Basketball is littered with guys who never reach their potential and often it’s their own fault. Think of Earl Manigualt or Raymond Berry, transcendent talents who couldn’t overcome the chaos in their own lives to fulfill their potential (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said that Manigault was the most talented player he had ever seen).
Some guys, like Greg Oden, would have been great but injuries interfered.
Some guys though, in one way or another, just get screwed and it’s hard to think of many who were screwed worse than Connie Hawkins.
Hawkins was a freshman at Iowa when the 1961 gambling scandal, which hit the ACC hard, broke.