What a pity! He was regarded as Garnett s successor, but he only averaged 4+2 per game and disappeared from the NBA at the speed of light!

As one of the legends of the NBA, Kevin Garnett has also become a senior media person since his retirement. However, what is a bit embarrassing is that despite his brilliant achievements as a player, he seemed to have poor vision after retirement. The players he publicly praised, such as Jordan Poole, Bronny James, LaMelo Ball and others, failed to perform as expected. The protagonist we are going to talk about today was also "cursed" by Garnett. He is the former successor of Garnett - Thorne Maker.

Many CBA fans will definitely be familiar with Mek, because just a few years ago, he was signed by the Fujian team. However, disappointingly, during his two seasons in the CBA, his performance did not impress anyone, and he eventually disappeared from the CBA at the speed of light. It is conceivable how bumpy his road to the NBA has been. Let's review Maker's career and see how he went from a star of hope to a marginalized player in the NBA!

The talented kid from the refugee camp is regarded as the next KG.

Mike, who was born in South Sudan, like many players from Africa, had a very difficult life since he was a child because the area where he lives has been in war. Fortunately, he fled to Australia when he was 6 years old. After that, his life became stable. It was during his childhood in Australia that he fell in love with the sport of basketball, and he indeed showed unparalleled talent. So at the age of 14, he successfully went to the United States for further studies and became a member of Carlisle High School in Virginia.

Here, he averaged 21.3 points, 13.3 rebounds and 4.2 blocks per game, leading his high school to a record of 33 wins and 10 losses, and eventually reached the state championship. With his outstanding performance, he became the best player in the state of Florida, and later became the MVP of the Adidas International Training Camp.

However, he did not choose to enter college for further studies. Instead, he went to the Canadian Athletes Academy to polish his skills. Here, his performance was still dominant, handing in 25.5 points and 11.3 rebounds, dominating his league. He has extremely terrifying height and wingspan, and his athletic talent is also top-notch. His performance on both offense and defense is extremely exciting, so he is also hailed as the next Garnett.

So when he participated in the NBA draft in 2016, even though he had no NCAA resume or professional basketball league performance as a reference, he still attracted the attention of many teams. In the end, the Bucks, who held the 10th overall pick in the first round, selected him and brought him to Milwaukee.

had difficulty adapting to the NBA and was completely eliminated at the age of 24.

The Bucks were on the rise at that time. After confirming the development of Giannis Antetokounmpo as their core, the team gradually became a powerhouse in the Eastern Conference. If Maker is selected this time, as long as he can develop normally, the striker formed by him and Antetokounmpo will likely be the top presence in the NBA. But what is unexpected is that Maker, who was prosperous before entering the NBA, suffered a huge Waterloo after entering the NBA.

In fact, there was a big controversy about Meck himself at that time, and that was "age fraud." Although it is officially believed that he was born in 1997, according to some clues in the media, he is likely to have changed his age by 2-3 years, which undoubtedly has a great impact on a player. Under tremendous pressure, Maker's performance in his rookie season was very poor, averaging only 4 points, 2 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game. He completely lost the charm he had before entering the NBA.

It's not like the Bucks didn't give him a chance. They still let him play 74 times in the 17-18 season, but the results were still unsatisfactory. He still averaged only 4.8 points and 3 rebounds per game, and his shooting percentage was an even worse 41.1%. It's hard to imagine that a 2.16-meter-long man would have such an inefficient overall performance. So in the 18-19 season, he was sent to the Pistons by the team.

But a change of environment still didn't help him in any way. He only handed over 5.5 points and 3.7 rebounds, so the Pistons didn't have any interest. What was even more embarrassing was that although the Cavaliers later completed the contract with him, it only lasted less than 2 months before he was laid off again. Maker, who was only 24 years old at the time, directly lost the opportunity to continue playing in the NBA. No team was willing to give him time, so he had no choice but to leave.

was exiled to various leagues and became a complete injury to Zhongyong.

In order to get a job, Meik had to go to the Israeli League to play. After playing for less than 4 months, he terminated his contract again and completed a contract with a G League team. It can be found that Meike's development became more and more restricted, until he was later recruited by the Fujian team and came to the CBA stage. Although he occasionally performed well during his two years in the CBA, it was difficult to satisfy the team. In the 23-24 season, he only delivered 14.7 points, 7.2 rebounds, 1.1 steals and 1.9 blocks. This is indeed difficult to accept for a big foreign player.

After that, he left CBA again. Now, the 28-year-old Maker plays in Australia's local NBL league. Although he has been selected for the Australian men's basketball team many times and once scored 17.2 points and 8.8 rebounds in the 2022 Asian Cup, he has become an "injury Zhongyong" and may only continue to play in the NBL league in the future.