Greatest player who didn't meet pre draft expectations?

[CzBoobie]

LeBron?

How? He is seen as the GOAT in many people's eyes and at worst Top 2-3 of all-time.

Hence the best player part.

But predraft expectations were even higher.

Revisionist history at its best. His comparison was Magic and Jordan, cant miss prospect and the next face of the league, not that he was gonna be surefire the greatest player ever. In fact way more people back then were certain he would never live up to his hype.

[Curmudgeon]

There are plenty of guys like Bill Walton who didn't meet pre draft expectations because of injury.

[Jasen777]

How? He is seen as the GOAT in many people's eyes and at worst Top 2-3 of all-time.

Hence the best player part.

But predraft expectations were even higher.

Revisionist history at its best. His comparison was Magic and Jordan, cant miss prospect and the next face of the league, not that he was gonna be surefire the greatest player ever. In fact way more people back then were certain he would never live up to his hype.

I didn't think he would live up to the hype. Certain all-star, possible MVP, sure. But hype was off the charts and he still met or exceeded it.

[Doctor MJ]

Was Ewing expected to be as good as Olajuwon or Shaq?

Many projected him as the next Bill Russell.

Ewing was a total beast in college. When he came out, people thought it wasn't a matter of if, but when, he'd win championships. He still had an excellent career, but nowhere near where he was projected. I thought he'd impact the pro game the way Shaq did, but he didn't.

Yeah, Ewing is the first to come to mind to me.

Projected as generational, ended up merely the greatest Knick of the last half century. Very hard to be that freaking good and still disappoint expectations, but that’s how it goes when you’re that hyped up.

Pressed to name guys possibly above Ewing, I’d start thinking about guys like Wilt & Shaq who had bumpy careers for egotistical reasons, but I can’t really say that they didn’t ever meet expectation or that their talent was overrated as prospects.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[GeorgeSears]

Towns? He is much worse defensively than he was billed as as a prospect, and wasn’t really a franchise altering player, still a great career though

Excellent choice. Remember, in 2018, Towns was voted as the no.1 player to build a team around.

He was supposed to have the career Jokic is having. Ok, maybe not 3x MVP, but 1x MVP? maybe even 1x champion?

In 10 years he has 5 all-star appearances. Not too bad, but not exactly living up to the hype either.

[bonita_the_frog]

Many projected him as the next Bill Russell.

Ewing was a total beast in college. When he came out, people thought it wasn't a matter of if, but when, he'd win championships. He still had an excellent career, but nowhere near where he was projected. I thought he'd impact the pro game the way Shaq did, but he didn't.

Yeah, Ewing is the first to come to mind to me.

Projected as generational, ended up merely the greatest Knick of the last half century. Very hard to be that freaking good and still disappoint expectations, but that’s how it goes when you’re that hyped up.

Pressed to name guys possibly above Ewing, I’d start thinking about guys like Wilt & Shaq who had bumpy careers for egotistical reasons, but I can’t really say that they didn’t ever meet expectation or that their talent was overrated as prospects.

Did Ewing's shooting and scoring reach expectations?
Was his shot-blocking and rebounding the problem?
Because if he was compared to Bill Russell i guess he'd need to lead the NBA in blocks and rebounds...
But he averaged 4.0 block per game in 1989-90 (and played all 82 games), and 3.5 blocks in 1988-89 (and 80 games).
Looks like his rebounding may have been the problem, as he only averaged about 9rpg for his first 4 seasons, and averaged about 11rpg for the next 9 seasons.

[FuShengTHEGreat]

I touched on this in a previous thread I made years ago it was "who made it to the HOF, but you were still disappointed by them?"

My answer: Chris Webber. Of all the players drafted in the 90s except for maybe Shaq no one came into the league with as much hype as him imho.

He was seen as THE guy that was supposed to take the torch from Karl and Chuck at PF. Not just that, but many projected he'd go down as the greatest PF ever. Instead less touted guys like KG and Dirk drafted in the same decade ended up being better than he ever was.

After his rookie season as far as I'm concerned he didn't do anything of worth individually for the remainder of the 90s.

[xb3at band1tx]

It's Towns even though I like him and he has a chance to still become a HOF.

