Chris Webber is lucky he got traded to Sacramento- or he would make this team. All that talent squandered while at Golden State and Washington. Derrick Coleman is the biggest waste of talent. The man had skills and a basketball genius. I used to blame the Syracuse program for turning out undiciplined players- but it is Coleman's fault. One screw up after another. The latest car acccident in Charlotte disabled Eldridge Recasner - I do not think he has played since. I suggested a trade for Coleman to get rid of Glen Rice' conntract a couple of months ago. I apologize for this. It was a spiteful suggestion- out of frustration - due to cap space being occupied by the Rice' 9 mil contract. I would never seriously want Coleman on the Rockets - this guy would be a cancer in the locker room. Isaih Rider wasted his career. What a talented player. Juwan Howard has pretty well wasted his unique talent. I really thought he was a more talented player than Webber at one time. Obviously Pat Riley did too I always thought Tim Hardaway was a psycho, but he redeemed himself with Pat Riley. Some of these really immature - problem head case players can be salvaged with the right coach. Pat Riley works for some-Hardaway. Ric Adelman must be a pretty good psychoanalyst- he salvaged Webber's career. The Philadelphia coach in the late 80's - Jim Leyman must have been pretty good - he handled Barkley's early career pretty well. Even good coaches cannot work miracles....
Just to clarify, Recasner has been playing on and off in the NBA. He was on Sidelines with the Clips on ESPN with a 10-day-contract. Good show.
Going Back...way back...stop right there. Benoit Benjamen Kevin Duckworth that LSU center in front of shaq - super fatty, designer drug dude.. oh yeah, big Stanley Roberts our own loveable KC, the sunshine man Two Sandwiches ? No. Sorry, no talent. "Hot" Rod Williams? Any others jump to mind? That's just centers. Isiah Rider, Derrick Coleman, and Rod Strickland deserve hall of fame spots for tempting and burning multiple teams.
Whoa, those last two posts damn near have to be disqualified. Duckworth, Stanley Roberts, Cato, and Yinka Dare had talent to waste? In what universe? They were just big guys with a reasonable amount of athleticism who (particularly in the last two cases) never had a lot of basketball skills to go with it. Hell, Duckworth was All-Star despite not having much in the way of real skills, so it's hard to say he wasted whatever talent he had. If the common theme for Duckworth, Roberts, and Hamilton is "guys who ate their way away from stardom," Oliver Miller is a better choice than any of them. Cedric Ceballos was an All-Star, too, by the way. I'd say he damn near made the most of a limited range of talent, not the other way around. And Mitch Richmond? Mitch Richmond, a waste of talent?!?! Over a five-year period in the mid-'90s, the guy was voted one of the top 2 or 3 SGs in the league every year. The only way he could've been any better is if he was Michael Jordan. Naming Richmond suggests either a substance abuse problem or a serious gap in someone's basketball knowledge. Or, hopefully, just a hell of a typographical error.
SOme of these names baffle me. How can Mitch Richmond be a waste of talent? How many years was he an all star and one of the best scorers in the league? Rasheed Wallace is coming off his best year statistics-wise, and he lessened his technicals. I think it's difficult to label a guy a waste of talent that averages a shade under 20 ppg and a bunch of boards a game a waste. Is he living up to his potential? Maybe not, but he definitely is not wasting his talent. Ceballos? Nah....he's had a good solid career. Former all star also. Kemp? No way. He had many great years with Seattle, and he's just gotten fat and careless. He must have retained weight after all those kids. I think rocketfan83 has the best list in this thread.
Would Chocolate Thunder (Darrell Dawkins) be able to compete with Tarpley in terms of wasted potential? He was a mini-Shaq in build long before there was Shaq, but he never really worked on his game. He broke a few backboards (one with a free throw, I believe ), and then just vanished. PS -- whatever you do, do NOT do a Google search for "Chocolate Thunder!" Yikes! No basketball photos to be had.
IMO, Rasheed is a definite possibility for an honorable mention. When you have the talent to be maybe the best power forward in the league and a top 5 player, but instead are a borderline all-star candidate, I'd say you are wasting some talent. Now it may not be to the extent of say, a Derrick Coleman, but there's a significant difference between a bonafide top 5 or so superstar and a borderline all-star. With Rasheed, I think there's some kind of mental block there.
