Anthony Edwards soars where others stumble
It's rare for number 1 recruits to have Ant's level of NBA successful - especially this early
On February 11, 2019 in a nondescript high school gym in Georgia, a baby-faced 17-year old unzipped a baby’s jacket, revealing a Georgia Bulldogs shirt, before donning a red hat with the familiar block G. Normally, sports commitments from this tiny 400-student school would not be national news, but the (somewhat odd1) ceremony was for Anthony Edwards — the number 1 basketball recruit in the country who eschewed blue bloods like Kentucky and UNC to attend the football powerhouse.
Some 5 years later, Ant is taking the NBA playoffs by storm, ousting the defending champs, snatching souls with his poster dunks and drawing comparisons to Michael Jordan.
The fact that a top recruit has ascended to the top of the NBA might not seem astonishing, but top recruits have shaky NBA track records. The fact it’s happening this quickly puts Ant in even more rarified air.
This is usually a college sports blog, but today’s post focuses on the NBA, with only a tenuous college connection: tracing the NBA careers of recent number 1 recruits. Inspired by Ant Man’s high-flying, trash-talking style2, the look back at a decade-plus of top recruits reveals some surprising trends:
Reaching the pinnacle of the NBA — measured in All-Star Game appearances and championships — is rare
The range of outcomes for top recruits is so large, we should celebrate the ones who reach the pinnacle
A decade+ of top recruits
For 17- and 18-year olds whose trajectories seem meteoric, there are plenty of ways to flame out or level out: injuries, landing with the wrong franchise, whatever is happening with Ben Simmons. Even settling into a productive (and lucrative) NBA career could be labeled a “failure” given the expectations of a top recruit.
But NBA success is difficult, even for the most talented youngsters. Several dudes on the list aren’t even in the NBA anymore, much less dominating it.
Of the past 11 number 1 recruits, only four have made an All-Star Game so far in their careers. In the cumulative 67 NBA seasons3 that group has played, only two times has a top recruit been part of a championship team.
Given the disparities in some recruiting rankings4, I expanded the aperture a bit and cherry-picked other highly-ranked recruits from the past 11 classes. There are a few more All-Stars and champions sprinkled in5, but the takeaway is the same: there’s a wide range of NBA outcomes for top recruits.
All-Stars and Superstars
The praise and coronations heaped on Ant so far this postseason might be premature given his team is facing a 3-1 deficit in the Western Conference Finals. But the fact Ant is in those conversations with the Jokics, the Tatums and the Lukas is emblematic of his newfound superstar status.
While I generally disdain the talk show pundits who fill time debating the fuzzy line between a “star” and a “superstar,” I’ll join the conversation by creating some arbitrary groups for the recruits listed above:
Established Superstars (3): Jayson Tatum, Anthony Davis, Zion
Rising Superstars (2): Ant, Paolo
NBA All-Stars (4): Julius Randle, KAT, Jaylen Brown, Andrew Wiggins
Solid NBA Players (3): Aaron Gordon, MPJ, RJ Barrett
Passable NBA Players (3): Markelle Fultz, James Wiseman, Marvin Bagley, Nerlens Noel
Busts/MIA/Out of the League (6): Jabari Parker, Lonzo Ball, Harry Giles, Ben Simmons, Josh Jackson, Emmanuel Mudiay
Too Soon To Tell (2): Chet Holmgren, Cade Cunningham
You could quibble with some players’ buckets6, but the broader point stands: Becoming one of the handful of NBA superstars is incredibly rare, even for the most highly rated recruits.
In the slightly expanded group of recruits, 10 of 24 have made an All-Star game, and only four accomplished it faster than Ant. Even an All-Star start to a career isn’t always followed by success, as Ben Simmons’ career shows.
These guys are supposedly the “can’t miss” prospects (Jabari Parker had a Sports Illustrated cover comparing him to LeBron!7), but there are plenty of misses, too.
Rather than dunk on the busts, I want to celebrate the awesomeness of Ant and also frame the “mere” All-Stars and NBA players in a positive light.
RJ Barrett will be only 24 next season. He hasn’t even reached his prime, and he likely has another decade left in his career. So there’s room to grow, but an All-NBA ascension also seems unlikely. While he won’t become a franchise- or league-defining superstar, he’s a quality NBA player who could follow the Andrew Wiggins path of ASG and rings on the right team.
Champions
Perennial All-Star and All-NBA billings are nice, but everyone is after rings. Those are even more rare in the group of top recruits, and no ring-bearer won as “the guy.” AD teamed with LeBron, Gordon and Porter Jr were the third and fourth best players on the Nuggets and Wiggins helped the last gasp of the Warriors dynasty. Wiseman technically has a ring, too, but he was injured and didn’t log a minute the entire season.
Jayson Tatum looks poised to win his first title this year as the top dog (with Jaylen Brown supporting as 1B), which would be a first for the cohort. Being a top recruit comes with weighty expectations of stardom and championships. But for all the 17-year olds who are awkwardly putting on college caps as the world watches, becoming an established NBA player is a feat worth celebrating, and contributing on a championship-level team is an exquisite career.
For Ant, he’s just ascended past those markers and has entered the realm of championship-or-bust stardom. His coming out party will likely end without a title, but it’ll be a joy to watch him attempt the rare and rough journey from top recruit to top of the NBA.
I’ve never seen a baby used as a commitment day prop. As far as I can tell (and based on some of Ant’s more recent and spicy baby-related views), I don’t think it’s his child?
I love watching Ant play (except for when he’s ripping the heart out of my hometown Nuggets). I admittedly don’t watch much NBA regular season, but Ant Man had two of my four holy-sh*t-wtf-just-happened plays of the year:
Ant chase down block to seal a win
Ant poster over John Collins
Andre Jackson putback dunk
Kyrie running lefthand hook buzzer beater (also against the Nuggets, sigh)
Not counting seasons when a player is injured
This is also a reminder of how many players are not on the list because they never sniffed NBA relevance. For example, Frank Jackson (somehow ranked ahead of Tatum in 2016), Skal Labissiere (2 in 2015), Stanley Johnson (3 in 2014), you get the idea. I picked guys who would have some name recognition, which probably biases towards good NBA players.
Is Zion too injury-prone to be counted as a superstar? Is Ben Simmons a bust just because he hasn’t played since he passed up that layup in the playoffs? I’ll leave the debates to First Take
From sicovers.com. It’s sorta funny to have an SI cover and then be ranked 6th in your class. I really debated having the post’s subtitle be “Duke NBA flameouts” because of Parker, Giles, Bagley, Frank Jackson, Wendell Carter, Jahlil Okafor, Justise Winslow, Vernon Carey, Cam Reddish, and Austin Rivers, but Tatum and Paolo good. But, man, that’s a long list of top recruits who don’t pan out.
