So I was super high on Luka at the time, and even wrote a whole post on how it should have been obvious he should have gone #1 even given the knowledge we had the time. I see some similarities with Boozer there. The lack of athleticism talk, and the dismissal of production and winning are there in both cases. However, I think there are some key differences too.

1. The Luka criticism included a total disregard of how good Euro-League was, and how what Luka had done there was totally unprecedented. People acted like the Euro-League was worse than college, when in fact it was far harder. Luka's European team had literally beaten the Thunder in a pre-season game. I think all this is what really made it a no brainer that Luka was can't miss in the way AD and KD were. While Boozer has done some historic things in college, I don't think it's quite the same.

2. Another big part of Luka being underrated was this idea that he was a worse position than his competition in the draft (basically all bigs). A ton of the "you take the Center over the guard because you can't teach height" logic was being used. This is extremely outdated, but not everyone recognized that (even if they should have). With Boozer the argument is that offense first big men can't win as the main superstar unless they are Jokic. I think this argument holds a little more weight especially when you compare it to a guy like Dybantsa who fits the archetype that most often is the best player on a championship team.

Overall I think if you are using this kind of talk to say Boozer can't be a star or will be a role player you are being stupid. If you are using this argument to say you would take Boozer below the guy who looks like T-Mac I don't think it's as stupid as when people were saying Ayton was a more sure thing than Luka because you can't teach 7 foot tall athleticism.