Perception of players determined by draft position

	Kwame Brown's career with the Wizards was all downhill after he walked off the draft stage as the No. 1 pick in 2001. AP

Shane Battier is one lucky guy. He is smart, leans toward handsome and is very good at his job, which pays millions of dollars per year. He's got a degree from Duke University, and he has a great family who supported him every step of the way in his charmed life.

But the best thing that ever happened to him was that he wasn't chosen with the first pick in the 2001 NBA Draft.

Battier was the consensus choice as National Player of the Year back in '01, picking up the Naismith and Wooden awards. He led Duke to the NCAA title as a senior, and was honored as the Most Outstanding Player at the Final Four.

With those credentials, he certainly could have been the first player picked in the '01 NBA Draft. Maybe he should have been. Ask anyone in Memphis, where he has played his entire five-year NBA career, and they will tell you he is the consummate team player. Not only does he do all the little things on the basketball court that help a team win, but he's also a textbook example of how a professional athlete can conduct himself in a way that brings nothing but credit to his team and his adopted hometown.

But Battier's career averages after five years in Memphis are modest: 10.5 points, 4.8 rebounds per game. He has shot 45.4 percent from the field, 74.4 percent from the line and 38.1 percent from 3-point range. Respectable numbers to be sure, but nothing outstanding. His name has never come up in serious discussion when selections for the All-Star Game are being made. By all accounts, Battier is a very solid, helpful, versatile player, but not a star. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as Jerry Seinfeld and his friends used to say.

But there would be something wrong with it if Battier had been the first pick. A No. 1 overall pick that averaged "only" 10.5 points per game for his first five seasons? That leads us to a consideration of one of my least-favorite pejorative words in the basketball lexicon: the bust.