Philly's top draft flops

First-round draft picks are tricky. LeBron James worked out. Kwame Brown didn't. That's the way it goes. For every Peyton Manning there's a Todd Marinovich.

Yesterday, the Washington Nationals took San Diego State phenom Stephen Strasburg with the first pick in the Major League Baseball draft. Considering everything that's been written about the hard-throwing righty, Strasburg is destined to do great things and win many awards. Unless, of course, he doesn't.

Many years ago, the Yankees drafted Brien Taylor, a pitcher with as much hype as Strasburg. Maybe more. At the time, Taylor received the largest signing bonus ever given to an amateur. Then he hurt his shoulder in a fistfight. Last I heard, he was a bricklayer in North Carolina.

Philly has seen its fair share of first-round disappointments over the last 20 years. Some players fizzled and failed to realize their full potential. Some were taken much higher in their drafts than they should have been. And others never should have been selected at all.

Here's Philly's Not-So-Super Seven of the last two decades:

7. Shawn Bradley (second overall pick, 1993 NBA draft): Bradley played 12 seasons in the NBA, but he lasted only two and a half in Philly. In 1994-95 - the only season that he managed to play all 82 games in a Sixers uniform - he started just 59 times and averaged 9.5 points and eight rebounds per game. When you're 7-foot-6 and you're billed as a franchise center, that's not so hot. Making matters worse, Bradley was routinely poster-ized. If you're bored, Google "Shawn Bradley" and "dunk." You'll get some great results, including the "top 10 dunks on Shawn Bradley" that SportsCenter compiled a while back. The only reason Bradley isn't higher on this list is that he stayed in the league for so long.

6. Jerome McDougle (15th overall pick, 2003 NFL draft): Over five years with the Eagles, the defensive end played just 33 games and amassed a whopping three sacks. Then again, the guy got shot and lived to tell about it, so things could have been worse for him.