Broken Hoop Dreams: Where Did It Go Wrong for Former Phenom Sebastian Telfair?

Long read, but it's worth it. Dude is looking at 15 years behind bars.......smh....

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2729 ... g-national

That's a shame. Sounds like a couple of bad and careless decisions, but it's hardly a Robert Swift-type of situation. Hopefully for his family's sake, it can be sorted out without a lengthy jail sentence, though that may be unlikely.

Interesting point about him being ahead of his time. There might be some truth to that, but it could also be that he just wasn't an NBA level talent at the end of the day. Not all prodigies are success stories once they make the big time, after all.

Yeah. He still lasted 10 years in the league though I have no idea how.

I'd say worse players have stuck around for just as long. Teams have to fill out their rosters each year, and there's probably a good four to five years where a player that comes in with a reasonable amount of hype is given a chance to fulfil their potential. It makes sense that he'd get a few opportunities and stick around for a while.

Totally not worth it at all.

Under six foot tall guard who can't shoot makes millions of dollars based off of his family reputation, career ends, gets pulled over and charged with crimes similar to those he admitted to committing almost ten years prior.

Also, nobody will talk to the writer.

I remember scrolling players ratings in NBA Live 2005. I saw that this guy lacked shooting and size, so I decided to not play with the guy when I was with Blazers.

Around mid 2000s when Telfair was drafted, the guards haven't had a scoring role. Sebastian was kind of a Stephon Marbury with terrible perimeter shooting, if I recall correctly.

I was like "man, this guy won't be an All-Star".

Author wrote all that for nothing, it's like reading a Wiki entry.
Nowhere in that article did I ever find myself concerned or interested for whatever Telfair was up to or going through.



Speaking of Robert Swift, this is a better written piece compared to Telfair's:

Out From The Darkness: Robert Swift's road from NBA lottery pick to drug addict to...

One of the good parts:

Still, life is not so bad. Ichiro Suzuki hears of Swift’s Japanese roots and asks to meet him. Swift buys a kick-ass truck, eats like a king. And he gets to play against his idols. The first time he guards Tim Duncan, Swift pushes up on him on the block, trying to impress him.

“Nah, nah, don’t do that,” Duncan says.

Swift is surprised. Duncan never talks to opponents. And yet...

“The ball’s going to swing to the other side, get position,” Duncan continues.

The ball swings. Swift follows orders, shuffling his feet across the lane, staying behind Duncan.

“No, further up,” Duncan says. Swift takes a half-step.

“No, a little higher, don’t let me duck in on you.”

Swift complies.

“All right, now come back,” Duncan says, moving across the lane. “The ball’s about to be swung back, but it’s not coming to me this time so don’t worry about it. But now you know how to play it.”

With that, Duncan plays hard the rest of the game, but the moment sticks with Swift.