I saw some mentioning AD and I can see where they are coming from (Duncan Impressions out of College) but to me he met the hype considering his insane improvement on offense. Its crazy how fast he became a consistent 25 PPG scorer when that was the knock on him coming out of Kentucky.

[Doctor MJ]

Ewing was a total beast in college. When he came out, people thought it wasn't a matter of if, but when, he'd win championships. He still had an excellent career, but nowhere near where he was projected. I thought he'd impact the pro game the way Shaq did, but he didn't.

Yeah, Ewing is the first to come to mind to me.

Projected as generational, ended up merely the greatest Knick of the last half century. Very hard to be that freaking good and still disappoint expectations, but that’s how it goes when you’re that hyped up.

Pressed to name guys possibly above Ewing, I’d start thinking about guys like Wilt & Shaq who had bumpy careers for egotistical reasons, but I can’t really say that they didn’t ever meet expectation or that their talent was overrated as prospects.

Did Ewing's shooting and scoring reach expectations?
Was his shot-blocking and rebounding the problem?
Because if he was compared to Bill Russell i guess he'd need to lead the NBA in blocks and rebounds...
But he averaged 4.0 block per game in 1989-90 (and played all 82 games), and 3.5 blocks in 1988-89 (and 80 games).
Looks like his rebounding may have been the problem, as he only averaged about 9rpg for his first 4 seasons, and averaged about 11rpg for the next 9 seasons.

Great questions!

Let me focus first on the precariousness of trying explicitly define "expectations" when we're talking about media hype. While it'd be great if things were so explicitly specified with precision by the best eyes and brains in basketball, mostly what we get are relative expectations. "Best since X", "A rich man's Y", etc.

I'll do my best to give some attempted insight though:

- First, here's an article from the time by Red Auerbach himself in which he harshly takes issue with the idea that Ewing was the new Russell:

Red Auerbach: Welcome to the NBA, Patrick Ewing, 1985

I'd really recommend reading Red's cantankerous but brilliant mind, but in a nutshell:

Other than blocking shots, they play entirely differently.
Sampson & Olajuwon should be considered in the same tier of prospect as Ewing, he's just getting hyped more because of New York.

I'll let folks decide for themselves how much stock in his, ahem, perhaps a bit self-serving, words, and just focus on what he's speaking to that he sees in the world that matches my remembrance at least to some degree.

Thing is, the New York market only magnified the hype advantage Ewing got by being a massively hyped college star at Georgetown. His junior year ('83-84) saw him return to the Final 4 a second time and lead his team to a national championship, and then opt to return with a team that performed even better (err, until 'Nova's shocking upset in championship, at least).

I think it's probably fair to note that Ewing's Georgetown won that championship over Olajuwon's Houston, whose Houston team the previous year had blown the championship in an epic free throw collapse, and was getting a reputation of not quite being able to get his team over the hump against the very best.

If that didn't make folks laugh, do read again. It's hilarious, but I would say that the narratives about these two guys kinda flipped between college and the pros.

Ok, just briefly on Sampson: I would say it was very much in debate who was the greater prospect going into the draft between Sampson & Ewing. Sampson won POY 3 freaking years, and also got comparisons to Russell. The fact he was debatable with a guy who went pro only a couple years earlier hurts perhaps the "generational" argument, but it's not like they were necessarily using that word.

Basically, between Sampson (1983) & Ewing (1985), the NBA was getting the top 2 prospects to come into the league since Bill Walton (1974) - which certainly has to feel weird to someone who knows only about NBA accomplishment given that I didn't list Bird, Magic, Dream, or Jordan, but, well, hindsight is 20/20.

Okay, what else haven't I mentioned, let's see...

- Ewing started Georgetown as the team's next star, while Olajuwon started on the bench at Houston. The Nigerian Olajuwon famously was introduced to basketball at age 15, and came into college quite raw. I would say that the thinking of the time probably thought of that rawness as a reason to see him as a less desirable draft pick, whereas scouts today would probably be thinking more about "upside" with Olajuwon.

- Ewing blocked between 3.2-3.6 shots per game in his 4 years, but once Olajuwon got starter minutes in his sophomore year he blocked more than 5 a game going forward. In retrospect we know that this was because Olajuwon was fast, longer, and better coordinated than Ewing, but Ewing was leading a better team with a better defense. It seems that scouts at the time seem to think Ewing was blocking as many shots as his team needed and it didn't make sense to knock him relative to Olajuwon's bigger numbers.

