Of all the NBA Busts, which one(s) did you think would have a great career?

I thought Greg Oden would be a multi-year DPOY type player.

 

Anyone saying Oden didn't watch him play in college or in the NBA. Greg Oden had practically zero basketball IQ. He looked completely lost whenever he was healthy enough to play. The series against the Rockets should have showed everyone that. He was outplayed and outsmarted by his opponents on a nightly basis and wasn't a very good college player either.

Oden is an example of scouts and ESPN putting too much stock in size and rebounding against college opponents. They forgot to analyze everything else, which made him a horrendous #1 overall pick, and that's without acknowledging that he was rated higher than Kevin frigging Durant.

 

stacey mclady

 

I consider Derrick Coleman to kind of be a bust. He could have been incredible.

 

Expected more...

Emeka Okafor
Hakim Warrick
Julian Wright
D.J. Augustin
Jerryd Bayless
Chris Douglas-Roberts

Still early but...
Derrick Williams
Enes Kanter


And my 2 guys
Antoine Wright
Acie Law

 

I thought Oden was gonna be a stud

 

Joe Alexander and Marcus Fizer to name a few that have yet to be mentioned

 

Sabastian Telfair, Sam Bowie, Len Bias, Greg Oden, OJ Mayo, Evan Turner

 

Drazen Petrovic

 

Oden was a bigger Ben Wallace with some offensive skills. Had his knees not been made of glass he was an all star C for more than a little while.

uh...then why was his rebound rating and shot blocking % so high (among the very highest in the league) for the times that he played in the NBA? His rebound rating for his career despite being hyper-raw is about the same as Dwight Howard. Is this becaus of inferior college opponents? Guy was a defensive monster from day 1, just never got the chance to show it.

The reason why he sucked against the Rockets was that he was a foul prone rookie (remember A-keem Olajuwon punching BIlly Paultz in the face? It happens) and the Rockets happened to have, under Morey, acquired a team of foul-drawing magnets (Lowry, Martin, etc) under Morey the same way that Billy Beane acquired walk-drawing batters in Oakland.

 

The obvious answer is Len Bias.

 

Fizer lost what made him special after that knee injury.

I want to add one Robert Horry I thought after the 95 playoffs he was about to make the leap to all star status but he was perfectly content with being a role player and never made that leap. I still think he had the ability to do it but he never seemed to want to be the man on a team.

 

Sebastian Telfair
Michael Beasley
Eddie Griffin
Ron Mercer
Joseph Forte

 

Ralph Sampson

 

he wasn't a bust dude. he was an all star, took the rockets to the finals, then had the injury.
busts don't make it to the hall of fame.

bust = they always sucked or never reached an all star level

 

1994–95 UCLA Bruins men's basketball team, National Champs

Not a single one of them panned out in the NBA.

 

My second favorite Rocket of all time. And the most talented power forward to ever play the game I've ever seen when he was healthy.

 

Vassilis Spanoulis

 

He wasn't a bust, but I thought Keith Van Horn was going to be a perennial all-star.

 

David Anderson, Shane Heal, Darko Milicic, Yinka Dare, Marcus Morris, Thabeet and Jay Wlliams