This just in: UNLV’s Bennett not worst first-round pick ever

It has been a good week, sort of, for Anthony Bennett, the former UNLV basketball whiz and much-maligned top overall pick in the most recent NBA draft.

For starters, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey called Royce White the worst NBA first-round draft pick ever. Not Bennett. Royce White, who played at Iowa State a couple of years ago. This was considered something of a startling admission, because Daryl Morey is the guy who selected Royce White in the first round.

“I take some sort of pride that you could argue that Royce White is the worst first-round pick ever,” Morey said to the ClutchFans website via the Pro Basketball Talk website via Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo.com (at least I think that was the progression).

“He’s the only one that never played a minute in the NBA that wasn’t just a foreign guy staying in Europe. It just shows we swing for the fence.”

On the Houston draft radar in 2014: retired baseball slugger Dave Kingman, who, too, always swung for the fence.

Anyway, there were injuries in Cleveland and whatnot that resulted in Bennett getting his big posterior off the bench and logging serious minutes — i.e., minutes when the Cavaliers weren’t down by 18.

Bennett played 31 minutes against the Pelicans, 22 against the Knicks, 12 against the Rockets, 26 against the Mavericks.

He had 15 points and eight boards against New Orleans, although the Cavaliers lost, because the Cavs almost always lose.

The Akron Beacon Journal also ran a picture of Bennett slam-dunking over Greg Stiemsma of New Orleans. Stiemsma played at Wisconsin, and he’s sort of ponderous, like a lot of guys who play at Wisconsin, and so he has been dunked on before. But he’s still 6-11.