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March 1, 2016When the Cleveland Cavaliers selected power forward Anthony Bennett with the first overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, hopes were high that the Canadian could develop into a top-flight NBA player. Since then, however, he has done anything but. After one year, the Cavs traded him to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the deal that brought Kevin Love to Cleveland. The Timberwolves bought out Bennett’s contract about a year later. The Toronto Raptors signed him to a one-year deal shortly thereafter, but now they too have decided to move on.
According to The Vertical’s Shams Charania, Bennett is set to be waived by the Raptors, his third team in three seasons.
The 22-year-old Bennett has played in 19 games this season, his first with his hometown team. He averaged just 1.5 points and 1.2 rebounds in 4.4 minutes per game with Toronto. In his rookie season with the Cavs, the 6-foot-8, 245-pounder only averaged 4.2 points and three rebounds in 52 games. In his three-year career, he has averaged 4.2 points and 3.1 rebounds in 128 games.
The former UNLV standout has had a variety of issues since entering the league. He was overweight and suffered from both vision problems and sleep apnea. He has since tended to those issues, but he has still struggled to find his way in the NBA. He hasn’t shown enough perimeter shooting to function like a stretch four (he’s a career 26 percent shooter on threes) nor the attacking skills to score at the rim. Although he had a good summer with the Canadian national team, he has not found a way to translate that type of play to the NBA.
Now that he has been released by the Raptors, Anthony Bennett’s NBA future could be in question. Maybe, just maybe, Bennett will decide to go to the NBA Developmental League, something that WFNY’s Craig Lyndall suggested over two years ago. The D-League seems like a solid option for Bennett at this point. In six games (four starts) with the Raptors’ D-League affiliate (Raptors 905) this season, he averaged 9.2 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 1.0 steals. It ain’t much, but it’s something.
With three teams in three seasons and an uncertain future, Bennett needs to start somewhere if he wants to carve out an NBA career for himself.
14 Comments
Nice pick, morons.
Is Bennett the worst first overall of all time?
Olowakandi was bad, but still played for about 10 years.
Same with Joe Smith.
Greg Oden never played due to injury, which is just about as bad as Bennett.
Kwame was pretty awful, too.
I don’t think injury is as bad as just being an awful basketball player. I wouldn’t put Oden up there for that reason, dude just fell apart. He looked so old when he played for OSU! Looked like he was 48.
We used to laugh about how old he looked at the age of 19. Turns out he really was a dude in his 40’s dominating a bunch of college kids. Now I’m just waiting for the TMZ report on Oden getting caught using his AARP card for discounts…
I think Bennet is the worst player of the bunch, although you could argue Kwame was the bigger letdown. I don’t think Bill Simmons would have jumped from his seat in shock when Kwame was picked.
This is JaMarcus Russell territory.
He deff needs to be on the next Uncle Drew commercial. They prob wont have to do much makeup work.
I feel really bad for Bennett.
How about Andrea Bargnani, one of the worst players in the entire history of the NBA?
Good call. But Bargnani is still in the NBA so he’s probably not as bad as bennett.
I don’t know about really bad. For what? Dude plays basketball for a living and has made millions. Feel bad for someone that has lost a loved one, or that has a disease.
Bennett is a significantly better rebounder than Bargnani, which is to say he’s below average as opposed to absolutely atrocious. The main reason Bargnani still has a career is that he takes a lot more shots (badly, I might add), and most people evaluate scorers as better than rebounders.
Actually, Bargnani’s career avg. rebounds is higher than bennetts.
Per game, yes. Per 48 minutes, decidedly not. The reason the per game numbers look better is that Bargnani played about 10 times as many minutes as Bennett, which had little to do with how good he was and a lot to do with Toronto not having anybody else to put in.