Waiting on Potential
He'll live up to his potential. . . any day now
Some players don’t pan out during their early years. GMs are more than willing to give certain players a second chance though. In spite of their “bust” titles Kwame Brown and Darko Milicic are still gainfully employed. It’s easy enough to believe that players with enough potential will eventually “snap out of it” and become a star despite playing poorly early in their career. Is this really a reasonable assumption?
I decided to look for late bloomers. Here was my criteria:
- Player played two seasons where they earned 10+ Wins (Star) during their career
- Player never had a good season (WP48>0.150 and 1000+ MP) in their rookie contract (first four years)
Has the NBA traditionally been ripe with players that simple needed a little more time to develop? Should a GM invest their efforts into finding diamonds in the rough that other GMs overlooked? The answer appears to be no.
Late Bloomers
It Takes some MVPs a little time to get NBA ready
Table 1: Late Bloomers before they Bloomed.
| Player | Pre-Star Seasons | Pre-Star G | Pre-Star GS | Pre-Star MP | Pre-Star WP48 | Pre-Star WP |
| Chauncey Billups | 5 | 297 | 203 | 8154 | 0.071 | 12.1 |
| Darrell Walker | 5 | 378 | 126 | 8796 | 0.096 | 17.6 |
| Detlef Schrempf | 5 | 374 | 52 | 8690 | 0.090 | 16.3 |
| Doug Christie | 4 | 155 | 51 | 2962 | 0.037 | 2.3 |
| Gary Payton | 4 | 327 | 321 | 10222 | 0.127 | 27.0 |
| Gerald Wallace | 4 | 208 | 77 | 3485 | 0.105 | 7.6 |
| Mike Miller | 5 | 351 | 283 | 10747 | 0.115 | 25.8 |
| Sam Cassell | 6 | 353 | 126 | 9205 | 0.087 | 16.7 |
| Stephon Marbury | 7 | 502 | 496 | 19196 | 0.086 | 34.5 |
| Steve Nash | 5 | 307 | 148 | 7536 | 0.112 | 17.6 |
| Terrell Brandon | 4 | 304 | 68 | 6736 | 0.086 | 12.1 |
Table 2: Late Bloomers after they Bloomed
| Player | Post-Star Seasons | Post-Star Star Seasons | Post-Star G | Post Star GS | Post-Star MP | Post-Star WP48 | Post-Star WP |
| Chauncey Billups | 9 | 7 | 685 | 685 | 23523 | 0.213 | 104.3 |
| Darrell Walker | 5 | 3 | 342 | 230 | 9805 | 0.218 | 44.5 |
| Detlef Schrempf | 11 | 7 | 762 | 472 | 24907 | 0.193 | 100.0 |
| Doug Christie | 11 | 3 | 672 | 657 | 23116 | 0.159 | 76.7 |
| Gary Payton | 13 | 10 | 1008 | 912 | 36895 | 0.185 | 142.5 |
| Gerald Wallace | 6 | 5 | 407 | 392 | 15394 | 0.239 | 76.6 |
| Mike Miller | 6 | 3 | 382 | 247 | 12480 | 0.214 | 55.7 |
| Sam Cassell | 9 | 3 | 640 | 564 | 20608 | 0.149 | 64.1 |
| Stephon Marbury | 6 | 2 | 344 | 320 | 12690 | 0.113 | 29.8 |
| Steve Nash | 10 | 10 | 783 | 783 | 26637 | 0.260 | 144.3 |
| Terrell Brandon | 7 | 4 | 420 | 412 | 14809 | 0.206 | 63.5 |
We do have some genuinely awesome talents. Chauncey Billups, Detlef Schrempf, Gary Payton and Steve Nash all turned into great players after their rocky starts. Walker, Christie, Cassell and Brandon managed to have short bursts of greatness. Miller and Wallace are still playing and their ability to overcome injury will dictate their legacy. Marbury managed to turn himself from a below average overrated scorer to an average overrated scorer. There’s hope for every player!
Summing Up
Dudes. . . time to give up on these guys
Despite the fact that late bloomers do exist we should not be so optimistic. Over 2500 players have suited up since 1978. Around 300 of these players have turned into “stars”. It’s very rare to find a star player and even rarer to find one out of a pool of players that have been playing badly. Everyone can hope that their favorite player that is chocked full of potential will turn it around. Sadly, the fact is if it hasn’t happened by their first contract extension, it probably won’t ever happen. That won’t stop many GMs from hoping though.
-Dre
Wages of Wins Journal 
James
August 16, 2011
The most interesting thing to me is that none of these players are bigs – and it seems like every player with “potential” is a big. So maybe it’s never worth gambling on big men – if they’re gonna be good, they’ll be good when they get in the league. Were there a lot of close calls for the list?
fricktho
August 16, 2011
I love this post. Sometimes you guys at Wow come out with an article with a great concept and this is one of them. I’d prefer maybe even some more in-depth research on this topic by not just limiting it to rookie contracts or 10+ win produced. I’d like to know how long is an acceptable amount of time to wait on ‘potential’. It would be fantastic if that was in someway quantifiable. Obviously it’s quite rare to see a player suddenly become great mid-way through his career. There aren’t exactly a ton of Zach Randolph’s or Chauncey Billup’s out there.
greyv
August 17, 2011
Great idea for a post. One nit-pick–the two tables should be “pre-star” and “star.” Can’t wait for the follow-up on when to cut the cord, and when to tie the knot!
Patrick Minton (@nbageek)
August 17, 2011
Wait, so when Stephon Marbury finally had a season where he was average he was a star? I think you’re stretching things there :)
Also, .127 is very good for a Rookie, so perhaps Payton didn’t bloom all that late?
James,
I tend to agree, especially because one of the most important factors for bigs is rebounding, and rebounding is generally one of those things that players are good at right away (i.e. not one of those things that players get better at over time) or not at all.