Every year in each professional sport, a player is taken with the first pick in the draft. More often than not, a team will surprise the world and with a questionable pick. Every once in a great while, that selection will be a pleasant surprise.
Someone far smarter than I can rank all of each sports’ #1 overall picks for the past 50 years and look for complete flops. One could extend the exercise to include all 1st round picks in a given year.
The default stance regarding #1 picks is to compare those made-either by team or position. With the Bears holding this year’s #1 pick, the local media is sure to list all of the city’s #1 picks. Throw in later, first round selections. In most cases, we don’t look at overall historical numbers to rate or rank players.
When the Blackhawks selected Patrick Kane with the #1 pick in the 2007 draft, I’m not sure anyone predicted Kane would be as great as he has been for the Hawks. In 1,107 regular season games, Kane scored 430 goals and tallied 750 assists (1,180 points). More importantly, he was a major contributor to 3 Stanley Cups.
He may have never been the best player in the game during any, one season, but he is one of the greatest professional athletes in Chicago this century. We’ll see who the team gets in the trade with the Rangers. Right now, it’s just draft picks.
I'd rather be sitting in a ballpark. 
One response to “Exceeding expectations”
Great post. Kane will be missed but there is no point in keeping him here to play with a bunch of unproven and probably mediocre kids. And he was wise and gracious enough to waive his no-trade clause. I wouldn’t mind seeing him win another Cup but not with NY. We will never forget him getting the goal that nobody but him saw go into the net, including the goal judge. His hand-eye coordination and his penchant for scoring on crazy angles were something to behold. Hawks GM is stealing a page from Bears GM: Load up on draft choices. By the way have I asked you if you have heard anything on talk radio about the Bears having the #1 pick? A well kept secret especially with The Combine having kicked off. Pun intended.
I heard some tape tonight of Rossy commenting on Suzuki saying that the Cubs will have to listen to his body and that the strain is minor when the Cubs are saying is moderate and there is no timetable. Hilarious.
My crew is going to AZ on Saturday so they will have a full week until I show up. I think that not even you could take 3 weeks of bad baseball especially seeing the scrubs okay the final 4 innings of most games. Am I right?
>
LikeLike