NBA: 10 relative unknowns entering defining seasons in 2017-18

Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images /
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Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images /

Entering the 2017-18 NBA season, here are 10 players who are still relative unknowns looking to prove where they belong in this league.

Finding one’s place in the NBA is not as easy as the superstars make it look, even when you remember there are only 450 players in the league and about 7.5 billion people on this planet.

For every Russell Westbrook or James Harden, there are hundreds of players who never make it anywhere, even among those who do make it to the world’s premier basketball league. So many promising prospects, who have dreams of being the next Kevin Durant or LeBron James, merely reach their ceilings as role players, third-stringers or even G League players who never make it in the NBA at all.

Every year, analysts and fans alike obsess over the latest batch of rookies, trying to assess which ones will be stars, which will be busts and which will be steals. However, sometimes even two, three or four years after they’ve entered the league, it’s not always clear where a player stands.

Entering the 2017-18 NBA season, there are plenty of players fitting that description. Whether it’s due to fit, player movement, inadequate playing time, injuries or just paying one’s dues, it takes a while for some players to truly show us where they belong at the highest level of basketball.

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Whether these guys are playing for a new team, trying to secure a contract next summer or simply trying to make good on their current deal and live up to the pre-draft hype, it’s time to take a look at 10 younger players who have been in the league long enough to be approaching potentially career-defining seasons, but not long enough to show us who they are yet.

For our purposes, we’re going to avoid players with two years of experience or less (sorry Emmanuel Mudiay, Trey Lyles, Mario Hezonja, Stanley Johnson, Jahlil Okafor and half the Chicago Bulls roster). We’re also going to try and avoid established players and even still-unproven commodities that appear to be on the verge of a breakout year (like Marcus Smart, Aaron Gordon and Rodney Hood).

Instead, we’ll focus on the players whose 2017-18 campaigns could go an infinite number of ways as patience begins to wear thin with their current NBA trajectory. Without further ado, here are 10 relative unknowns approaching defining seasons.

Honorable Mentions:  Noah Vonleh, Kyle O’Quinn, Cody Zeller, Shabazz Muhammad, John Henson, Kelly Olynyk, JaMychal Green, Dwight Powell, Mike Muscala, Michael Carter-Williams