Hypothetical Power Rankings: Early bust detection system

Here’s the thing: I actually really truly felt bad when, last week, I compared Brandon Ingram to Adam Morrison. Ingram is only 19 years old, the entire basketball industry agreed as recently as last June that his skills were prodigious, and there are no off-court red flags or distressing signs of on-court laziness that could threaten to derail Ingram’s career. To bring up the comparison of Adam Morrison, in 2017, is to cast doom on a player’s career, and it’s way too early to do that with Ingram. Right?

The flip side is, regardless of Ingram’s vast potential, virtually all of the NBA’s stars managed, in their rookie years, to piece together more impressive stat lines. For the wayward 2007-08 Seattle SuperSonics, Kevin Durant still drained 20 points a night. Blake Griffin did the same for the also-directionless 2010-11 Los Angeles Clippers. Even Steph Curry, who was far from an MVP-caliber player across his entire first NBA contract, finished sixth overall in 3-pointers made and seventh overall in 3-point accuracy — already showcasing an elite skill out of the gate. Ingram has yet to make an impact in remotely the same category.

And what about the 18 other rookies, alongside Ingram, who have produced zero or negative Win Shares so far this season? Are Dragan Bender, Dario Saric, Kris Dunn, and Denzel Valentine all already doomed to bust-hood? Producing zero or negative Win Shares places a player at the bottom of the league: only 49 players, total, have done so so far this season, including just 11 players who have been allowed on the court for 300 or more total minutes.

Read More: Toronto Raptors and the ‘mental blows’ of the NBA’s regular season

So I wondered: what is the best-case scenario for a player’s career after they finish their rookie year with zero or negative Win Shares? There are 138 active non-rookies who have persisted on after having a dud of a rookie year. The vast, vast majority of these players have yet to put together a positive season even after three or four NBA years, like Adreian Payne or Kendall Marshall or Sergey Karasev. But, somewhere in the mix, there are good NBA players, players who started to rebound in their sophomore seasons despite incredibly thin professional résumés. Let’s consider these players as realistic best-case scenarios for this year’s underwhelming rookies.

10. Avery Bradley

13.6 career Win Shares
Rookie team: 2010-11 Boston Celtics, 56-26
Reason for Struggle: Lack of minutes.

The Celtics were still The Celtics when they drafted Bradley, with the Boston Three Party making the team a serious title contender no matter how many regular season games the team lost due to rest. The previous year, 2009-10, Boston took the NBA Finals to Game 7 before falling to the Lakers — after winning just 50 regular-season games. That put Boston near the middle of the first round of the 2010 Draft, where they grabbed Bradley.

2010-11 was a tutelage year for Bradley, who was given just 162 total minutes behind a loaded guard rotation of Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen, Nate Robinson, Von Wafer, and Carlos Arroyo. Or: Bradley’s negative Win Shares as a rookie could have easily been a small-sample-size accident after he played in the screwy dregs of a garbage time game. When only Rondo and Allen returned to the team in 2011-12 — and then were both injured for large chunks of the regular season — Bradley immediately began contributing as a nighty regular, and he hasn’t stopped since.

9. Lance Stephenson

13.8 Career Win Shares
Rookie Team: 2010-11 Indiana Pacers, 37-45
Reason for Struggle: Still getting head screwed on straight.

It’s a testament to how good Stephenson was, briefly, for the Pacers that he’s still accumulated more career value than Bradley — for a few more weeks, anyway — after years of struggle. Under the patient mentorship of Larry Bird and Frank Vogel, Stephenson actually posted negative Win Shares in his first two seasons before becoming a rotation member and potential All-Star in 2012-13.

If the trend line on Stephenson’s career continues, though, he will be remembered as a cautionary tale: his career earnings are less than what Damian Lillard is making this season.

8. Otto Porter

15.1 Career Win Shares
Rookie Team: 2013-14 Washington Wizards, 44-38
Reason for Struggle: Lack of minutes.

While these Wizards were no match to the Celtics team that had young Avery Bradley riding the bench, they treated Porter in almost exactly the same way. As Washington strode into the second round, Porter was buried almost entirely behind the small forward rotation of Trevor Ariza and Martell Webster.

Seeing as Porter’s Win Shares in 2016-17 are up among the All-Stars, maybe the decision to integrate him into the rotation ultra-slowly was actually a savvy developmental move?

7. Marcus Morris

18 Career Win Shares
Rookie Team: 2011-12 Houston Rockets, 34-32
Reasons for Struggle: Emotional distress (away from twin), lack of minutes, lockout year.

All sorts of factors worked against Morris in his rookie year, from the training-camp-erasing lockout to the Rockets making one of the best second-round picks of all-time, Chandler Parsons, who ate up any minutes Morris would have had to gain familiarity on the court.

The next summer, in anticipation of the upcoming James Harden trade (right before Morris’ sophomore season), the Rockets cleared cap space by cutting Luis Scola and trading away Chase Budinger. Morris took advantage of the new hole in the rotation by canning 38.1 percent of his 3-pointers, and he hasn’t dropped out of an NBA rotation since.

6. Patty Mills

18.1 Career Win Shares
Rookie Team: 2009-10 Portland Trail Blazers, 50-32
Reason for Struggle: Lack of minutes.

The pattern is pretty clear now: if you’re a rookie who gets drafted onto a good team, that team will probably be loaded with veterans, probably at your position, and all bets are off as you get (in Mills’ case) 38 minutes of play on the entire season. In his rookie year, Mills was on the outside looking in of a three-headed point guard rotation: Andre Miller, Steve Blake, and Jerryd Bayless. When only Miller returned the next season, Mills ably filled in as his back-up for the whole year.