- This then to say, in an absolute sense, it wasn't so much that Ewing was mysteriously worse on defense in the pros than was expected, so much as he really shouldn't have been seen in the same league as Olajuwon there. The disappointment in the collective perception, has much to do with Ewing losing a comparison he maybe shouldn't have ever been in.

- I also would not say Ewing's offense disappointed - though big men volume scoring was generally overrated at the time - ...but relative to Olajuwon? Dream became an entirely higher tier on this side of the ball too with a soccer-influenced footwork game that modern players are still trying to match.

[bonita_the_frog]

...If that didn't make folks laugh, do read again. It's hilarious, but I would say that the narratives about these two guys kinda flipped between college and the pros.

Ok, just briefly on Sampson: I would say it was very much in debate who was the greater prospect going into the draft between Sampson & Ewing. Sampson won POY 3 freaking years, and also got comparisons to Russell. The fact he was debatable with a guy who went pro only a couple years earlier hurts perhaps the "generational" argument, but it's not like they were necessarily using that word.

Basically, between Sampson (1983) & Ewing (1985), the NBA was getting the top 2 prospects to come into the league since Bill Walton (1974) - which certainly has to feel weird to someone who knows only about NBA accomplishment given that I didn't list Bird, Magic, Dream, or Jordan, but, well, hindsight is 20/20.

Okay, what else haven't I mentioned, let's see...

- Ewing started Georgetown as the team's next star, while Olajuwon started on the bench at Houston. The Nigerian Olajuwon famously was introduced to basketball at age 15, and came into college quite raw. I would say that the thinking of the time probably thought of that rawness as a reason to see him as a less desirable draft pick, whereas scouts today would probably be thinking more about "upside" with Olajuwon.

- Ewing blocked between 3.2-3.6 shots per game in his 4 years, but once Olajuwon got starter minutes in his sophomore year he blocked more than 5 a game going forward. In retrospect we know that this was because Olajuwon was fast, longer, and better coordinated than Ewing, but Ewing was leading a better team with a better defense. It seems that scouts at the time seem to think Ewing was blocking as many shots as his team needed and it didn't make sense to knock him relative to Olajuwon's bigger numbers.

- This then to say, in an absolute sense, it wasn't so much that Ewing was mysteriously worse on defense in the pros than was expected, so much as he really shouldn't have been seen in the same league as Olajuwon there. The disappointment in the collective perception, has much to do with Ewing losing a comparison he maybe shouldn't have ever been in.

- I also would not say Ewing's offense disappointed - though big men volume scoring was generally overrated at the time - ...but relative to Olajuwon? Dream became an entirely higher tier on this side of the ball too with a soccer-influenced footwork game that modern players are still trying to match.

Thank you Doctor, very entertaining scouting reports indeedylicious
Watching highlights Ewing and Olajuwon really have nothing in common athletically, as Olajuwon really dances in the post
And people compare Embiid to Olajuwon, but Embiid looks a lot stiffer than Olajuwon, so i'd say Embiid is like a combination of Ewing and Olajuwon.
Then again, Embiid falls over a lot and seems to have a weak base, while Ewing is very strong and hold's position better than most.
And Embiid took up basketball late, as did Olajuwon

Ironically, Ewing's best scoring season was 1989-90 with 28.6 points, 4.0 blocks, 82 games.
While Olajuwon's best scoring season was 1994-95 with 27.8 points, 3.4 blocks, 72 games.
I know Olajuwon averaged a lot more blocks in other years though... 4.6, 4.3, 4.2

And overall for the Knicks Ewing averaged 22.8 points, for 15 years.
And overall for the Rockets Olajuwon averaged 22.5 points, for 17 years.
But of course the playoffs it was a different story, Olajuwon 26.6 points for Rockets, while Ewing only 20.6 for Knicks.

Wow look at Ralph Sampson's college stats!
In his 2nd year he averaged 29.0 points, but his field was only .449 and strangely his free-throw .822 !
Actually that's the shooting guard named Ralph Simpson (1971-1980).
The center Ralph Sampson (1984-1992) averaged 16.9 points, 11.4 rebounds, .568 field, in his college career.

