There were also heavy stereotypes about Euro's being "soft" and "unproven" and I'm not sure it's necessarily racial in origin but instead that problem of trying to fit a whole range of players into one simple evaluation. Every SF who can handle the ball a little is Scottie Pippen, every 6-7 PG is Penny Hardaway. Every fat seven footer is "baby" Shaq. Every tall Euro was Dirk. Every high quality point guard for a while seemed to be compared to Stephon Marbury, now they're Derrick Rose. How many "baby" Jordan's were there outside of Harold Miner, every big scoring SG down to
nbadraft.net's infamous comparison for DeShawn Stevenson.
There was an article back when the Nets signed Todd MacCulloch comparing it to the Sonics signing Jim McIlvaine. But one guy was a leaper with no other skills while the other was floorbound post-player with good hands. Yet they were both 7 foot, white and had "Mc/Mac" in their name so clearly it was the same!
And there were these notions about Darko that he was a sweet shooting Toni Kukoc/Dirk Nowitzki style player and thus would play small forward, even though nothing he did in Europe suggested he had that skill set. Teams were pillaged for years for taking European "projects" (even that notion that because they don't come over right away they're "projects") over "proven" college players like Jeryl Sasser and Kareem Rush. Yao was supposed to be this clear bust and the Rockets would forever regret not taking superstars Jay Williams or Mike Dunleavy.
But like I said it's not just racial stereotypes because you have things like how Rasheed Wallace was considered this crazy troublemaker due to his technicals and thrown in with the other malcontents, even though he basically never fought with his coach, opposing players or did cheap shots, mostly because he didn't talk to reporters, yet Juwan Howard was this "model citizen" because he graduated from college, was friendly to the media, etc. yet was racking up tons of flagrant fouls/tripping guys/etc. for years.
Looking through past drafts is always fun for that reason.
I like the "best case/worst cases" on DraftExpress, Beasley:
Best Case: Amare Stoudemire Meets Antawn Jamison
Worst Case: Derrick Coleman
Cousins:
Best Case: Taller Al Jefferson
Worst Case: Derrick Coleman/Eric Dampier
I can't find it now but there's a player from one draft who had Best Case: Sam Cassell/Worst Case: Lee Mayberry. I think I've seen a Best Case: Less athletic Hakeem Olajuwon/Worst Case: Eric Mobley on there too.
Edit: Brandon Jennings has:
Best Case: Tony Parker
Worst Case: Sebastian Telfair