Going into 2011-12, Mills’ third season, Portland felt they no longer needed him after investing a first-round pick on Nolan Smith. But Mills had put enough on tape to impress the San Antonio Spurs, and the rest is history.

This low-minutes-on-a-good-team trend is reassuring news for struggling rookies like Diamond Stone, Kyle Wiltjer, Henry Ellenson, Georges Niang, and Mills’ current teammate Dejounte Murray.

5. Corey Brewer

18.8 Career Win Shares
Rookie Team: 2007-08 Minnesota Timberwolves, 22-60
Reason for Struggle: Complementary player on a bad team.

Win Shares calculates Brewer as having a positive defensive impact even way back then. It’s just that his offense — including 37.4 percent field goal accuracy — was so poor it dragged his total Win Shares down into the negatives.

Seeing how productive Brewer is has been for years for the playoff-contending Houston Rockets, I wonder if his subpar rookie year was a result of Brewer — who is not necessarily an individual playmaker — effectively sinking down to the level of his teammates. Those 2007-08 Timberwolves were a lowly 27th in offensive rating. After an injury-stunted 2008-09 season for Brewer, he returned to a 2009-10 Timberwolves team that was even worse (29th in offensive rating). Brewer did not have a positive full season of offense until 2011-12, as a member of the Denver Nuggets, who finished that year third in offensive rating.

We’ve seen something similar happen to, coincidentally, the Nuggets’ own Gary Harris. After posting negative Win Shares as a rookie in 2014-15 for Brian Shaw’s uninspired squad, Harris has become a rotation mainstay as the team has improved under Mike Malone.

4. Marco Belinelli

22.7 Career Win Shares
Rookie Team: 2007-08 Golden State Warriors, 48-34
Reason for Struggle: Nellieball.

In exchange for being one of the most fun NBA teams of all-time, Don Nelson’s hyper-speed Warriors teams gave up quite a bit in the advanced statistics categories thanks to a defensive attitude that could be described, at best, as “indifferent.” After posting Defensive Ratings of 115 and 116 in his two years playing for Nelson, Belinelli got that same number down to 105 and 106 in his two years for Gregg Popovich.

3. Kris Humphries

30 Career Win Shares
Rookie Team: 2004-05 Utah Jazz, 26-56
Reason for Struggle: Complementary player on bad team.

Humphries was drafted by Utah just in time to see the franchise have its first losing season since the eighties. Just like Brewer, Humphries made a positive defensive impact in his first season — which was outweighed by his negative offensive impact. The Jazz were a bottom-ten team in Offensive Rating during both seasons Humphries was there. Then Humphries was traded to the Toronto Raptors for the 2006-07 season — a top-ten team in offensive rating — and immediately saw his true shooting percentage jump about ten points.

2. Lou Williams

46.1 Career Win Shares
Rookie Team: 2005-06 Philadelphia 76ers, 38-44
Reasons for Struggle: Lack of minutes, skinny high-schooler.

Williams had the good fortune to finish up his high school career in the spring of 2005 — just before the preps-to-pros leap was banned. Williams was drafted in perhaps the greatest second round ever, alongside fellow high schoolers C.J. Miles, Monta Ellis, and Amir Johnson. In that rookie year, Williams received just 145 total minutes and easily set career-worsts in true shooting percentage, assist rate, and turnover rate. As a second-round pick straight out of high school, it’s entirely reasonable that Williams would need a year or two to find himself — just like his peers in the draft class would need, too.

Although his game is nothing like Williams’, this is encouraging news for Dragan Bender, who is also posting negative Win Shares thus far. Bender’s age, thin frame, and limited on-court experience are all very similar to what Williams experienced.

1. Jamal Crawford

57.9 Career Win Shares
Rookie Team: 2000-01 Chicago Bulls, 15-67
Reason for Struggle: Young gunner on a bad team.

It’s hard to imagine a worse scenario, rookie-development-wise, than the one Crawford found himself in after a 17-game collegiate career. Eight of the sixteen players to appear for the wayward Bulls that season were rookies, including Marcus Fizer and first-round pick Dalibor Bagaric. One of the non-rookies was Ron Artest. The oldest player on the team was 28-year-old Fred Hoiberg. Given 1,000 minutes in the porous rotation, Crawford shot 35.2 percent from the field and turned the ball over at about twice his career rate. That just about sums it up.

Now, in the many years since then, Crawford has built up an enviable NBA career. He is the Sixth Man. He has earned over $100 million in salary, with another $17.2 million in guaranteed cash heading his way. He is the father figure of a thriving and close-knit Seattle basketball community. Out of all the players in the NBA, it is he who earned a shout-out for excellent on-court style from foremost basketball connoisseur Jimmy Goldstein. His career is also remarkably long: Crawford is 49th in league history in total games played, and will climb another rung on that ladder about once a week or so.

There are also a lot of similarities between where Crawford started his career and where Ingram is starting his career, down to the presence of Metta World Peace. But. Even though Crawford is the most successful current example of a player to rebound from a no-good, terrible rookie season, he has never been the type of player to build a franchise around. Despite Crawford’s prodigious amount of games played, he is also 45th among only active players in career Win Shares (or 281st all-time). That puts him behind Blake Griffin, whose career started a decade later than Crawford’s did.

Next: This clip of DeAndre Jordan lip syncing Seal's 'Kiss from a Rose' will change your life

So, if this recent history of underperforming rookies holds true, it is indeed too early to call Ingram a bust. There is still more than enough plausible time and opportunity for Ingram to avoid the swift burn-out of an Adam Morrison and become a valuable, big-earning NBA player. But, considering the weight of expectations surrounding all things Lakers, Ingram would also have to defy all of recent history if he is indeed going to become a centerpiece player on a championship team.