Many NBA hopefuls don’t make it as far as Norm Powell and Fred VanVleet after four years of university ball.
LOS ANGELES—Norm Powell heard the whispers and so did Fred VanVleet — that they were too old despite being so young, basketball players in their early 20s whose best days may have been behind them.
They each had spent four years in college, a lifetime in the one-and-done era, and the prevailing wisdom around the NBA was that they had reached their potential and improvement was basically beyond them.