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I just finished a second round mock and it made me realize how many players were hyped coming out of high school or early on in their collegiate careers and now stand to go much later than they would have, or even undrafted. There are definitely a good amount of players that could have gone higher had they come out earlier, but this is a trend that has been going on forever. A few that come to mind:

-Sean Dockery.
-Quentin Richardson went #18 in 2001 but would have been top 10 in 2000.
-Joseph Forte would have been a lottery pick after his freshman year.
-JaRon and Kareem Rush should have come out earlier.
-Carlos Boozer and Chris Duhon would have been first round picks had they come out earlier. Same goes for Daniel Gibson. All looked like lottery picks early in their career.
-The majority of Georgia Tech players over the years.

Of course it goes both ways where players would have gone higher had they stayed in school a bit longer.



A few players this year that stand out who used to be thought much higher of:

Brian Butch
David Padgett
Richard Roby
Joe Crawford
DeMarcus Nelson
JR Giddens
Malik Hairston
Sasha Kaun
Russell Robinson
Sean Singletary
Luc MBah a Moute
Patrick Ewing Jr.
Rob McKiver
Sonny Weems

On a lesser note players such as Roy Hibbert, Chase Budinger, DJ White and Bill Walker would have gone higher had they come out in the past few years.


Of these players (or others that you can think of) which surprise you the most that they did not live up to their early career hype (whether it be high school or freshman/sophomore year of college)?

chris taft

5DOM wrote:chris taft

Bot really the kind of player I am talking about. Had he come out straight after high school he wouldnt have gone higher than where he went. He probably wouldnt have been drafted.

He just fell.

2001 draft Sirvaliant Brown, i think he would at least been selected after his freshmen yr.. 2nd in the nation in scoring

01 draft terrance morris.. should left w/steve francis his soph year(99 draft?)

'96 draft winfred walton, scored like 21 in the mckie'ds game, very bouncy athlete w/good size(6'10 230ish).. wouldve probably been drafted out of h.s... chose to go to fresno st. where he had academic and character issues

Chris Burgess duke 97-01? shouldve left out of h.s. or after his frosh year.. very highly rated out of h.s.

Felipe Lopez never developed at st. johns.. for a hyped NY sg had NO handle or jumpshot.. shouldve left after disapointing fresh/or soph yr..the first lebron james/oj mayo type h.s. hyped player

Schea Cotton bama '99/00 he peaked in like 10th grade.. definitely shouldve declared out of h.s. .. couldnt get eligible for 3 or so years.. by the time he did, his time had passed.. 2nd lebron james/oj mayo type hype player

we can do this all day.. so many..

this year, Hibbert has to be the poster boy. He would have been top 5, maybe top 8, last year. He has almost fallen out of the first round. I still happen to like him though.

Budinger to a lesser degree. He would have been top 10 2 years ago and has steadily dropped.

DynastyInTheMaking wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



Bot really the kind of player I am talking about. Had he come out straight after high school he wouldnt have gone higher than where he went. He probably wouldnt have been drafted.

He just fell.

Yeah but if he came out after is freshman year I'm sure he may have at least went late lotto-mid first.

Jason Kapono would've been a lottery pick if he came out freshman/sophmore year.
Marvin O'Connor would've been drafted if he declared for the NBA draft his junior season after scoring 37 points and nearly upsetting the #1 seed Stanford.

Chris Burgess was apparently going to be a lottery draft pick, but he had a bad injury and never recovered to play in the NBA.

DynastyInTheMaking wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



Bot really the kind of player I am talking about. Had he come out straight after high school he wouldnt have gone higher than where he went. He probably wouldnt have been drafted.

He just fell.

You need to work on your grammar.

Taft was slated to go number one overall prior to the 2004-2005 college basketball season. If he had come out after his freshman campaign he would have been a lottery selection in 2004.

This is proof that staying in school and getting your degree is all a bunch of cr@p, these young athletes are playing the game to be professionals in it in the future, unless their career path is different then they should concentrate on playing basketball full-time and take advantage of their stock when it is @ their highest. I don't buy all that cr@p about the NCAA making these young athletes better basketball players when the best training and coaching are in the professional level. The NCAA makes billions of dollars on these young athletes to the point of exploitation, these kids do not owe the NCAA anything more than their time and share in the college basketball spotlight, the degree is nice but in todays job market it doesn't mean much, why make 9-5 money when you can make millions for a few years and never ever work a day in your life afterwards.

Tyler Hansborough going to be the poster child next year?

