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On Sunday I polled our readers asking them which player they thought would bust out this season.
No surprise, half of the near 900 respondents picked Toronto big man and 2013 Vegas Summer League MVP Jonas Valanciunas, who appears poised to take the league by storm.
The clear runner-up was Rudy Gay with 17 per cent of the vote, but after that, the rest of the field had about an equal number of "break-out" nods.
Interestingly, the player who the least number of people thought was poised for a big jump in productivity was Terrence Ross. Ross by all accounts should have been a top option considering his age and skillset, yet other players like the crooked-shooting Landry Fields, received more votes.
There's the recency effect of course.
Many undoubtedly voted with the recent Summer League results in mind; Valanciunas looking like a man among boys and Ross looking slightly lost.
And that is if you noticed him at all.
The scary thing is that even at only 22 years of age, time may be running out for Ross. Wages of WIns recently examined the development curve for NBA players at each position and concluded that shooting guards develop the fastest, an average of 70% of their sample, peaking in terms of productivity in their third season.
And while it's not discussed in the article, the graphical representation of the data used in the analysis actually seems to indicate that a huge percentage of shooting guards hit their development peak in their second year as well.
Regardless, the data doesn't bode so well for Ross (never mind DeMar DeRozan taking that proverbial next step) and now entering his second season, Ross certainly has a ways to go if he hopes to cement himself as at least a regular contributor in the NBA.
This isn't to say we should all give up on him. I still think Ross will find his game and at least be a solid NBA-level shooter and defender.
But looking at this data, there's certainly a reason to be wary should this coming season pass by without much of a jump in the former lottery pick's production.