Potential Versus Reality
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As fans we love to compare. We compare players, we compare teams, we compare stats, we compare SOS, we compare size, we compare wins and losses, we compare rookie seasons, and so on. Yet we don’t compare the mindset of these kids, what they have been through or their heart. Welcome KU to the world of the OAD.
Last year with the signature of Wiggins KU really got their first taste of the OAD. Embiid was never recruited to be a OAD. He just turned out to be one. With any OAD comes great potential but what is the reality? Already some even in the KU nation think and feel that Wiggins is a failure and will be nothing more than a journeymen in the NBA. Saying the potential did not live up to the reality. I disagree.
Gather around I’m going to tell you a story. A young man whose Dad played a NBA career for the Chicago Bulls and Houston Rockets, and a mother that won two NCAA titles in track and then two Olympic silver medals as part of relay teams at the 1984 Summer Games. This young man decided to play basketball. I wonder what Wiggins would have done as a Track and Field athlete. ')
Imagine what the local high school coach thought when he first saw Wiggins trying to make the team? For some reason the young Wiggins makes the team. Young Wiggins is living the dream. He’s playing basketball, hanging out with his friends and taking girls out for a hamburger or cheeseburgers. Turns out Wiggins isn’t to bad at playing the game of basketball. So Dad and Coach (I’m assuming) says hey lets send him some big name tournaments. His buddies are like you’re the man, and the girls are starting to see Wiggins in a different light (wink, wink). Wiggins being a young was having the time of his life. Until it happened?
Some talent scouts who had watched Wiggins play, studied his game, crunched the numbers and came to the conclusion that Wiggins is the next LeBron. Could you imagine what Wiggins was thinking? I’d bet the house his first words were (huh?). Poor Wiggins. Welcome to the world of potential versus reality.
This is the problem with OAD’s and potential versus reality. Even if Wiggins becomes the next Paul Pierce or Scotty Pippen he will be considered a failure. All because some talent scouts claimed he would be the next King James. The same scouts who miss year after year on talent. Think about how many 1st round picks fail, hell think about how many top ten picks fail? Yet for some reason their word is golden and the player is the failure. Go figure.
However like I said previously we fans don’t compare heart and mindsets. For you KU fans that think Wiggins is a misfire. That book is still open, there are many more chapters to be written. I made up most of that story, and I don’t know Wiggins personally. However I know he’s got talent and I believe he has heart. Remember the OAD’s are just kids chasing a dream and taking the money like you say they should. Just saying.