[xb3at band1tx]

I thought Ewing was fine considering he got them deep in the playoffs multiple times, something even Embiid hasn't done. (ECF)

[Tim Kempton]

Just because he hasn't been mentioned yet, I'll throw Pete Maravich's name into the ring.

[okboomer]

Maybe McDyess. In his 6 seasons before his injury he was good though only made an All Star and All NBA once. Then he got hurt and was nowhere close to the same. Alot of these players that come to mind usually got hurt, like Webber, Wall etc.

[AlexanderRight]

I'd say John Wall over Ewing any day. I get Ewing had more hype but he still made Top 75 and had a long respectable run. Only thing I remember about John was that lucky ass shot on Boston to force Game 7.

[bonita_the_frog]

I thought Ewing was fine considering he got them deep in the playoffs multiple times, something even Embiid hasn't done. (ECF)

I agree Ewing is mentally and physically stronger than Embiid without a doubt and did well vs. MJ's Bulls pushed them to the limit

[Upperclass]

tbh.. Kevin Durant.

I thought he would be the one going chip for chip with LeBron and leading teams.. He seems to prefer being led and has never found a place outside of OKC to make his mark.. and now SGA just outdid him there.. Its an odd career for one of the most well regarded players in league history.

[bonita_the_frog]

tbh.. Kevin Durant.

I thought he would be the one going chip for chip with LeBron and leading teams.. He seems to prefer being led and has never found a place outside of OKC to make his mark.. and now SGA just outdid him there.. Its an odd career for one of the most well regarded players in league history.

And if KD stayed in Golden State he'd probably have won 5 or 6 Finals MVPs !!
Anyway we'll see if KD's Rockets can eliminate OKC, which seems likely since Indiana were one bad 3rdQ away from it

[picko]

There are plenty of guys like Bill Walton who didn't meet pre draft expectations because of injury.

Sure, but none of them are relevant to this thread.

The best way to think of this is: who is the highest ranked player on the All-Time list that didn't live up to pre-draft expectations?

That's why Patrick Ewing is a great pick. He had a really great career, but was viewed as a generational prospect out of college. Despite all his achievements he failed to live up to expectations.

[hyper316]

Ricky Rubio had a lot of hype, thought to be next pistol pete

[Doctor MJ]

...If that didn't make folks laugh, do read again. It's hilarious, but I would say that the narratives about these two guys kinda flipped between college and the pros.

Ok, just briefly on Sampson: I would say it was very much in debate who was the greater prospect going into the draft between Sampson & Ewing. Sampson won POY 3 freaking years, and also got comparisons to Russell. The fact he was debatable with a guy who went pro only a couple years earlier hurts perhaps the "generational" argument, but it's not like they were necessarily using that word.

Basically, between Sampson (1983) & Ewing (1985), the NBA was getting the top 2 prospects to come into the league since Bill Walton (1974) - which certainly has to feel weird to someone who knows only about NBA accomplishment given that I didn't list Bird, Magic, Dream, or Jordan, but, well, hindsight is 20/20.

Okay, what else haven't I mentioned, let's see...

- Ewing started Georgetown as the team's next star, while Olajuwon started on the bench at Houston. The Nigerian Olajuwon famously was introduced to basketball at age 15, and came into college quite raw. I would say that the thinking of the time probably thought of that rawness as a reason to see him as a less desirable draft pick, whereas scouts today would probably be thinking more about "upside" with Olajuwon.

- Ewing blocked between 3.2-3.6 shots per game in his 4 years, but once Olajuwon got starter minutes in his sophomore year he blocked more than 5 a game going forward. In retrospect we know that this was because Olajuwon was fast, longer, and better coordinated than Ewing, but Ewing was leading a better team with a better defense. It seems that scouts at the time seem to think Ewing was blocking as many shots as his team needed and it didn't make sense to knock him relative to Olajuwon's bigger numbers.

- This then to say, in an absolute sense, it wasn't so much that Ewing was mysteriously worse on defense in the pros than was expected, so much as he really shouldn't have been seen in the same league as Olajuwon there. The disappointment in the collective perception, has much to do with Ewing losing a comparison he maybe shouldn't have ever been in.

- I also would not say Ewing's offense disappointed - though big men volume scoring was generally overrated at the time - ...but relative to Olajuwon? Dream became an entirely higher tier on this side of the ball too with a soccer-influenced footwork game that modern players are still trying to match.

