Throwing Good Money After Bad Talent
Because they see potential all around them, givers end up investing a lot of their time in encouraging
and developing people to achieve this potential. These investments don’t always pay off; some
candidates lack the raw talent, and others don’t sustain their passion or maintain the requisite level of
grit. Skender once wrote more than one hundred recommendation letters for a student who was
applying to graduate programs outside of accounting. She was rejected by all of the programs in her
first year, and she decided to apply again, so he dutifully rewrote the recommendation letters. When
the schools turned her down once more, Skender revised his recommendation letters for a third year
in a row. Finally, after three strikes, Skender encouraged her to pursue a different route.
If Skender were more of a taker or a matcher, would he have given up sooner, saving his own time
and the student’s? Do givers overinvest in people who possess loads of passion but fall short on
aptitude, and how do they manage their priorities to focus on people who show promise while
investing less in those who don’t? To find out, there’s nowhere better to look than professional
basketball, where the annual NBA draft tests talent experts on an international stage.
The late Stu Inman is remembered as the man behind two of the worst draft mistakes in the history
of the National Basketball Association. In 1972, the Portland Trail Blazers had the first pick in the
draft. Inman was serving as the director of player personnel, and he picked center LaRue Martin, who
turned out to be a disappointment, averaging just over five points and four rebounds per game in four
seasons with the Blazers. In drafting Martin, Inman passed up two of the greatest players in NBA
history. The second pick that year was Bob McAdoo, who scored more points in his first season than
Martin did in his entire career. McAdoo was named Rookie of the Year, and two years later, he was
the NBA’s Most Valuable Player. In his fourteen-year NBA career, McAdoo won the league scoring
title twice, played on two championship teams, and made five All-Star teams. In that draft, Inman also
missed out on Julius Erving—better known as Dr. J.—who was selected twelfth. Erving ended up
leading his teams to three championships, winning four MVP awards, making sixteen All-Star teams,
and becoming one of the top five leading scorers in the history of professional basketball. Both
McAdoo and Erving are members of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
A dozen years later, after being promoted to general manager of the Blazers, Stu Inman had the
chance to redeem himself. In the 1984 NBA draft, Inman had the second pick. He chose another
center, Sam Bowie, who was over seven feet tall, but athletic and coordinated: he could shoot, pass,
and steal, not to mention block shots and grab rebounds. But Bowie never lived up to his potential.
When he retired from basketball, ESPN named him the worst draft pick in the history of North
American professional sports. In 2003, Sports Illustrated, whose cover Bowie had graced years
earlier, called him the second-biggest draft flop in the history of the NBA. The biggest? LaRue
Martin.
In selecting Bowie second, Inman passed up on a shooting guard from North Carolina named
Michael Jordan. With the third pick, the Chicago Bulls selected Jordan, and the rest is history. After
being named Rookie of the Year, Jordan racked up six championships, ten scoring titles, and eleven
MVP awards while making fourteen All-Star teams and averaging more points than any player ever.
He was recognized as the greatest North American athlete of the twentieth century by ESPN.
Inman recognized Jordan’s potential, but the Blazers already had two strong guards. They needed