One-season wonders in professional sports are prevalent, especially in the NBA. It’s not uncommon to have a player perform at an elite level, then inexplicably fall out of everybody’s radar after a year.
Just when we all thought we’d witnessed another all-star caliber guy come out of nowhere, we are immediately taken aback by the subsequent regression that happens to the player’s career after his coming out party.
While that’s unfortunate, it’s quite a phenomenon for every professional basketball athlete. Here are the top 15 one-season wonders in the NBA.
Who are the top one-season wonders in the history of the NBA?
Aaron Brooks
When the Rockets drafted Brooks as the 26th overall pick in the 2007 NBA Draft, there was hope that he could be their long-term solution at point guard in the Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady era.
Brooks was mostly relegated to an off-the-bench role for Houston for the first couple of years. However, everything changed during his third year in the league. Brooks was named the league’s Most Improved Player after averaging 19.6 PPG for the 2009-2010 season.
With Brooks’ stellar play at just 25 years old, Houston was optimistic that they had an all-star quality point guard on their team. Well, that assumption only lasted a year as the six-foot guard struggled mightily after winning MIP. His team abruptly traded him to the Suns in the middle of the season, and it was all downhill from there.
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Dana Barros
At 5-foot-10, it’s quite impressive that Barros lasted 14 years in the league. 90s die-hard fans fondly remember him as a member of the Boston Celtics, who were then in the midst of a rebuild.
While Barros was okay as a player, he had one of the most memorable one-season wonders in NBA history. In the 1994-1995 season, as a member of the Sixers, Barros averaged 20.6 PPG, won the Most Improved Player Award, and was named an all-star.
After that magical run, Barros became mostly an afterthought. He never came close to averaging 20 points in a season for the rest of his career and became a bench guy until retiring in 2004.
Ronald “Flip” Murray
As somebody who was drafted in the second round of the 2002 NBA Draft, not much was expected from Murray. As a rookie, he barely had any playing time on an NBA court and was traded in the middle of the season.
However, during his sophomore year, Murray started the 2003-2004 season with a bang for the Seattle Supersonics. He even had some heroic moments that resulted in some wins, making multiple clutch baskets in the process.
Oddly enough, Murray never replicated his success throughout the rest of his career. His name was often involved in trades until his retirement in 2010 at the age of 30.
Richard Dumas
Dumas garnered high praises from multiple legends of the game during his rookie year with the Phoenix Suns in the 1992-1993 season. Even Magic Johnson compared the young Dumas to Julius Erving.
Yes, you’ve read that correctly. The great Dr. J. For sure, Dumas would become a league sensation, right?
Err…Dumas did not exactly take the league by storm. After a tremendous rookie campaign, multiple off-the-court issues hounded Dumas. The one-season wonder only lasted two more years in the NBA before embarking on an international career.
Jerome James
Jerome James was not the typical one-season wonder in the NBA, per se, but during the 2005 postseason, the 7-foot-1 big man became Shaq-like for the Seattle Supersonics. He more than tripled his average from the season, going from 4.9 PPG in the regular season to 12.5 PPG in the playoffs.
After the Sonics were eliminated in the 2005 postseason, teams were lining up to sign the suddenly popular James in the offseason. The Knicks eventually won the so-called “Jerome James Lottery,” signing him to a five-year, $30 million deal in 2005.
You might wonder what happened to his career in NY. Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated summed it up beautifully: “James was a chronic underachiever who cashed in on a brief moment of excellence.” Yikes.
Tyreke Evans
As the fourth overall pick of the loaded 2009 NBA Draft, the Sacramento Kings thought they had one of the best players on their hands in Evans. Even former President Barack Obama praised the Kings’ selection of Evans and reportedly influenced the Maloofs, then owners of the Kings, to draft the Memphis Tigers stud.
For a season, though, it looked like Sacramento finally had its star. Evans won Rookie of the Year by averaging 20.1 PPG, 5.8 APG, and 5.3 RPG for his first year in the league. However, for the next nine years, Evans never topped 20 PPG again.
He was still serviceable but did not become the star everybody had hoped for. Nobody thought he would end up a one-season wonder in the NBA.
Mike James
Not much was expected from Mike James as an undrafted guard when he entered the league in 2001. During his first five seasons, his name was constantly included in trades, jumping from team to team despite showing some serious skills on the court.
In the 2005-2006 season, James started all 79 games and averaged 20.1 PPG for the Raptors. Mind you, he was 30 years old by the time his career year happened. After the season concluded, James signed with the Bucks, but his play steeply declined from then on.
He never replicated the success he had during his lone year with Toronto.
Larry Sanders
If we talk about one-season wonders in the NBA, it’s a crime if we don’t include Larry Sanders’ name on it. In the 2012-2013 season, Sanders was a beast on the defensive end of the court for the Bucks, nearly averaging 3 BPG and finishing 7th in voting for the Defensive Player of the Year award.