Thank you Doctor, very entertaining scouting reports indeedylicious
Watching highlights Ewing and Olajuwon really have nothing in common athletically, as Olajuwon really dances in the post
And people compare Embiid to Olajuwon, but Embiid looks a lot stiffer than Olajuwon, so i'd say Embiid is like a combination of Ewing and Olajuwon.
Then again, Embiid falls over a lot and seems to have a weak base, while Ewing is very strong and hold's position better than most.
And Embiid took up basketball late, as did Olajuwon

Ironically, Ewing's best scoring season was 1989-90 with 28.6 points, 4.0 blocks, 82 games.
While Olajuwon's best scoring season was 1994-95 with 27.8 points, 3.4 blocks, 72 games.
I know Olajuwon averaged a lot more blocks in other years though... 4.6, 4.3, 4.2

And overall for the Knicks Ewing averaged 22.8 points, for 15 years.
And overall for the Rockets Olajuwon averaged 22.5 points, for 17 years.
But of course the playoffs it was a different story, Olajuwon 26.6 points for Rockets, while Ewing only 20.6 for Knicks.

Wow look at Ralph Sampson's college stats!
In his 2nd year he averaged 29.0 points, but his field was only .449 and strangely his free-throw .822 !
Actually that's the shooting guard named Ralph Simpson (1971-1980).
The center Ralph Sampson (1984-1992) averaged 16.9 points, 11.4 rebounds, .568 field, in his college career.

You're welcome, and I'm glad it was fun!

I think your assessment of Ewing, Embiid & Hakeem being something of a linear scale of some sort makes sense...but yeah, Embiid's ref-baiting falls (while we all know his body has severe injury tendency) puts him in an entirely different category as a watch.

Re: best scoring seasons. Well, thing there is that Hakeem's separation is about those playoff performances - and this looms large in other comparisons with other rivals (Robinson, Malone, Barkley, etc.).

Re: average PPG. So I'm going to emphasize a thing here that's a more general thing:

Even before the 3-happy 21st century, PPG generally overrated the value added by a traditional big. The thing that's just always there there as a cost is the entry pass, and that cost goes up the more the defense is focused on disrupting the ability for the offense to complete the entry to the big's sweet spot.

There is also typically a cost to volume post scoring where it tends to disactivate the post scorer's teammates unless he's someone adept at attacking in the post and attacking with the pass at the same time.

This then to say, that actually I think both of these guys probably should have lower career PPG than they do - as in, they'd have been more valuable outside of their prime if they could have a more, say, Mutombo-esque role.

Re: Sampson numbers. Well so none of these guys were doing serious volume scoring in college, which is actually an important thing to note I think. In college, these players were not expected to just grind out buckets over and over again...but then they got to the NBA and they were?

And parallel to that: These players were not judged with trepidation because they were not volume scoring in college, but in the pros, that basically became the ultimate thing in the mind of the public, so what happened?

I have a few thoughts I'll give below, but first let me just emphasize that the questions are more fundamental (and hopefully less subjective) than the answers, so I hope think about the questions for themselves and just take my views for whatever their worth.

So, likely factors in my assessment:

1. Illegal Defense Rules. Here's an article from the time:

ILLEGAL DEFENSE
RULE IS AS CONFUSING AS NEW TAX LAWS AND FULL OF NEARLY AS MANY LOOPHOLES

And the opening:

The rule's explanation takes up nine pages in the NBA official's manual. Violations have cost the Jazz 22 technical fouls this season as many as Karl Malone and Frank Layden together. Broadcasters wish they never had to explain the thing, and players are happy there are no written tests on the subject.

"It has something to do with quadrants and where your man is . . . who knows?" says Jazz rookie Bart Kofoed, bravely trying to describe the rule. "To me, it's very confusing."He's not the only one. Welcome to the NBA's illegal-defense rule, roughly as easy to understand as the new tax laws and full of almost as many loopholes.

