Greatest One-Hit Wonder of a Season?

[Karate Diop]

What are some of the greatest one-hit wonder seasons?

The one that stands out to me is:

Mike James on the Raptors in 2005-2006:
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jamesmi01.html

Going on his 6th team in 5 years, MJ was in his age 30 season having never averaged more than 12 ppg in a season and having cumulatively made 73 starts up until that point.

As a journeyman on an arse Raptors team little was expected of him, but MJ would harness that dog in him and go on to average 20.3 PPG on .469 from the field and .442 from there (4.8 attempts per game) with a respectable 5.8 APG vs. 2.6 turnovers a night. After this season he had 1 more double digit season at 10.1 PPG but his efficiency cratered going form .422 FG% in his lone Timberwolves season to sub .400 for the rest of his career.

[chilluminati]

Tyreke Evans' rookie season. Dude was one of the best looking rooks we've had in a while, but fell off year by year. It's rare we see a rookie peak that high.

[JXL]

Bubble TJ Warren.

IYKYK.

[bonita_the_frog]

Wow wonder what would have happened if Mike James stayed in Toronto

[Lakers In 5]

Dana Barros was mostly a bench warmer for the Sonics, then suddenly got to play 41 minutes per game in Philadelphia and won MIP and was an All-Star averaging more than 20. Never averaged more than 13 before. Brings me to Michael Carter-Williams, who peaked in his very first game.

[tsherkin]

Wow wonder what would have happened if Mike James stayed in Toronto

Nothing. It was a wild outlier based on that 3pt shooting, which was never sustainable for him, lol.

[Blame Rasho]

Micheal Adams… nuggets. Terrible shooting percentages though.

[druggas]

Jerome James.
"After the 2004–05 season, James signed a 5-year, $30 million free-agent contract with the Knicks on the strength of an outstanding performance in the 2005 playoffs in which he greatly exceeded his regular-season statistics.[6] He arrived at his first training camp out of shape and in his first season he only averaged 3.1 points and 2.1 rebounds in 9 minutes per game. James missed much of the season due to injury and when he was not injured, he frequently played insignificant minutes. James was suspended on January 2, 2006, for not being prepared to practice."

[Peak Brunson]

Victor Oladipo, he had one season (17-18) with huge outlier stats compared to any other season.

[nate33]

Dana Barros was mostly a bench warmer for the Sonics, then suddenly got to play 41 minutes per game in Philadelphia and won MIP and was an All-Star averaging more than 20. Never averaged more than 13 before. Brings me to Michael Carter-Williams, who peaked in his very first game.

Came here to post this.

Not only did his scoring surpass all of his other seasons by mile, he was also incredibly efficient, posting a TS% of .632 when the league average was .543

[pepe1991]

Aaron Brooks
Jeremy Lin
Larry the weedman Sanders


Two hit wonder- Ricky Davis

[bonita_the_frog]

Wow wonder what would have happened if Dana Barros stayed in Philly

[pipfan]

This is the Mike James award-first person I thought of
Other good mentions here (I forgot about Dana B).

Devin Harris is one I think of as well

[Joshyjess]

Isaiah Thomas "the Little Guy", the "King of the Fourth" on the Celtics. One of the most enjoyable seasons I've ever seen from a player. Every night you had no idea what was going to happen, but you knew it was going to be something special.

[HotelVitale]

Victor Oladipo, he had one season (17-18) with huge outlier stats compared to any other season.

That’s what I was going to say. A lot of people might think that season was just about opportunity but it was a lot weirder than that—Oladipo had already been a starter playing big minutes for 5 seasons and was basically the same solid but unspectacular player for at least 3 of those years before his breakout. It’s very strange for someone to make a huge leap in one season in a 5th season as a starter (and with no minutes increase), and his leap was major on both ends.

In the breakout year, he increased his scoring per minute by about 50% (17 to 25 pts per 36), which put him among the superstars in scoring. He greatly increased his efficiency despite upping his volume a ton too—career highs in fg%, 3pt%, and huge increase in FT volume, all of which stayed career highs for rest of his time.

He also legit doubled his steals per minute and led the league in steals per game, and was all defensive 1st team. He never made any all defense team before or after that year.

So he went from meh starter to MVP candidate for one season and one season only, and then went back down right away. And his teams before didn’t have huge usage stars who dominated the ball—he got his touches and opportunities. Very strange outlier.

[Bornstellar]

Jerome James.
"After the 2004–05 season, James signed a 5-year, $30 million free-agent contract with the Knicks on the strength of an outstanding performance in the 2005 playoffs in which he greatly exceeded his regular-season statistics.[6] He arrived at his first training camp out of shape and in his first season he only averaged 3.1 points and 2.1 rebounds in 9 minutes per game. James missed much of the season due to injury and when he was not injured, he frequently played insignificant minutes. James was suspended on January 2, 2006, for not being prepared to practice."

I'll never forget this clown wearing a trash bag after one of the Spurs/Sonics games in the 2005 playoffs saying "I don't give them no respect!" that turned out well for them

[TheGeneral99]

Jeremy Lin - 2012

Dana Barros - 1995 - averaged 21 and 8 on great efficiency and made the all-star team but never averaged over 13ppg again in his career.

Devin Harris - 2009

Tyreke Evans rookie season.

MCW rookie season.

Brandon Jennings rookie season.

Mike James - 2005.

[playoffs]

Tyreke Evans' rookie season. Dude was one of the best looking rooks we've had in a while, but fell off year by year. It's rare we see a rookie peak that high.

I watched Sac that year, and honestly I hated watching Tyreke. The Kings were so desperate to get him the ROTY award that their entire game plan was give him the ball and everyone move out of the way on every single possession. It was just excruciating basketball to watch. They were always going to be a bad team but this was so blatantly about getting one player to put up stats so that people will talk and the Kings will feel like they were relevant. Even the players couldn't hide how they hated it there.

[TheGeneral99]

Isaiah Thomas "the Little Guy", the "King of the Fourth" on the Celtics. One of the most enjoyable seasons I've ever seen from a player. Every night you had no idea what was going to happen, but you knew it was going to be something special.

Not sure it was a one hit wonder considering Isaiah made the all-star team twice and had multiple 20ppg+ seasons. Obviously the 2017 season was exceptional, but too bad he had injuries that derailed his career.

[dhsilv2]

A lot of great picks here. But and this is questionable one, but 1999 Darrell Armstrong.

13th in WS, 13th in PER, and 8th in VORP.

The counter of course is he was pretty darn good in 2000, outside the top 20 in the first two but still a solid 15th in VORP. But man did he come out of nowhere for that year and he never really kept it up.

77 Walton is one I'd like to use, I know he won MVP in 78 but he also only played 2 playoff games and under 60 games that year.

In both cases not true "one hit".

The last guy I think is much more the case. Larry Hughes.

Now he was a good 18 a game guy in 2004 but BPM had him at 0.9. Suddenly in 2005 he leads the league in steals, ups his offense, and turns out a 21.6 PER, .157 WS/48 and a 4.3 BPM. Then falls off a cliff with Lebron in Cleveland the next year.