LOS ANGELES -- It was an odd sighting. There was Adam Morrison, the man some claimed several years ago was the next Larry Bird, sitting quietly at the end of the Los Angeles Lakers bench, alone, as other Lakers joked and took shots toward the end of a recent practice.
He looked like a man out of place, like he didn't belong, and if you've watched his play over the past few years, that's exactly the case.
J.J. Redick was supposed to be a shooting star in the NBA but here he is, barely a factor for Orlando. The Magic are in the championship series and Redick is an afterthought, despite getting significant minutes in the second round vs. Boston.
The situations of the two players, the Matt Leinart and Andre Ware of the NBA, lead to a question.
What happened to them? How did Morrison and Redick end up in this awful place, their careers all but forgotten, so soon after they began?
There was once a debate in the NBA and college basketball world: Who would be the better pro player, Morrison or Redick? Unless you borrowed H.G. Wells' time machine, no one ever in their wildest dreams predicted that both would be busts. No one.
Ironically, the two players are in the NBA Finals and you can be assured neither thought they would get to the summit this way, climbing on the backs of others.
Both men were catalysts for their college teams, the backbone in some ways. Morrison was one of the more electric and fascinating players college had birthed in a decade. Because of his ethnicity he was compared to Bird, an incredibly weighty burden, like a young actor being told he's the next De Niro.
Redick made more 3-pointers in college (457) than anyone in NCAA history and when picked 11th in the 2006 draft he was supposed to be a surefire outside threat. Since being drafted, Redick has been an unreliable part of the Magic rotation with his lack of defensive play and poor dribble penetration being exposed in the blitzkrieg that is the NBA.
As for Morrison, it's unfortunate and a hard thing to state (particularly since Morrison was my favorite when he played in college) but it's true: Morrison has to be considered one of the great busts in league history.
Morrison was the third pick in the 2006 draft, selected by Charlotte Bobcats executive Michael Jordan (yet another indicator Jordan was a horrid personnel man). Morrison, who missed the entire 2007-08 season with a knee injury, has averaged just under nine points a game; I always thought he would average at least double that and then some.
Remember, Morrison and Redick were named co-players of the year in college. It was the first time in the 50-year history of the United States Basketball Writers Association that two players earned the award.
"About once in a generation, we see a situation where there are two extraordinary players who separate themselves from the rest of college basketball and clearly stand together as the best in the game," the organization said in a statement at the time. "It happened in 1979 with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and the USBWA feels it has happened again with Adam Morrison and J.J. Redick. Our organization has never voted for co-players of the year but on this, the 50th anniversary of the USBWA, it seems entirely appropriate to break with precedent in order to honor two equally deserving young men."
The careers of both have broken down in just three short years.
The easy reason to say that both were busts is because of the massive media uber-hyping when they were in college. The allure of two skilled white players in a black-dominated sport was something the media seemed to love, and it blinded many of us to what were obvious weaknesses in their games.
The largest factor in their mediocrity is that neither player, it turns out, can create his own shot. The NBA isn't about systems, like at Duke or Gonzaga (or the triangle offense, either), it's about individual athleticism and one-on-one battles. You beat your man off the dribble, you win. It's that simple.
If you can't do that then at least you play tough defense. Yet if there was a list of the worst defenders in the NBA both Morrison and Redick would make the top five.
When they both were drafted there were people who envisioned Morrison and Redick battling in the NBA Finals and redefining the sport.
Well, they're here, in the Finals, and doing some damn fine redefining, just not in the way they or anyone else ever expected.