Top 3 cockiest NY high school basketball players.
1. Lance
2. Sebastian
3. Cook
All are legends in their own minds. Is there a place more overrated than NYC?
Re Telfair, Yeah - those highly rated players (including an ungodly number of COLLEGIATE All Americans) NOT headed into their 8th season in the nba...I understand an ego the size of Texas, but that's actually not too bad for a 6'0 165 lb player in the modern era.
See any Telfair Jerseys in sporting goods stores? He's a bust. Like every other New York prospect, he's nothing close to the hype.
He's made a career and a nice $15 million in earnings, in addition to whatever adidas paid him out of the gate off of all that hype. I'd say he's done pretty well for himself.
Well, I guess if your criteria is "either or" --- Star or Bust with nothing in between, he's a Bust. But there are former Johnnies (and for me, Bruins or Hokikes) thru the years most folks might consider successes who didn't have even the "bust" career Telfair has. So....queue the Monkees singing "Shades of Gray"....
Could he have made boatloads more? Sure. He got as far as he wanted to.
Heck he was the 13th pick in the draft in 04 while the 14th pick was Kris Humphries. He only recently got his career on track. He's made $17 million oh and he married Kim Kardashian
Looking back on that '04 Draft the other HS'ers were Dwight Howard ($65M), Shaun Livingston ($18M) finally getting career back on track, Robert Swift ($11M) and out of the League, Al Jefferson ($43M), Josh Smith ($38M), JR Smith ($23M), and Dorell Wright ($14M). So they all pretty much cashed in and all are still in the League except for Swift. What is the average length of NBA career?
For those that enjoy statistical studies on career length prediction studies, check this doozy out:
http://www.thesportjournal.org/article/relationship-selected-pre-nba-career-variables-nba-players-career-longevityConclusion at the end of paper:
Conclusions and Recommendations:
A review of the literature shows the basketball scouting and player evaluation process leading to the NBA draft to be a difficult process and one that could benefit from more information in the form of statistical analysis. The data in the present study demonstrate that there is a relationship between collegiate play described statistically and career longevity in the NBA, as follows:
Assists, turnovers, and points recorded by guards over the year of college basketball play immediately preceding entrance into the NBA are related to NBA career longevity.
Assists, steals, turnovers, and points recorded by guards over 2 years of college basketball play immediately preceding entrance into the NBA are related to NBA career longevity.
Field goal percentage, free throw percentage, and assists recorded by forwards over the year of college basketball play immediately preceding entrance into the NBA are related to career longevity in the NBA.
Assists and rebounds recorded by forwards over 2 years of college basketball play immediately preceding entrance into the NBA are related to career longevity in the NBA.
The results of this study show a relationship between basketball’s statistics categories and NBA career longevity, but more work is needed to fully understand the predictive mechanism and provide general managers with more precise information. In addition, future studies should seek out data for the years prior to 1987–88 and following 2001–02, to begin to track historical trends in the relationship.