Sebastian Telfair, once a 5 Star Recruit and a Louisville Commit. He was born in Brooklyn, New York where he was ranked 2nd in point guards in the nation, along with being 6th overall. He was a great talent but it didn’t replicate in the league, why?
His road to the league was straight from High School, passing up on Louisville and was drafted 13th to the Portland Trail Blazers. This is where he spent a solid 2 years of his career, which he started for 56 games in those years. He averaged 6.8 PPG along with 3.3 APG. After his 2nd season, he was traded to the Boston Celtics for Dan Dickau and Raef LaFrentz. The Blazers also received a pick that was able to get them Brandon Roy.
I just went over the first move of his career, but there were too many to go in depth into, he played for 11 different franchises in 13 years. 3 of his teams were overseas. The final NBA Team he played for was the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The reason why we are even talking about him is not even necesarily about his journeyman career, its more some of the mistakes that took place during his time in the NBA.
First off, I think his biggest mistake was not partaking in NCAA Basketball. He lost the chance to really work on his game and maturity overall in college. Even Louisville with their issues (They even have an investigation going on over recruiting right now) would have been better then going straight to the league.
Then guns became an issue, his 2007 handgun arrest landed him a 3 game suspension and 3 years of probation. Not that terrible, but definitely avoidable. 10 years later, he was convicted of Marijuana and weapon related charges. They were pulled over because of them having no headlights and illegally parking. Everything went bad after that and on August 12th, 2019, he was sentenced to 3.5 years in jail.
What do you think was his biggest problem? Do you think he could have been much better if he changed certain things? Let me know on Instagram @NoLimitPeasleyyy. Thanks for reading!