Potential is Spanish Fly for basketball fans. It as an aphrodisiac that lures those who love to game to believe that great things are on the horizon for a player. Like Spanish Fly, potential rarely works out.
Back in 2006, Patrick owned an Oklahoma City Hornet themed website and had a good relationship with The Sports Animal. As a result, he and I were occasionally invited to participate in their weekly show about the Hornets including a draft night special recapping the team's performance.
To briefly rundown what did happen that night, the Hornets had two lottery picks where they selected two identical 6'10" shot blocking power forwards (Hilton Armstrong from UConn and Cedric Simmons from NC State who I would derisively refer to as Hildric Simmstrong from that point on) then took a Brazillian small forward named Marcus Vinicius Viera de Souza (more succinctly referred to as "Marquinhos") in the second round. As I called into the show for my segment, "Pork" was leading the show while giving the team general manager credit for taking two players who fit a team need and then just making fun of the Brazilian's name. I saw it the other way around.
"Marquinhos was projected to be a lottery pick," I told him. "Being able to draft him in the second round is a steal."
"He has a skill set that few players possess," I told him. "If he reaches his potential, there will be a lot of teams that regret passing on him."