Chicago Bulls: Ranking every 1st round pick from 2010s
By Ryan Heckman
8. Forward Doug McDermott, Creighton (2014)
I think it is safe to say this is one of those drafts where the Bulls would have been much better off had they not made a trade. Instead of keeping both Jusuf Nurkic (16th overall) and Gary Harris (19th overall), the Bulls decided to package those picks together and swap them for Doug McDermott at pick no. 11.
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Denver got the better end of that one, of course. Coming out of Creighton, McDermott had plenty of notoriety. There was reason to believe he could become a strong scorer in the NBA, but that was about it. He could shoot it, that’s for sure.
As a pro, though, McDermott never consistently found his touch until he left Chicago. The Bulls traded McDermott, along with Taj Gibson, to the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2016.
Since then, McDermott has gone on to become a decent role player and last year with the Indiana Pacers, shot the three ball at nearly A 45 percent clip. With Chicago, though, McDermott simply didn’t work out. Now, fans look back wondering what would have happened had they kept Nurkic and Harris instead.