NBA Draft Bust Week: What did we miss about Thomas Robinson?

Coming out of Kansas in 2012, Thomas Robinson was seen as a potentially game-changing force at power forward. Now, he is out of the league. What happened?

As with everything, context and timing each play key roles in the Thomas Robinson story. When he came out of college following his remarkable junior season in 2012, during which he led the Kansas Jayhawks to a national title game appearance against Anthony Davis and the eventual champion Kentucky Wildcats, Robinson appeared to be everything a modern power forward should be: strong and unquestionably athletic with an ability to run the floor and a keen nose for rebounds.

After finally shoveling off the Morris brothers coil at Kansas, the twin Virgos having added differentiating characteristics by virtue of disparate teams having drafted them the year before, Robinson was able to showcase his skills. He had touch, he had poise and he saw the floor in a way that his raw assist numbers (1.8 per game in 2011-12) did not necessarily reflect. He defended well, averaging almost a block and over a steal per game.

And man, could he rebound. Robinson had 22 double-doubles in his junior year, including a 30-20 performance against North Dakota on New Year’s Eve, and added three more in the first three games of the NCAA Tournament. He finished his collegiate career with an 18-point, 17-board effort in the title game. The future was wide open.

Draft experts tagged him with incredibly of-their-time comparisons, like Patrick Patterson and Derrick Williams, as well as drawing more fawning parallels to the likes of Blake Griffin. At the time, anyway, he was considered a better shooter than Griffin had been coming out of Oklahoma, with comparable physicality and effectiveness on the receiving end of a pick-and-roll or -pop.

Alas, he went to a graveyard of so many promising would-be studs of this century. Their last half-decade under Vivek Ranadivé and Vlade Divac awaits to be arraigned, but for most of the period between the 2002 Western Conference Finals appearance and today, the Sacramento Kings have actively worked against their own progress as a franchise and, amazingly, against the individual progress of every player they drafted, including All-NBA center DeMarcus Cousins.

Only two years after the team had taken Cousins in the same slot, the Sacramento Kings took Robinson No. 5 overall. Cousins himself compared his frontcourt mate to Paul Millsap; as it happened, the two shared only 209 minutes in Robinson’s rookie season, registering a sterling net -23 rating. Praise and $2.50 gets you onto the bus in Sacramento.

From there, his journey hasn’t been especially easy, and even less notable. In his first career start, in his third year and with his third team, the Portland Trail Blazers, he had 15 points and 16 rebounds; even then, he registered the lowest game score, per Basketball-Reference, of any player to do so while having a 62 field goal percentage or higher and fewer than eight field goal attempts.

His trajectory since has been similarly woebegone. He has maintained a roughly five points-per-game average in all of Sacramento, Houston, Portland, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Toronto and with the Lakers, and he has not played in the NBA since 2017. His career-high in points is 23 from a game with the Nets against the Wizards in 2016; his rebounding high is 18 from a different game with the Blazers two years earlier against the Timberwolves. Neither of these exactly spells trouble to the opposition.

Despite his defensive rebounding rate consistently being over 27 percent since 2014, which would have led the league this past season, he is out of the NBA. Robinson is only 28 years old and plying his trade with the Maine Red Claws, a Celtics G League affiliate; he spends his time in the offseason on righteous pursuits and Michael Phelps comparisons via his Twitter, as it happens.

In hindsight, it is easy to see how we all could have staked so much on what essentially amounted to one incredible season following two underwhelming, pedestrian years. Robinson’s entry into the NBA came right at the time when the value of big men was being re-assessed; he, of course, was apart of the same draft class as both Anthony Davis and Draymond Green, the latter whose own renaissance would act as a catalyst for the reign of the Golden State Warriors.

Plenty of Thomas Robinson’s draft profiles note his aforementioned raw athleticism in the face of just then becoming an all-around “basketball player,” and despite his obvious on-court IQ, he had inherent flaws that only became more apparent once he made it to the NBA. As much as anyone, Robinson remains a case study in nature vs. nurture, and no one can say with any certainty how he would have turned out, or may yet still, given the right opportunity, coaching and direction.

The history of his draft slot is, frankly, rather loaded. Fifth overall draft picks run the gamut from Walt Frazier and Ray Allen to Larry Cannon and James Ray. Sidney Moncrief, Charles Barkley, Scottie Pippen, Kevin Garnett, Vince Carter, Ray Allen, Dwyane Wade and Kevin Love all count themselves among the ranks of the fifth overall, and you could certainly do worse.

Thomas Robinson, bust so far he may be, has a proud collegiate legacy to uphold, thin in longevity though it may be. By his age, former teammate Jason Thompson had already set several dubious franchise records with the Kings.

If nothing else, Robinson can rest his laurels on the fact that he was not a human consolation prize. And if he returns to the NBA with anything else, he will be able to stake his claim in a better role: that of the dark horse, on whom expectations are lost, but ambition remains.