The NBA has always outlawed zone defenses guarding an area of the floor, instead of a man by the logic that giant centers would dominate the game too much if allowed to roam around and the 24-second shot clock places enough pressure on the offense. Through the years, the no-zone idea has evolved into the latest rule, adopted in 1981 after Cotton Fitzsimmons, Don Nelson and Dick Motta holed up in a room and came up with the guidelines

You can read the details if you're interested but I would say the most interesting wrinkle in our conversation is that their (the 3 active NBA coaches who were architects of the rule) reasons for doing this sure didn't seem to be because they wanted to induce interior volume scoring...but soon enough, NBA coaches started looking to manipulate the defense in a way to allow long (slow) post one-on-one's.

And others might disagree with me, but I'd generally say those coaches were definitely not known for being volume post prone in their strategy, and the fact that by 1987 all 3 were out as coaches and waited at least a season before getting another gig I think hammers home that this was certainly not a case where those coming up with the plan had a secret vision for how to exploit it.

(By contrast, owner Jerry Colangelo architected the signature rule change of the 21st century NBA (mostly kill Illegal Defense) in 2001 with the idea of forcing teams to play faster, and then (with son Bryan as active GM of the Suns) brought in Mike D'Antoni in as an assistant in 2002, promoted him to head in 2003, and then put the entire focus of the 2004 off-season acquiring Nash, which then resulted in the birth of the Pace & Space era in '04-05. Only thing wrong with portraying Jerry as something of an insider trader on this is that he essentially went out to prove that teams who literally did what he said they'd be incentivized to do, would be rewarded.)

2. Michael F-ing Jordan shifted the basketball fan's paradigm (back) toward individual performers. This has been something of an oscillating pendulum in basketball's history. Elite college ball prior to Hank Luisetti (late 30s), and top tier pro ball prior to George Mikan (late 40s), was more about team play than anything that could be recorded in an individual's box score, because teams that spread out their scoring were the ones that dominated.

Now, Luisetti went off to World War II and never played competitively afterward (and thus never played professionally) for medical reasons so I might have left him out of the story entirely, but funny thing, when Mikan actually did revolutionize pro ball with (for the time) extremely effective volume scoring, I would say that the NBA realized that they wanted its future product to be as much Luisetti - a thrilling scorer and 2-way playmaker at a height 6'2" - as Mikan, and decided in 1951 to widen the key for the first time. And it worked, from what I can tell, more perimeter oriented stars like Paul Arizin & Bob Cousy basically immediately leapfrogged Mikan from a purely offensive perspective after that.

I would argue this key widening reduced the volume scoring impact of what we now call "traditional bigs" enough that in almost all cases (Kareem being the most noteworthy exception), the best bigs were the best because of their defense, which then resulted in more team-like teams coming to dominate the sport again. The key rivalry here - and the most important rivalry probably in basketball history - was Russell & Wilt, where Russell's team dynasty didn't just Wilt's individualistic teams, Wilt became a champion by changing his play away from volume scoring.

From that point until 1991, when Jordan wins his first title, individual scoring was simply not seen as being as important as it was afterward. Beforehand you still had a vocal contingent - disproportionately older - who actually saw Jordan's scoring titles as proof he was NOT as good as other greats as they saw the basketball world a bit like Charles Barkley's "can't win with a jump shooting team", except it was more like "can't win if one guy makes it about him".

But once the best scorer became the best champion while also being an utterly transformative merchandising force, things crystalized in a way where people criticized a star if he wasn't the go-to scorer as a kind of tiering. They'd basically not even consider a Mutombo-like guy before placing every major offensive star...and so bigs responded to this judgment become more and more greedy to score. Maybe the most famous case here was Dwight Howard who came to feel like he simply had to prove he could post his way to 30 PPG and then proceeded to repeatedly shoot his career in the foot until he finally had a bit more success as a role player at the end.

3. I think NBA coaches are generally more comfortable with trying to optimize everything around their chosen star than college coaches traditionally are, and for understandable reasons: The long-term success of traditional college programs involved a culture propagated from class to class, and teammate to teammate, so a strong foundation of basketball principles can be built with the expectation that will outlast any player. In the pros, the expectation was that you had a player for a decade plus, so if you're not building around his talents as well as you possibly can, what exactly are you doing?

I have to note the important modern exception of the Calipari-style college coach who just tries each year to recruit all the best guys, and then tries to figure out a way to make it all work. I would say though that this archetype basically did not exist until the One & Done rule came in (2006), and Calipari's first mega-talented One & Done Kentucky team was in '09-10.