5 Young NBA Players Facing Make-or-Break Seasons in 2014-15
Promise and potential don't always amount to production in the NBA.
Young players like Harrison Barnes, who come into the league with a perfect pedigree and quickly find themselves locked in a struggle they never expected, know that better than most.
Make-or-break seasons are whatever you want them to be. Established superstars like Derrick Rose and Kobe Bryant are facing pivotal campaigns of their own this year, as are players like Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. Playing in the NBA means always having something to prove.
What we're after in this list, specifically, are young talents who've failed to play as well as their early billing suggested.
We'll deal only with players under the age of 24 who, for a variety of reasons, have yet to solidify their roles and, in some cases, their futures in the NBA.
Opportunities are out there for all of them, but they may not be around forever. These guys need to make good on what could be their last chances.
Derrick Williams, Sacramento Kings
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Forgot he existed, didn't you?
You're probably not alone in having scrubbed Derrick Williams from your memory, which is part of the reason he winds up on this list. Unless you're one of the few still holding out hope that there's a viable NBA career ahead for the former No. 2 overall pick in the 2011 draft, Williams' make-or-break moment may have already come and gone.
And it doesn't look like he's going to make it.
Stuck in a positionless void somewhere between small forward and power forward, Williams has yet to show the ability to hit from the perimeter (career 29.4 percent from long range) or defend conventional bigs. According to 82games.com, opposing power forwards rang up a player efficiency rating of 30.2 against Williams during his half-season with the Sacramento Kings last year.
Basically, being guarded by Williams turns every offensive player into prime LeBron James.
To this point, Williams has logged just 33 minutes over six games with the Kings—not ideal for a high lottery pick in just his fourth NBA season.
Williams possesses serious athleticism, but it's of the straight-line, A-to-B variety that doesn't translate especially well to a pro game requiring intuitive adjustments and fluid motion. It's easy to see why Williams' gifts made him a high pick in 2011, but it's just as clear now that they aren't ideally suited for long-term success.
If the Kings were to lose a forward or two from the rotation, Williams could get one last shot to prove himself this season. But barring a rash of injuries, it seems we're nearing the end of a very brief, mildly sad era for the other D-Will.
Austin Rivers, New Orleans Pelicans
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This is the year Austin Rivers, maligned as a historically unproductive rookie and dismissed as a still-unready sophomore, solidifies himself as a rotation-quality guard.
That's what he and the New Orleans Pelicans hope, anyway.
Rivers is in his third season after being selected 10th overall in 2012, which is something of an accomplishment in and of itself considering the way his career began. ESPN.com's Kevin Pelton (subscription required) chronicled the early struggles of Doc's kid back in 2012:
"In fact, Rivers is on track to make dubious history during his rookie campaign. Two months into the season, Rivers projects to rate nearly seven wins worse than a replacement-level player by my player metric, which would be the worst WARP score in the 34 seasons on record, starting with 1979-80, the first NBA season with the three-point line.
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Things have steadily improved from there, and the 22-year-old guard is playing above replacement level for the first time in his career this season, per Basketball-Reference.com. Rivers has cut his turnovers, bumped up his assist rate and, perhaps most importantly, shot the ball much better this season.
It's early, and his 50 percent shooting from the field is likely to regress (Rivers has shot 39.5 percent for his career). But there are real signs of progress.
The biggest one?
"I think maturity," Rivers told Jennifer Hale of Fox Sports Southwest. "As the years go on, you get better, smarter. I'm 22 and at the point where I'm still going up physically and growing mentally."
It would have sounded crazy a couple of years ago, but Rivers is well on his way to sticking in the league. We'll see if he can keep it up as the season progresses.
Harrison Barnes, Golden State Warriors
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Harrison Barnes, selected seventh overall in 2012, looks every inch the All-Star wing. Always has.
Standing at 6'8" and gifted with long arms and considerable bounce, the Golden State Warriors' third-year forward has all the tools. Aside from occasional flashes, though, he hasn't yet figured out how to put them to work.
