It happens to the best of GMs. That blind hope, a belief that you might have found something that the 29 other guys somehow missed. Maybe that former top draft pick just needs a change of scenery. Maybe that under-scouted prospect could offer first round talent at a second round price. Or maybe that aging veteran can actually turn back the clock one more time. Regardless of what under-valued asset you're seeking, there's always the tendency - especially in a cap-based league - to pursue that diamond in the rough.
But for every late-blooming top pick like Tyson Chandler, every draft steal like Draymond Green and every still-chugging along veteran like Dwyane Wade, there are countless ambitious moves that don't pay off in the same way. As a result, we get some teams who are on the wrong side of a player's career arc - either having given him up just a bit too soon, or bringing him into the fold just a tad too late. It's a mistake that executives from every team have been guilty of at one time or another, and while it doesn't always blow up in that team's face necessarily, it does often foster an amusingly odd reflection in the mold of "wait, he played there???".
For this list of the most random, forgotten player for each NBA organization, I've only used players once (even though Shaq could get the nod with Boston, Phoenix, Cleveland...) and have resisted the urge to go with obvious ones. After all, everyone knows that Hakeem Olajuwon last played for the Toronto Raptors and MJ suited up for the Washington Wizards, making them random but hardly forgotten. These guys, on the other hand, could be considered both random AND forgotten.
30 Atlanta Hawks - Vince Carter
Alright, you caught me - we have an exception right off the bat. Vince Carter can hardly be considered a forgotten member of the Hawks, largely because, well, he just joined the team! Still, the pairing of an iconic, late-career veteran without an NBA title on his resume with a franchise stuck in rebuilding mode seems more than a tad random. And if this is, indeed, the last season for VC, then his Hawks tenure will most certainly be eventually forgotten.
Perhaps Carter saw the opportunity to serve as a mentor to the young squad, but it still seems like a strange choice for a future Hall of Famer who will turn 42 partway through the season.
29 Boston Celtics - Stephon Marbury
At a time when most NBA players are enjoying their peak years, Stephon Marbury's career was on a decided downturn. As a New York Knick from 2004 to 2008, a stretch in which the two-time All-Star was in his late 20s, Marbury saw his scoring numbers drop from 21.7 points per game down to 13.9. Even by those standards, though, it was surprising to see how little he had left when the Celtics signed him mid-way through the 2008-09 season.
The point guard known as Starbury averaged a meager 3.8 points and 3.3 assists in 18 minutes of game action and then saw even less floor time over two playoff rounds spent backing up a 22-year-old Rajon Rondo.
28 Brooklyn Nets - Andrea Bargnani
Somehow, the Nets wound up with former no.1 picks Andrea Bargnani and Anthony Bennett. It's really a toss-up as to whose tenure can be considered more random, since Brooklyn represented the last NBA stop in both men's careers. We'll go with Bargnani here, purely for how poorly received his presence was at Barclay's Center.
The seven-foot Italy-born big man was booed upon arrival by a fanbase that had already seen him alienate fans with the nearby New York Knicks.
The one-time Toronto Raptor bust's Brooklyn tenure was 'highlighted' by a New York Post report that attempts to trade Bargnani were "met with disdain" by other clubs.
27 Charlotte Hornets - Kwame Brown
While we're on the subject of former No. 1 overall busts, let's talk about Kwame Brown. The first high schooler to ever go first overall was already on his fifth NBA team when what was then the Charlotte Bobcats came calling with a contract. The signing seemed to be a clear indication of minority owner Michael Jordan trying to salvage Brown, whom Jordan drafted back in 2001 as a member of the Wizards' front office. The 28-year-old center wasn't actually that bad, putting up 7.9 points and 6.8 rebounds while shooting 51.7% from the floor. Still, the season was a forgettable one for the 34-win Bobcats and Brown would be out the door that summer.
26 Chicago Bulls - George Gervin
'The Iceman Meets the Windy City' would have been a pretty cool (no pun intended) marketing slogan for George Gervin's arrival in Chicago. But as remarkable as it was to see an aging Gervin play alongside a young MJ (who, unfortunately, spent most of that season injured), the four-time scoring champ was clearly past his prime. After 12 straight All-Star seasons, a 33-year-old Gervin finally missed the mid-season exhibition thanks to a 16.2 PPG average that was nine points lower than his career mark. The Hall of Famer has even said that seeing the rise of a young Jordan convinced him that he could no longer keep up with the league's elite.
