The next Wayne Gretzky. The next Michael Jordan. The next [insert name of legend here]. Every up-and-coming player gets compared to a former great at some point in their career. It's just a part of sports. But for every one correct association, there are countless athletes that do not live up to their lofty billings. And that can happen for a variety of reasons. Maybe it was just laziness or drugs, or laziness and drugs, or that scourge of top athletes the world over, too much good pussy.
July is a slow sports month—for spectators. But with NFL training camps around the corner, and the NBA and NHL seasons not too far away, the middle of summer is the time when champions are made in off-season workouts. Of course we know that plenty of athletes—even the next Gretzky and the next Jordan—aren't using the offseason to its fullest. To celebrate the athlete who embodies the good player gone bad, we're taking a look at the people who took their respective sports by storm, only to fizzle out for one reason or another. Here are 14 Athletes Who Wasted Their Talent.
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