Wasted can mean whatever - whether it be due to injury, never winning a ring/championship, underachieving, etc., etc.

I'll start first w/ Michael Vick and for obvious reasons

What do you guys think

Len Bias

Jay Williams

Not the biggest by any means (some posted already probably are), but my first thought was Lawrence Phillips. Shrug.

The Mind of Maurice Clarett

Derrick Coleman.

Bernard King - damn knee injury

Ricky Williams

Tracy McGrady

kobe bryant

Charles Rogers/Mike Williams

jghwsrrfhws;rk;wekrw;en I wanted to post that picture

who's the guy on the left?

Doc Gooden

Charlie Ward and Drew Henson might have been legit NFL QB's, rather than a NBA role player and a journeyman minor league baseball player that tried his hand at football 3 years too late.

Vick seems like a bad choice. It's not like he wasn't a lousy throwing QB before all his trouble.

Vin Baker was a really solid and pretty underrated NBA player before he drank himself into a bum.

This is perfect.

Bobby Abreu

More natural skill then 95% of MLB, no drive to work hard or play hard.

Die. Edit to add: Maybe that's harsh. Throwing doesn't matter so much when you can do this

Tommy Frazier. At least it was a medical issue not stupidity. With that said, not sure what his pro prospects would have been at that time.

Re-edit to add: Vince Carter. Ridiculous athletic talent. Doesn't always try to so hard (to put it mildly).

So it looks like these can be broken down into three categories

1) Laziness

2) Drugs/alcohol problems

3) Injury

Is that about right?

Well I guess we need a fourth category:

4) Kobe

If an athlete makes it to the professional level I would argue he didn't waste much. There are so many great athletes that never make it to even the high school level because of grades/drugs/attitude etc. I'd say the biggest wastes are the guys that make it to the college level, show they can dominate that level in stretches but then get caught up in other things especially when their families could really be helped if they were to make it to the pros.

I don't know. I would consider signing the richest contract in football history, and then losing it all because you liked to watch ****ing dogs fight a pretty big waste.

Or being the number one pick in the NBA draft and dying of a cocaine overdose while celebrating to be a pretty big waste.

Or to be VC and to not really give a damn a pretty big waste as well.

Sure we can give them a gold star for making it to the professional level, but I don't think that absolves them of any need to actually make it as a professional. To throw it all away over drugs/gambling/laziness (really anything but a career-ending injury) I don't think can be considered anything but a waste.

Earl "the goat" Manigault

I think Marian Gaborik is up there when you combine his injury problems with being stuck in Lemaire's defensive system. Just an amazing goal scorer. Once he leaves as a free agent he'll probably explode.