25 Cleveland Cavaliers - Mark Hendrickson
Mark Hendrickson's 10 mid-season games for the Cavaliers went about as un-memorably as the rest of his marginal 114-game NBA career. So why does the 6'9" power forward merit inclusion here? Mostly for what he did when his NBA days were up, actually.
Hendrickson is one of a select few to have reached the highest level in both pro basketball and pro baseball, spending a decade in MLB as a starting pitcher for five different clubs.
While he isn't the most famous athlete to make it on the hardcourt and diamond (Celtics GM Danny Ainge and Hall of Fame forward Dave DeBusschere also turned the trick), he is the most recent. And it's probably safe to say that no other athlete can count themselves as a former teammate of both Allen Iverson and Greg Maddux.
24 Dallas Mavericks - Alex English
A dominant force of nature in the '80s, it's probably safe to say the nineties just weren't as good to Alex English. English arrived in Denver in February of 1980 and would go onto average an incredible 25.9 points in 11 seasons as a Nugget. Come 1990, however, a forgettable move to Dallas would signal the end of an era. By that point, English was 37 and clearly on his last legs, managing just 9.7 points over 79 games, most of which came in a bench role. English's one year with the Mavericks would represent his NBA swan song, a sad end to a Hall of Fame career.
23 Denver Nuggets - Andre Iguodala
There have been two distinct phases in the career of Andre Iguodala. First, there was his ascension as the franchise player of a poor Philadelphia 76ers team. Then, as Iguodala entered his 30s, he developed into the defensive lynchpin for the juggernaut Golden State Warriors. In between those two phases, however, there was a quick pit stop in Denver for one season with the Nuggets. That 2012-13 campaign represented Iguodala's last season with a double digit scoring average (13.0 PPG), but a first round playoff exit and the firing of head coach George Karl left him in limbo. The Nuggets ultimately opted to trade him less than one year later.
22 Detroit Pistons - Chris Webber
Turns out you can go home again, just don't expect it to be quite like the first time. In the middle of the 2007-08 season, Detroit native Chris Webber returned to his hometown as a member of the Pistons. This wasn't just some feel-good PR move, either.
The Pistons were the best team in the East during the regular season, but needed some help up front with Ben Wallace off in Chicago.
Webber started and logged big minutes in each of the team's 16 playoff games before they fell victim to LeBron's Cleveland Cavaliers in the Conference Finals. C-Webb was not offered a new contract in the offseason, so his Motown homecoming was one-and-done.
21 Golden State Warriors - Jermaine O'Neal
Yes, it's still undeniably weird to see Jermaine O'Neal in a Toronto Raptors jersey all these years later, but no Raptor fan has forgotten the epic failure that was the attempt to build the team around a 'Twin Towers' front court of he and Chris Bosh. So while O'Neal's failed 41-game experiment in Toronto may qualify as random, it isn't forgotten. Now, the six-time All-Star's 44-game pre-retirement tenure as a Warrior? That qualifies. By that 2013-14 season, O'Neal was a 35-year-old playing on bad knees whose last season of even 70 games played had come five years earlier. No wonder, then, that he was merely a shell of his former self by then.
20 Houston Rockets - Charles Oakley
Is it just me, or does the thought of Charles Oakley mentoring a young Yao Ming seem rather amusing? Either way, for a blink-and-you-missed-it stretch of the 2003-04 season, that scenario actually played out in Houston.
Oak hadn't stepped on court for a year when he begun a 10-day contract with the Rockets in March of 2004, three months after his 40th birthday.
Suffice to say, it wasn't the big curmudgeon's finest moment. He played just 3.6 minutes per game over seven games and averaged nearly as many fouls (1.1) as points (1.3). From there, the 19-year vet got neither a second 10-day deal or another chance in the league.
19 Indiana Pacers - Adrian Dantley
It's baffling to look back at how NBA decision-makers bungled the early years of a young Adrian Dantley. I mean, the dude averaged 20.3 points and won Rookie of the Year honors in his first year with the Buffalo Braves, and still got traded twice before Christmas of his second season.
The Braves' trade was somewhat defensible in that it landed two-time All-Star Billy Knight in return, but the Pacers' decision to send Dantley for middling prospects James Edwards and Earl Tatum after just 23 games is truly perplexing. Of course, giving up on a 21-year-old future Hall of Famer didn't exactly work out for the Pacers.
18 Los Angeles Clippers - Grant Hill
If the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame were like Cooperstown and enshrined greats had to choose a team affiliation for induction, what team would Grant Hill have gone in with?
Rather than one lengthy tenure with a single franchise, Hill's career was split into six-year segments in Detroit and Orlando and a mostly healthy five-year period in Phoenix.
