25 NBA Players Who Wasted the Most Talent

[Andrew]

True. He could've been better though, he had the tools.

[NovU]

For some reason, talking about Miles reminds me of Livingston as well. Both were promising young players who seemed to have a solid career ahead of them. But honestly, I don't think their ceiling was that high, at least not as much as hype, yeah something we'll never know though.

[Andrew]

I think Livingston could've been a solid combo guard, perhaps not a star but a capable starter or perhaps key bench player on a good team, but that gruesome injury seems to have closed the door on that possibility.

[Kenny]

Livingston was always a favourite of mine on NBA Live, particularly 08.

[NovU]

I think Livingston could've been a solid combo guard, perhaps not a star but a capable starter or perhaps key bench player on a good team, but that gruesome injury seems to have closed the door on that possibility.

Oh yeah. Decent player overall with good length. Could have turned out to be a real solid material if developed consistently without injury. Good to see him still playing a decent basketball but I'd say slightly less than average.

I sorta could link him to Miles because both their career came to a halt pretty much at age of 24. Both had great length for the position and upsides. Well, other than that pretty much different characters I guess.

[shadowgrin]

Bleacher Report is known to churn out trash-tier articles that can usually be written by freshmen high school kids so I never really read their articles unless it's for unintentional comedy.

Same, though there are very very few ones that do cite their sources, which makes it decent read and also read the sources itself.

[Andrew]

If nothing else, they can prompt discussion.

[atlwarrior]

One of the first names that popped into my head when reading the list was Darius Miles. The guy was given so many opportunities to prove himself and always seemed like one mental hurdle away from blowing up but never put it together.

I really liked him as a player and he served me well in my NBA Live 2004 dynasty with the Cleveland Cavaliers. DaJuan Wagner, Ricky Davis, Young LeBron, Darius MIles, Carlos Boozer and Ilgauskas were more to fun to play with than the 2010 Cavaliers.

[_Steve_]

If nothing else, they can prompt discussion.

With no off season trades /trade rumors, I hope for more of those. :

[kAmilli LakeShow]

Crittenton was one of my favourite Lakers in NBA Live 2008 original roster XD 83 OVR , higher than people like Al Harrington, choke on that. Going back to that, why did they overrate rookies so much that year in NBA Live?

[Andrew]

NBA Live 08 last gen (which included the PC release) was an afterthought and as such, a sloppy product. My guess is they assigned a bunch of placeholder ratings when adding some of the rookies and never got around to double checking and polishing them up.

[Patr1ck]

They probably went directly off of their college stats.

[Andrew]

Ah, good call.

[Nick]

Robert Swift, now there was a wasted talent.



Wait, did he ever have talent??

[Kenny]

If he ever had talent (big if), it was completely derailed by injuries. 97 games in 5 seasons, 1 of which he played no games because he did his ACL in a preseason game. So probably a combination of being a bad high school pick and injuries. Wouldn't say his talent was really wasted.

[rise]

I think Livingston could've been a solid combo guard, perhaps not a star but a capable starter or perhaps key bench player on a good team, but that gruesome injury seems to have closed the door on that possibility.

He definitely showed some flashes last season. He's got a REALLY long frame for a PG, (I think he's got a near-7ft. wingspan) and he can dunk and block shots well for a point guard. He can still jump despite his injury. If he added some range on his jump shot, he could be a threat (maybe 7th or 8th guy) on a legit playoff team. If you watched him regularly in the second half of last season, you definitely saw at least a good bit of improvement from him. If Brandon Jennings goes down/gets traded next season, I think Livingston would start.

I remember a SLAM article that said D-Miles could one day average 25 points, 12 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 blocks, 2 steals a game (something crazy like that). Damn were they wrong!

7 assists, my ass.

[benji]

Looking at his numbers he wasn't terrible, just not very good. He probably would be a serviceable third or fourth string big. Grab some boards, block some shots, score a little off put backs, foul a ton.

The problem with the high school kids/Euros was that if you were 6-10+ and 17 it was assumed you had all this amazing potential merely because you were young. When anyone could look at all the bigs in the league and realize less than 1/10 are actually players who wound up being at all-star or better level. So teams use high picks on guys like Tskita, Kwame, Darius Miles, Bender, Swift, etc. And when they turn out to never be anything it's somehow their fault when they were probably not that great in the first place and were never going to be great. Even if they went to college and were hardly anything special people would still dream about the "potential" they have because of their size. Hell, even if they played five seasons in the NBA people are be sure every young player is just about to turn the corner and become the star we know they "should be" look at how long the Pacers wasted their franchise on the idea that Al Harrington was going to be a superstar or how Sebastian Telfair and Kwame Brown keep getting work.

As an aside, Swift looks like this now:

Averaging 18.9 pts 13.6 rebs and 2.34 blocks per 36 in Japan whatever that means for a 7-1 player in Japan.

Apparently the league is called the bj League. (shadow and Jackal are signing up for tryouts already?) And Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (Chris Jackson) was the best guard in the league in 2009-10.

[Nick]

Looks like he can actually grow proper facial hair now.

[Mandich]

Steve Francis and Len Bias, what could of been if Steve was smart and if Len stayed alive . . . damn