Joel Embiid was supposed to be the next big thing to take Philadelphia by storm.
The 76ers drafted him high in the draft. Then he appears to be breaking down. He’s out for the rest of the 2016-17 season with a meniscus injury that appears to be worse than the doctors first feared.
Then Fox Sports, in a report posted online, took note of the following. “Now, the soon-to-be 23-year-old is staring into the abyss ā as the ghosts of Greg Oden, Yao Ming, Sam Bowie, Bill Walton and the like stare right back.”
More than a few of us out here took particular note of three of the four men mentioned: Greg Oden, Sam Bowie and Bill Walton.
What do these young men have in common?
They all were first-round picks of the Portland Trail Blazers, my hometown NBA team.
Ugghh!
Oden and Bowie never made the grade in the pros. They broke down. I guess I should fess up that the Blazers picked Bowie over another up-and-comer, a young man out of North Carolina named Michael “Air” Jordan.
Walton was injury-prone from the start, although he did put together two great seasons for the Blazers, leading them to the NBA title in 1977 and winning the league’s most valuable player award the following season; he then suffered yet anotherĀ serious injury — and sued the Blazers for medical malpractice.
Oh, the memories. Some of them I’d rather forget.
Judging by their NBA careers, Bill Walton and Bill Bradley are among the least accomplished Basketball Hall-of-Fame inductees. Both had stellar, highly visible college careers – a severe understatement for Walton, who was perhaps even more dominant at UCLA than Lew Alcindor before him – at least in “postseason”.
Of course, Walton was also the best player on the NBA Champion ‘Blazers and (as you stated) MVP – Bill Bradley was never the best anything as a pro (except, perhaps, best U.S. Senator).
And, Walton was likely the NBA’s best bench player the year he and the Celtics won NBA Champion (in 1986?)
The UCLA, Wooden, Celtics, “intangibles” apparently overcame for HOF voters the sheer lack of minutes/games (fewer than 500) that was forced by Walton’s chronically injured foot.
Yao Ming was inducted despite similar fragility and possessing quite different intangibles.
The hoops HoF contains a lot of dubious members. I wonder at times how some of those guys qualify.