One team the seven-time All-Star wouldn't be HOF-bound with: the Los Angeles Clippers, whom he limped to the finish line with as a 40-year-old in 2012-13. Hill averaged 15 minutes across 29 games in LA, shooting a career-low 38.8% and managing just 3.2 points per game, seven fewer than in any other of the Duke legend's 18 seasons.
17 Los Angeles Lakers - Dwight Howard
In hindsight, doesn't Dwight Howard's short but eventful tenure with the Lakers feel like a strange dream? For starters, it seems surreal now to think that the Lakers actually targeted the big man to complement Kobe Bryant as a two-headed superstar force a la Kobe/Shaq.
As we now know, the Black Mamba's relationship with Howard was even more testy than with the Big Aristotle and things didn't work out, as L.A. was swept by the Spurs in round one despite a loaded roster that also featured Steve Nash and Pau Gasol. Howard was gone after just one year, the first of several short stints for a supremely talented center with a penchant for wearing out his welcome.
16 Memphis Grizzlies - Allen Iverson
Allen Iverson is Philly, period. He started there, went to the Finals there, spent more than a decade there and retired there. It's easy, then, to brush away AI's stints in Denver, Detroit and, yes, even Memphis. You could be forgiven if you don't recall too many Iverson highlights as a member of the Grizz. The Answer played all of three games with the club before being waived, struggling in a trio of road losses and never even suiting up for a home game. At 34, all that was left for the Hall of Famer to do at that point was return to the City of Brotherly Love for a few final vintage performances and a proper farewell.
15 Miami Heat - Gary Payton
At the top of what is a very impressive Hall of Fame resume, Gary Payton can boast of being an NBA champion. No, that didn't come during his remarkable 13-season run in Seattle, nor with Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone and Shaquille O'Neal on the 2003-04 Lakers. The Glove's one ring came as a member of the 2005-06 Miami Heat - and if you don't recall his involvement with the team, I don't blame you.
Payton actually had a significant role as a key reserve and potential fill-in at the point for the Heat.
While he was never called on to start in the postseason, he did average 24 minutes and got into all 23 of Miami's playoff contests. Still, that team brings to mind a young D-Wade and an aging Shaquille O'Neal, not Payton.
14 Milwaukee Bucks - J.J. Redick
Just imagine a dead-eyed shooter like Redick on the Milwaukee Bucks. Alongside the likes of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Eric Bledsoe, Redick would be a major asset for his ability to keep defenses honest by burying open looks from deep. Yes, Redick was briefly a Buck, coming over in a deadline deal in 2012-13. At that time, however, Redick proved to be a redundant and ill-fitting piece alongside fellow offensive-minded guards Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis. He has admitted as much, calling his Milwaukee tenure "challenging" and acknowledging that there was some redundancy on the roster. Looking back, his 28-game stint in Wisconsin is a prime example of 'right place, wrong time'.
13 Minnesota Timberwolves - Brandon Roy
The shortened career of Brandon Roy looms as an all-too-familiar tale on the unforgiving toll the injury bug can take on players. Roy earned Rookie of the Year honors and earned an All-Star nomination in each of the following three seasons, setting the course for NBA superstardom. Injuries were ultimately his downfall.
Relentless knee problems limited the Blazers star to just 47 games in 2010-11 and an early retirement at just 27.
While that was it for Roy in Portland (he could not return to the team after being Amnestied), the two-guard did attempt an NBA return with the Timberwolves, starting five games during the 2012-13 season before again being shut down - this time for good - for knee surgery.
12 New Orleans Pelicans - Jarrett Jack
It was tempting to go with a one-and-done Rajon Rondo here, but Rondo's 2017-18 season in New Orleans was actually really good (and also very recent). So instead, we turn to Jarrett Jack, a journeyman point guard who has never recorded 15 assists, let alone 21.
He did, however, lead the Pels (still Hornets at the time) in scoring during the 2011-12 season, the final year before Anthony Davis came on board via the draft. That, in itself, is pretty random.
11 New York Knicks - Dikembe Mutombo
In 2001-02, Mutombo had one of the best seasons of his career, earning All-Star and Defensive Player of the Year honors while helping the 76ers to the NBA Finals. One year and a trade to the Nets later, however, the NBA's second-leading career shot blocker found himself limited to just 24 games and struggling to fit in, so much so that the Nets ate the two years left on his contract to unload him.
Mutombo didn't go far, though, as he accepted a two-year contract with the New York Knicks. By then, he was 37 and clearly limited, prompting the Knicks to trade him less than one year later.