Every player who has just entered the NBA is looking forward to their future, but professional basketball is still far more difficult than most people think. Even those superstars who became famous years later often have a path full of thorns.
Most of the bumpy starts of their careers are divided into two types: some people have injuries in their early careers and almost disappeared early, and Embiid knows this all too well; For Alphabet and Bradley Beal, the long period of growing pains nearly ruined their careers.
But, thankfully, they all overcame early setbacks and are now among the most recognizable players in the sport. With the class of 2023 officially entering the league, let's take a look at the "late bloomers" and see what kind of hardships they went through in the early days.
Jimmy Butler
Summing up Butler's rookie season is actually very simple, just look at his playing time in six playoff games with the Bulls in the 2011-12 season — a total of 288 minutes, Butler played only four minutes.
Of course, as a 30th pick first-round pick in the mountains, Butler can only play 42 regular season games and play only 8.5 minutes per game, which is somewhat excusable, who let him join a strong team that just finished the previous season with a 62-20 league best record, MVP and head coach of the year?
It was gold that always shone, and less than a year later, Butler earned a spot in Thibodeau's rotation. Although he still averaged just 8.6 points per game in his second season, he secured a starting spot in all 12 playoff games. By the final season of his four-year rookie contract, Butler was already an All-Star averaging 20.0 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game and could pick up the Bulls.
In his 12-year career, Butler has been named to the All-Star 6 times and the All-NBA and All-Defensive Team multiple times. Oh yes, Butler, who once averaged only 1.3 minutes per game in the playoffs, is now one of the scariest playoff players in the current game, and even has the exclusive nickname "Jimmy of the playoffs".
Bradley Beale
Of the players featured in this article, Beal's 2012-13 rookie season may be the strongest, if not one — starting 46 of 56 games and averaging 13.9 points in 31.2 minutes per game. And Beal quickly showed his potential as a super shooter, shooting 38.6 percent from three-point range in his rookie season.
However, offensive inefficiency and endless injuries almost brought down the 2012 scouting show. For the first three seasons of his career, Beal shot between 41 percent and 42 percent. More worryingly, he missed at least 19 games in three of his first four seasons. At the end of the 2015-16 season, Beal, who was averaging 17.4 points per game at the time, was offered a maximum salary extension, but not many people were optimistic about the signing at the time.
Of course, those fears quickly disappeared, and Beal made a breakthrough in 2016-17 — he played 77 games, averaged 23.1 points per game, and was named to the All-Star Game the following year, making it to the league's leading scorer. It was also that year that Beal's shooting percentage never fell below 45 percent, and the once inefficient label has been easily removed.
Chris Middleton
As a second-round rookie selected by the Pistons with the 39th overall pick in 2012, Middleton in his rookie season is of course just a small substitute on the bench, ranking outside the top ten in the team in rotation order, and ahead of Middleton are Brandon Knight, Rodney Starkey and Kyle Singler...
Middleton played only 27 regular-season games in his rookie season and spent plenty of time in the Development League. In his first year in the NBA, Middleton averaged only 6.1 points in 17.6 minutes per game, which was only 2.5 points in 36 minutes of standard time, and shot only 31.1% from three-point range.
Fortunately, a trade in 2013 saved Middleton, who was originally an addition to Knight's swap with Jennings, successfully rose to the position at Milwaukee training camp, locked in the role of starting quarterback, and climbed points per game for three consecutive seasons, completely igniting his entire career.
Since then, Middleton has been a three-time All-Star and has averaged more than 20 points per game in four seasons. In the 2020-21 Bucks' championship journey, Middleton played an integral role as the first singles player, especially the best performance of his career with 40 points in Game 4 of the Finals.
Pascal-Siakam
After being selected by the Raptors with the 27th pick at the end of the first round of the 2016 draft, Siakam received little attention. In the first two NBA seasons, Siakam averaged only 4.2 and 7.3 points per game, starting 38 of the 55 games in his first season and starting only 5 of his 81 games in the second year.
However, Siakam has seen a strong rise in the third year, and it is definitely timely.
Prior to the 2018-19 season, the Raptors completed a massive deal in which they brought in Leonard from the Spurs. Siakam had a significant impact on his journey to lead the Raptors to their first championship in franchise history, earning his first full-time starting role and averaging 16.9 points per game in the regular season and even increasing his scoring average to 19.0 points in the playoffs, making him the second-in-command next to Leonard.
Siakam was named an All-Star twice, in 2020 and 2023, and has averaged 20+ points per game for four consecutive years and posted a career-best personal performance last season averaging 24.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game.
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Given what Alphabet has accomplished today, it's reasonable to think that he was a "can't be missed" super talent when he entered the NBA in 2013. But the reality is quite complicated, the alphabet brother of that year is just a piece of European foreign players who can barely be regarded as "jade" and have an empty body shelf.
In his rookie season, Alphabet averaged 6.8 points per game and shot just 41.4 percent from the field. Over the next two seasons, Alphabet's growth could only be said to have steadily improved, and it was not until his fourth career year that he officially became the Bucks' leading scorer, and it was only then that he was regarded as the cornerstone of the team.
Of course, from that year, Alphabet Brother was like a sharp arrow with no turning back, attacking the temple of Bucks history and the entire NBA history: he won the Most Improved Player Award for the first time in 2016-17, back-to-back regular-season MVP in 2018-1 and 2019-20, and also named Defensive Player of the Year in 2019-20.
Now, Alphabet Brother, who has been named to the All-NBA Team 7 times and the All-Defensive Team 5 times, is already the best choice for the league's top 20 all-time superstars.
Joel Embiid
For a high-ranking rookie, the horror of injuries is on prospect in Embiid.
For the first two seasons of his career, Embiid could only watch helplessly from the bench. The superrookie center, the third-pick super-rookie in the 2014 draft, was once the most important future cornerstone of the "belief process", but it was the trigger that led to the complete collapse of this period.
In the third year after the draft, Embiid finally came to the professional stage in 2016-17 and won Rookie of the Year honor with an average of 20.2 points and 7.8 rebounds, but he played only 31 regular-season games that year and had an attendance rate of just 12.6% in the first three years of his career.
Philadelphia's wait for Embiid proved worth it.
Embiid has been in pretty good health for the past six years, making an All-Star every season, five All-NBA and three All-Defensive Team selections. He was the league's scoring champion in 2021-22 and 2022-23, and won the MVP award last season and became a league A-list superstar.