Greatest One-Hit Wonder of a Season?

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

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.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/thomais02.html
I think he was a one-hit wonder at that high of a level. Even comparing the AS year to the MVP year is night and day (23 Points on 56%TS vs 29 on 63%TS). He went from a borderline AS to a legit Top 5 player that year. Granted he couldve had a flat peak without injuries, but for most casual NBA fans he was really only relevant for 1 year.

[xinxin]

Tyreke Evans was special as a rookie.

same with Brandon Jennings. scored 55 pts as a rookie.


Erick Dampier's contract year with GSW. which made Mark Cuban lust for him as a possible Shaq stopper. Mavs picked him up & gave him a lucrative deal.. ha ha.

[brackdan70]

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.

He arguably had two really good seasons, but 2016-17 was amazing. 2nd team all nba, 5th in MVP votes.

[UcanUwill]

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.

Man, first comment in a thread, and this is exactly who I thought off too.

I also sometimes wonder wtf was Josh Childress? It was not one season with him, but he looked really good whole rookie contract as Atlanta Hawk, then he shockingly signs with Olympiacos, is not very good in Europe honestly, then comes back to NBA on big deal from the Suns still, and he just stinks.

[The_Ghost_of_JB]

Does Austin Croshere count? I believe he was in a contract year, played well in the finals in 2000 so Indy gave him a 46 million dollar contract. Was not very good after the finals.

[XTC]

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.

Bro went on one of the biggest heaters ever.

First 27 games 15/3/4 on 43/40/81 shooting splits

Next 55 games 23/4/7 on 48/46/84 shooting splits.

Its impressive he upped his efficiency, but he was playing ugly basketball. Super selfish, lazy defense, and ignoring play calls. I still remember that game vs New York during the end of the season, he was going 1 v 1 against Marbury, the only thing he cared about was how many points he scored.

[Hoopz Afrik]

On a much lesser scale than most of the guys mentioned but Year 1 Landry Fields.

[WiggOuts]

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

Most people could see through what that season was. It was a chuck fest, he came to Toronto with a selfish mentality thinking he would just get his and make himself some money, which he did. It was not conducive to winning and no sane coach would've allowed a player like him to do that

[WiggOuts]

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.

Brad Stevens deserved more credit than he got for this season. He knew how to use players in the right role best suited for them. Its not a coincidence IT never had this type of success anywhere else

[kodo]

Devin Harris, on top of the outlier stats in just one season he was also voted to the All-Star game.

[FuShengTHEGreat]

For me Nick Van Exel in the 94-95 season.

He had many more productive years in his career and was even an all star once in 97-98 which he wasnt in 94-95.

But imho he never again played at the level he played at that season. That was the one year of his career where he was the leader orchestrating things on a playoff team and they looked to him when the chips were down. Both Eddie Jones and Cedric Ceballos missed a tonne of time that season and imho it was chiefly him (and Vlade) that revitalized the Lakers franchise.

I would go as far as to say he hit as many clutch big shots that in the regular season/playoffs as any player in any given season in NBA history.

He was giving Gary Payton fits all season.

[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.

Bro went on one of the biggest heaters ever.

First 27 games 15/3/4 on 43/40/81 shooting splits

Next 55 games 23/4/7 on 48/46/84 shooting splits.

Its impressive he upped his efficiency, but he was playing ugly basketball. Super selfish, lazy defense, and ignoring play calls. I still remember that game vs New York during the end of the season, he was going 1 v 1 against Marbury, the only thing he cared about was how many points he scored.

Yep.

[bonita_the_frog]

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.

What causes a wild outlier? Does it take too much focus and concentration and then the player is too tired from that year of concentration and can't repeat it?

[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.

What causes a wild outlier? Does it take too much focus and concentration and then the player is too tired from that year of concentration and can't repeat it?

Shooting variance coupled to opportunity and teams not really caring because the team you're on sucks...

[kcktiny]

Robert "Bubbles" Hawkins.

In 1976-77 the New York Nets had Dr. J. Julius Erving and Nate "Tiny" Archibald on the same roster for a split second, and high ambitions for the season. Tiny was coming off an all-NBA 1st team season, and Dr. J. was ABA MVP and all-ABA 1st team. But they sold Erving's contract to the 76ers to pay the NBA entry fee and Tiny went down with an injury just after the new year.

Up stepped a nobody - 22 year old Bubbles Hawkins - who played SG/PG for the New York Nets the rest of the season. Averaged 19.3 pts/g playing just 28 min/g (27.2 pts/40min) over 52 games. Had a 44 point game against the New Orleans Jazz, scored 20+ points in a game 27 times.

The Nets were the worst team in the league that season (W-L 22-60), ended the season going just 1-15 over their final 16 games.

But by then everybody knew who Bubbles Hawkins was.

Yet he did next to nothing after that.

This may be the only available footage of Mr. Hawkins:

Watch on YouTube

[Chokic]

Jeremy Lin at peak of insanity was a top 6-10 player in the league. Dude was held back real quick by coach mchale in houston pandering to harden.

[HotelVitale]

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.

I know what you mean but think you’re exaggerating. They did this some times and there were definitely a few embarrassing moments when Evans was chasing a record or some highlight-able stat thing, but this wasn’t the whole season or an every game/all game thing iirc.

That said Evans game was really limited and he did get to use as many possessions and dribbles as he wanted cuz roster. He was basically strong and sort of quick, and he used the same exact spin move in like half of his possessions. Spammed like 3 moves over and over.

[tsherkin]

Jeremy Lin at peak of insanity was a top 6-10 player in the league. Dude was held back real quick by coach mchale in houston pandering to harden.

Was he?

In 2012, who was better than Jeremy Lin for 14 games in February? Well, Lebron, KD, Dwight, Westbrook, Kevin Love, Dirk, Deron, Blake Griffin, Chris Paul at a minimum. Nash was still better, as well.

Paul Pierce was at worst comparable. That was also Andrew Bynum's 19/12, AS, All-NBA season.

Lin was good, but like, it's been over a dozen years, we can pump the brakes on the hyperbole.

[oldncreaky]

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.

Agree that Armstrong had a surprising season; here is some of the context.

He came late to the NBA, didn't become a regular rotation piece until that strike shortened 1999 season when he won MIP and 6MOY at the age of 30. However, the next season at age 31 he backed it up with pretty similar stats, started every game, and actually finished a couple slots higher in MVP voting (13th v 15th the year before) -- so that makes Armstrong a "2 season" wonder.

After those 2 seasons, Armstrong came back down to earth.

[XTC]

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

What causes a wild outlier? Does it take too much focus and concentration and then the player is too tired from that year of concentration and can't repeat it?

Shooting variance coupled to opportunity and teams not really caring because the team you're on sucks...

Raptors where also a really bad team that year, who payed no attention to defense, and had no perimeter creators. Mike James was given free reign on offense, there's a reason he fell off a cliff the next season.

Morris Peterson (a fine 3&D wing) averaged 17 a game, Chris Bosh with 23/9/2.5, Charlie V off the bench averaging 13/6, but yet the team only won 27 games.