But even still, there's nothing wrong with staying 4 years. It shows a lot about a person's character and priorities.

I think you have to take those past projections with a grain of salt. The first few years of when Chad Ford and Draftexpress came on the scene circa 2003 projections I believe were pretty speculative, and they awere almost entirely speculative before they started covering draft. Just b/c NBA draft net had Nemanja Alexandrov as a number one pick at one point doesn't mean their stock was really that high.

Chris Taft was the first name that jumped to mind. That guy was never rated outside of the top-5 until mid-way through his last season in college.

This year's award recipient: Devon Hardin.

This guy has been an upside prospect for 4 years... is that a record?

I can't believe that no one has mentioned Terrance Morris and Loren Woods. If Morris would have come out after his sophmore year then he would have been a top 5 pick in the draft. Woods would have probably been a top 10 pick if he left after his junior year.

Upperclass wrote:2001 draft Sirvaliant Brown, i think he would at least been selected after his freshmen yr.. 2nd in the nation in scoring

01 draft terrance morris.. should left w/steve francis his soph year(99 draft?)

'96 draft winfred walton, scored like 21 in the mckie'ds game, very bouncy athlete w/good size(6'10 230ish).. wouldve probably been drafted out of h.s... chose to go to fresno st. where he had academic and character issues

Chris Burgess duke 97-01? shouldve left out of h.s. or after his frosh year.. very highly rated out of h.s.

Felipe Lopez never developed at st. johns.. for a hyped NY sg had NO handle or jumpshot.. shouldve left after disapointing fresh/or soph yr..the first lebron james/oj mayo type h.s. hyped player

Schea Cotton bama '99/00 he peaked in like 10th grade.. definitely shouldve declared out of h.s. .. couldnt get eligible for 3 or so years.. by the time he did, his time had passed.. 2nd lebron james/oj mayo type hype player

we can do this all day.. so many..

You really nailed it with those posts. I'm going to throw Roy Hibbert into the mix- he had the potential to be the number one pick. Also, on a lesser note, Chris Daniels would have been drafted, but it's looking unlikely this year after not making it back to the tournament and his stats decline.

Cotton, Lopez, etc would have gotten drafted.

Also, I would like to throw Chris Thomas, Ronald Steele, and even GMac into the mix.

hype_2004 wrote:This is proof that staying in school and getting your degree is all a bunch of cr@p, these young athletes are playing the game to be professionals in it in the future, unless their career path is different then they should concentrate on playing basketball full-time and take advantage of their stock when it is @ their highest. I don't buy all that cr@p about the NCAA making these young athletes better basketball players when the best training and coaching are in the professional level. The NCAA makes billions of dollars on these young athletes to the point of exploitation, these kids do not owe the NCAA anything more than their time and share in the college basketball spotlight, the degree is nice but in todays job market it doesn't mean much, why make 9-5 money when you can make millions for a few years and never ever work a day in your life afterwards.

If they aren't at a certain talent level, they will not be able to receive enough playing time to improve their games. Playing time > sitting on the bench and learning from trainers.

Yeah, Loren Woods is another great candidate.

Anyone remember Pavel Podzolkine? I think he was possibly going top 5 but then he decided to hold out one more year and refine his game. Then next draft he barely got taken in the first round and didn't even make it in the league.

While I'm on that train of thought, anyone recall the Ivan Chiraev scandal? There were some made up stats that he was averaging nearly 30 PPG in high school and he was the next big thing in the NBA. 7'1'' SG, the next Dirk Nowitzki etc. Then he played in the Canadian All-Star game (I watched him play) and everyone realized that he was a big fraud and wasting everyones time.

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Basketball/NB ... 53205.html

"Yesterday, in front of a good 2,000 or so people and at least a dozen NBA types, Chiriaev showed himself to be not out of place in the All-Canada Basketball Game at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga.

Assuming the NBA decides to jettison its stars and replace them with Canadian high school players, Chiriaev's future is very bright, indeed."

lol owned.

^^ Your avatar just reminded me of the most egregious case of staying in too long.. Chris Marcus of West. Kentucky '03 wouldve been a top 5 pick imo in the '01 draft had he declared after a strong soph year, or top 3 after his jr year when he actually hurt himself(foot)..

He was Roy Hibbert b4 Hibbert. Poor guy stayed one year too long, got hurt and went from top pick to having no career at all.. very sad for him

PS- he likely wouldve been another olowokandi-type bust anyway, but still to not even have a shot is disheartening