Because of his imminent progress, the Bucks gave Sanders a four-year, $44 million contract in 2013. Then, all the issues came out. During the 2013-2014 season, Sanders was sidelined for 25 games after injuring his thumb during a fight in a nightclub.
The NBA also suspended him for violating its anti-drug policy. Sanders then took a break from basketball in 2015 to focus on his mental health. He tried to make a comeback in 2017, but it was short-lived.
Von Wafer
You may remember Von Wafer as the guy who made a mean mug after dunk, only to realize that he missed the attempt and made it worse by running into a teammate by the time he went back on the court.
Unfortunately, Wafer never truly had a good run in the NBA, save for his performance in the 2008-2009 season as a member of the Rockets. He was one of Houston’s most trusted guys off the bench, often providing immediate scoring whenever he was deployed on the court.
After his stint with Houston, Wafer only played two more years in the league and was out of an NBA job at 26.
Jamaal Magloire
Sometimes, a one-season wonder might crack an NBA All-Star Game during their forgettable careers in the association. That’s the case for the 6-foot-11 big man, Jamaal Magloire. As a member of the New Orleans Hornets, the 2003-2004 season was truly a magical one for the Canadian big man.
Not only was he named an all-star, but he was widely considered one of the best centers in the league at that time. At just 25 years old, it’s hard to imagine a drop in his game, especially for a guy who’s just entering his athletic prime.
Well, the decline happened anyway, and it was swift. In just three years, Magloire went from a 13 PPG scorer to an abysmal 1 PPG scorer in the league. Yikes.
Michael Carter-Williams
While the 2013 NBA Draft was often seen as a weak one in terms of talent, Michael Carter-Williams truly shone during his rookie year for the then-rebuilding Sixers. MCW went on to win Rookie of the Year, averaging 16.7 PPG in the process.
At 6-foot-5 with a savvy game, many pundits were convinced that Carter-Williams would become the Sixers’ franchise player moving forward. None of the expectations materialized, though. Due to the three-point revolution led by Steph Curry and the Warriors at the time, MCW’s old-school game went obsolete by NBA standards.
He quickly went from a starring role to a role player for other teams and only lasted nine years in the NBA.
Jahlil Okafor
Before his underwhelming NBA career unfolded, Okafor was the number-one-rated prospect in high school in 2014. Even before stepping a foot on the NBA level, he was billed as the next great big man in basketball.
That assumption held true for a year, as Okafor averaged 17.5 PPG for the Sixers during the 2015-2016 season. Nobody thought that he’d be a one-season wonder in the NBA. He was dominating the paint at just 20 years old, against guys ten years older than him.
Then, Joel Embiid was cleared to play for the Sixers in the 2016-2017 season. Embiid was clearly the better player compared to Okafor, and the Sixers decided to trade the latter to the Brooklyn Nets in 2017.
Okafor never regained his confidence after a stellar rookie campaign in the association.
Gerald Green
We tend to remember Gerald Green as one of the most athletic guys the NBA has ever seen. The former Slam Dunk champion did not have a smooth path in the league, though, as he had to endure multiple DNPs and G-League assignments early in his career.
However, during the 2013-2014 season, Green had a breakout year while playing for the Suns. He averaged a career high of 15.8 PPG while shooting an exceptional .400% from three. At 28, you’d expect that a freak specimen like him would be able to continue his production during his athletic prime.
Well…the opposite happened. For reasons unknown, his playing time with Phoenix after his career year dwindled. Green became a journeyman after he departed from the Suns in 2015.
Dan Dickau
What would happen if a third-stringer suddenly gets a ton of playing time for a bad team? Instant one-season wonder in the NBA, right? Well, that’s exactly what happened to Dan Dickau when he played for the New Orleans Hornets in 2004.
The Gonzaga Bulldog legend barely played on the court for the first couple of years in the league. All that changed in the 2004-2005 season after he was thrust into becoming the starting point guard for the Hornets. Dickau went from averaging a measly 2 PPG to a 13 PPG scorer for New Orleans.
That lone season was the highlight of his basketball career. He eventually became an underutilized player for three more franchises before calling it quits in 2008.
Jeremy Lin
Who could forget the phenomenon called “Linsanity?” Out of options at the point guard, then Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni decided to give the then-unknown Jeremy Lin some court time against the Nets on a random February night in 2012.
Lin erupted for 25 points off the bench, resulting in a win for the struggling Knicks. Thinking it was all a fluke, D’Antoni started Lin out of desperation, and the Taiwanese-American Harvard graduate delivered again.
New York was buzzing. Everybody wants a piece of Lin. For a couple of months, it seemed that the Knicks had found their savior. Or so they thought. Lin never replicated the success he had with the Knicks after signing with Houston in the 2012 offseason.
Sure, he still had some good games after his stint with New York ended, but he did not become the superstar the world expected him to be. At least he won a championship with the Raptors in 2019. Not bad for the undrafted Lin.
