3 NBA All-Stars who never fulfilled their potential

It is not an ordinary achievement to make it to the NBA as there is cut-throat competition with players from all the countries working day-and-night to get there and play at the grandest stage of all.

There are a lot of college basketball players throughout the history who were unbelievable for their college basketball teams but could not make it to the NBA because of various reasons. On the other hand, there are athletes who have dominated the college basketball scenes and continued their dominance even in the NBA.

However, there is another category in which players have made it to the NBA after a lot of struggles, showed the promise to go big, but faded away over the course of time. The NBA has seen a lot of such players in this category who even became All-Stars but could not continue for a long time.

In this article, we take a look at three such NBA All-Stars who never fulfilled their potential, although they started strong.

#1 Vin Baker

Vin Baker was a 4-time consecutive All-Star. Credit: Sonics Rising

All-Star appearances: 1995-1998

Vin Baker played in the NBA for 13 years, on several teams. He was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 1993 NBA draft with the 8th overall pick. He had a terrific rookie season and was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team.

His best performances came with the Bucks and he even became a four-time consecutive NBA All-Star (1995-1998). During this stretch, he averaged a double-double over the entire season twice and fell 0.1 assists short of averaging double-double once.

He was by far the most consistent player on the Bucks during his 4-year tenure with the team and always came up big to give them memorable wins. However, Baker did not enjoy the same amount of success with the other teams once he left Milwaukee.

#2 Baron Davis

All-Star appearances: 2002, 2004

The first thing that comes to our mind when we think of Baron Davis is his vicious dunk over Andrei Kirilenko in the 2007 Playoffs. He entered the league in 1999 at the age of 20 when he was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the third overall pick in the NBA draft.

However, his best playing days came with the New Orleans Hornets, a franchise he had been with for three years. In the 2003-04 season, Davis averaged 22.9 points, 4.3 rebounds and 7.5 assists. He also led the league in steals with 2.4 steals per game. These are MVP-caliber numbers and just like you would expect, he was named to the All-Star team that year.

Nevertheless, Davis slowly started fading away and went on to play for multiple teams towards the end of his career but did not achieve the kind of success he did at New Orleans.

#3 Andrew Bynum

Andrew Bynum enjoyed his best plating days in LA

All-Star appearance: 2012

Andrew Bynum came into the league at a very young age of 17 when he was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers with the 10th overall pick in the 2005 NBA draft. Bynum displayed what he was capable of doing in the 2008-09 season when he averaged 14.3 points, 8.0 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game en route to his maiden NBA title.

'Bynumite' then backed it up with yet another strong season in 2009-10 where he averaged 15.0 points, 8.3 rebounds and 1.0 assist and once again played a key role in the Lakers' becoming back-to-back champions.

Bynum only got better from there and earned an All-Star appearance in 2012 where he averaged career-high figures of 18.7 points and 11.8 rebounds. The 2011-12 season also saw his sensational 16-point, 30-rebound performance against the Spurs.

He missed the entire 2012-13 season due to a knee injury and in his last season (2013-14), he played in 24 games for the Cleveland Cavaliers before he got traded by them to the Indiana Pacers with whom he only played in two games.

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Edited by Abhinav Munshi