araujo was, it’s important to look at how he did with the Toronto Super Raptors of the National Super Basketball Association.
Araujo was drafted following his senior season, supposedly “NBA ready”. Ready, that is, to average 3.3 points and 2.7 fouls per game for the 33-49 Raptors. “Hoffa” took a slight step back in his second season in Toronto, averaging 2.3 points and 2.0 fouls while shooting 36.6% from the field, despite the majority of his attempts coming from within three feet of the basket.
With Babcock gone following the 2005-06 season, new general manager Bryan Colangelo was able to dump Araujo on the Utah Jazz, where he averaged 2.6 points in just under eight minutes per game. When Utah opted to fill their roster with mighty Ukrainian Kyrylo Fesenko prior to last season, Araujo signed a one-year, $500,000 deal with Spartak St. Petersburg.
I get upset every year around draft time. Still, I suppose you can’t blame Araujo – I’m sure he’s a good enough guy and I know he tried his hardest (those foul per minute numbers don’t lie). With the 17th pick in this year’s draft, it’s unlikely Colangelo will drop the ball the way Babcock did in 2004. That is, unless he trades for the first pick and grabs an Andrea Bargnani clone.