Barnes regressed across the board in 2013-14, a decline attributable to his ill-fitting role as bench shot-creator and worryingly similar to his second collegiate season at North Carolina. Barnes has a history of looking the part, setting the bar high and then failing to meet expectations.
Like Williams, his is an athleticism that lacks basketball utility.
He's fast but can't beat his man off the dribble. He's strong but rarely finishes through contact. He can fly but rarely has a runway long enough for takeoff.
As a result, everything Barnes does on a basketball court looks maddeningly difficult—far harder than it should for a player with his physical talents.
Reinserted into the starting lineup this season, HB has played better. His per-minute numbers have returned to their rookie levels, and he's shooting the ball at career-best accuracy rates from the field and from long range.
Barnes, by virtue of his athleticism and youth (22), is in no danger of washing out of the NBA. But his teammate, Draymond Green, has quickly surpassed him in terms of production. And the Warriors' crowded forward rotation (and salary cap) almost certainly won't have room for the both of them after this season—when Green is due to hit free agency.
If forced to make a decision between the two, Golden State would absolutely go with Green and his grittier game.
It'll be up to Barnes to make that choice tougher.
Anthony Bennett, Minnesota Timberwolves
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It's not often the No. 1 overall pick in a draft winds up changing teams after just one season, but it's also not often that a rookie puts up a season as disappointing as Anthony Bennett did in 2013-14.
Overweight and out of shape because of a shoulder injury and asthma, Bennett missed his first 16 shots as a pro and struggled to what many called one of the worst rookie seasons in league history.
Here's what SB Nation's Drew Garrison wrote nearly three-and-a-half months into Bennett's nightmare debut: "Anthony Bennett is having the worst rookie season of any No. 1 pick in the past 24 seasons, and it isn't even close. His PER—a whopping 1.1—is 10.1 lower than Kwame Brown, a player considered one of the biggest busts in draft history. That's the next-closest player to him."
Things didn't end quite as bleakly as they began; Bennett gradually got into better shape and finished the year with a PER of 6.9, per Basketball-Reference.com—not good by any stretch, but at least less historically embarrassing.
Few players have ever needed a do-over more than Bennett, and the offseason trade that sent him to the Minnesota Timberwolves as part of a package that landed Kevin Love provided one.
Slimmed down, far more efficient and motivated, Bennett has looked worlds better with his new team. Still, nothing about his future is certain. Top overall picks aren't typically viewed as successful when they're playing under 12 minutes per game for a bad team in their second season.
Bennett has proved his resiliency, but he's got a long, long way to go before he sheds the "bust" label.
Jeremy Lamb, Oklahoma City Thunder
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In some ways, Jeremy Lamb, drafted 12th overall in 2012, was set up to fail with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
A key piece in the trade that saw James Harden head to the Houston Rockets, Lamb faced the unfair prospect of eventually replacing a player who would quickly go on to superstardom—making the Thunder look cheap at best and foolish at worst in the process.
All Lamb did in his first two years with Oklahoma City was tantalize in summer league and slip down the depth chart when the real games kicked off. And even when he seemed to be progressing in the early going last year, Lamb followed up those signs of growth with regressions.
His post-All-Star-break numbers dipped dramatically.
| 2013-14 | ORtg | DRtg | TS% | PPG |
| Pre-All-Star Break | 110 | 105 | .541 | 10.0 |
| Post-All-Star Break | 87 | 107 | .445 | 5.0 |
Opportunity is knocking this season, though, as OKC let veteran Thabo Sefolosha leave via free agency over the summer (sign-and-trade deal with the Atlanta Hawks). Lamb's path to a starting job, or at least heavy minutes, is clear, and so too is his chance to prove his worth.
Injury has limited him to just four games to this point, but with the Thunder missing Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook for the next few weeks, a now-recovered Lamb is in line for heavy minutes and as many shots as he wants.
He'll never be Harden, but this season presents Lamb with a chance to prove he can contribute consistently—and that OKC's return on a much-criticized trade wasn't quite as underwhelming as it appeared.
