Kansas basketball: 5 Jayhawks who didn’t live up to the NBA hype

2.  Kansas basketball NBA busts: Thomas Robinson

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear here: this ranking is not at all a personal insult to Thomas Robinson. One of the most rootable players in Kansas history, Robinson won the hearts of Jayhawks’ fans when he decided to keep playing after losing his mother, grandmother, and grandfather in a three-week span in 2011.

Robinson was a reserve player on that team but stepped into the starting lineup the following year after the Morris twins went pro. The move was a smooth one for Robinson, who was the Big 12 Player of the Year and helped the Jayhawks advance all the way to the national championship game, where they lost to Anthony Davis and Kentucky.

Following the season Robinson declared for the NBA Draft, where he was taken fifth overall by the Sacramento Kings. The fit was poor there and Robinson quickly started bouncing around the NBA, beginning with a mid-season trade to the Houston Rockets in his rookie year.

In five NBA seasons, Robinson started just 12 games, never averaging more than 8.8 points per game for any team. Robinson completely washed out of the NBA in 2017, spending most of the past few years with teams in Russia and China.

In retrospect, this pick was a massive mistake for the Kings, who passed on Damian Lillard to draft Robinson. The strong year in 2012 really sent Robinson’s stock skyrocketing and he was probably overdrafted as a result, putting unrealistic expectations on his career.