California Golden Bears center Ivan Rabb returned to school to build off an intriguing first year. He stagnated and now he has to find his potential again.
There is a player every year who seemingly made the wrong decision to go back to school. The high-profile prospect who had a lot of draft buzz about him and thought going back to school could help increase his draft stock.
It almost never does.
Inevitably a player fails to live up to outsized expectations. Stagnant production is viewed not as consistency but as degradation. The player is not as good as everyone thought. A new crop of players delight the eye and steal the narrative. Sometimes the draft class a player waits for is stronger — a second overall pick in one draft may very well fall to 10 the next.
California Golden Bears forward Ivan Rabb was not a runaway prospect in the 2016 Draft. Before returning to Cal, Rabb was viewed as a lottery pick. The 6-foot-11 forward showed plenty of potential, nearly averaging a double-double as a freshman. He could work well around the basket and score in the post. He is a traditional center.
Heading back to school, where third overall pick Jaylen Brown had left for the NBA, Rabb had the chance to be the team’s leader and improve his game.
The results were better, but not noteworthy. Especially not for a player entering this loaded draft class.
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Rabb averaged 14.0 points and 10.5 rebounds per game last year in Berkeley. Those numbers are OK. In fact, averaging a double-double is nothing to look past in college. In a 40-minute game, that is not an easy thing to do.
But per 40 minutes, his numbers were relatively flat — 17.5 points per 40 minutes and 11.9 rebounds per 40 minutes as a freshman compared to 17.2 points per 40 minutes and 12.8 rebounds per 40 minutes last year as a sophomore. Rabb largely failed to take that big step forward in his play.
That does not mean Rabb is not a capable player, one who promises to excite a team later in the first round or in the late teens in this Draft.
Rabb has a lot of skills NBA teams will like as a mix between a new-age, undersized center and a traditional power forward. What you see may be what you get with him. But what you get is not bad at all.