Earlier today, I was looking at NLL draft classes for a post coming later this week (self promotion!) and was talking with a few other lacrosse people about it (shoutouts to Graeme Perrow, Rocco Granato, Chad Faifoull and Marty O’Neill).
Rocco, who writes for this site, sent me the 2005 first round of the NLL draft, and after looking at it, I decided to take a look at some draft classes over the years and what “could have been”, starting today with 2005.
The Portland Lumberjaxx selected Brodie Merrill first overall; obviously a good pick with Merrill as arguably the best defender in lacrosse history. Second overall was Shawn Evans to Rochester, where he served the Hawks well and ended up being the piece traded to Calgary for Johnny Powless, their next star.
The Philadelphia Wings hosted picks three and four. They selected Sean Greenhalgh and Luke Wiles. Greenhalgh had some fantastic years for the Wings, scoring 73 points in his rookie year and then in his second year scoring 68. He was later traded to Buffalo where he tore up his knee and it essentially ended his career as a productive player.
This is where we look back a little bit at “what could have been”. Greenhalgh would have been a great player and certainly was for Philly for a while but let’s take a look at some players Philly passed by and what they have done with their careers.
In the first round alone there was Matt Vinc, two time goalie of the year, Jeff Shattler, Dan Carey and Jeff Zywicki, all who have put up more productive careers. Of course, the demise of Greenhalgh could not have been predicted, and we are not blaming the Wings here, this is just more of a fun exercise.
Wiles went next and not a bad pick at all, he is with Buffalo now and is a productive player. Next Arizona selected Matt Brown. After that, Matt Vinc to San Jose, which might be the biggest “what could have been” ever on this list.
Carey went to Colorado which was a good pick, he played there a while before being traded to Toronto and Colorado got good value back in Creighton Reid. Next was Jeff Zywicki to the San Jose Stealth, which was a good pick as he is still with that franchise in Washington.
Chad Thompson went to Philly next, before Shattler went to Buffalo which is one that could be debated a bit as well. Overall, there were good players in this draft. But hey, how many first round picks are really questioned?
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