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"That's why they play the games" is usually said with a rueful smile. But in the case of these players, it might be more accurate to say it through tearful eyes, watching money float out the window. For one reason or another -- injuries, lack of performance, off-court issues -- here are the biggest NBA Draft stock drops to date. (Note: it gives me no pleasure that three of the five happen to be Duke players.)

1. Harry Giles, Duke

It's hard not to feel for a kid like this. Remarkable talent, a consensus top-five pick based on his play entering college, even with a knee injury. But after a third knee surgery, he simply hasn't looked like the Chris Webber clone Coach K thought he was getting. There are mitigating circumstances. But a guy averaging 5.5 points per game, with a season-high of 12, isn't getting picked in the top five. There's just too much Giles has to prove once again.

Scouts are seeing Giles, once a frighteningly quick help defender, moving like this:


He has time to get it right, and will be doing so in the public glare of playing at Duke, which could be an advantage or disadvantage, depending on what he shows. But he has ground to make up.

2. Marques Bolden, Duke

One of Duke's three highly touted freshman prospects (along with Giles and Jayson Tatum), Bolden hasn't managed to break into the rotation on a regular basis. This after joining Duke as the presumed starter at the five. On Saturday against Wake Forest he played three minutes, and failed to take a shot. That lower leg injury has either lingered, or Bolden isn't as far along as those who projected him as a mid-first rounder believed he was, or would be by this time.

The issues exist well beyond getting on the floor. Per Synergy, Bolden is scoring a putrid 0.35 points per possession on his post-ups when he does get game action. Anecdotally, he doesn't look comfortable at either end of the floor yet. Also, the bar is going to be higher for bigs who cannot come out to the perimeter--that's not Bolden's fault, it's just the reality of a rapidly shifting NBA landscape.

3. Ivan Rabb, California

Many questioned his decision to return to school, given that his multifaced game, at 6-foor-11, would seem to be a great fit at the next level and he was projected as a lottery pick last year. In some ways, it isn't really fair to hold his sophomore year against him, since if he'd turned pro, we'd just be seeing him at the fringes of a rotation in, say, Sacramento. But Rabb hasn't really gotten much better at any aspect of his game, except perhaps passing. He's been less efficient from the field. His rebounding is pretty static. Block percentage is down. He's still a great prospect, but when he returned, many expected him to dominate. That hasn't happened.

Rabb instead lives in the nether-region between tools and skills. Teams are perfectly willing to take a chance on the tools guy if they can sell themselves on the likelihood of skill progression. Anytime there's a stall in that progress, especially when in the case of Rabb it is a guy essentially repeating the level, eyebrows are raised, and questions about how quickly a player will transition to the necessary growth at the next level grow louder.

4. Carlton Bragg, Kansas

Drug charges and numbers that don't really show a conversion of his basketball tools into skills. That's not a great combination.

Even without the off-court issues, Bragg wasn't setting the world on fire before his suspension. His offensive efficiency dropped, keyed by a regression in everything but transition baskets. He hasn't made a three all season, an increasingly untenable gap in skills for the 6-9, 240-pound Bragg, who profiles really as a four but doesn't stretch the floor. He didn't extend his midrange, and he's both going to it less and making it less often. See point one: there are enough questions about his makeup now that even if he'd been elite, he'd have slid down draft boards. But he's not far enough along for teams to dream on him, not yet anyhow.

5. Grayson Allen, Duke

Forget the Rockettes-style antics. You cannot make a claim for an NBA job based on your shooting, and then go out and shoot 32.8 percent from three. No one thinks he's a good bet to provide an NBA team with even patchwork minutes at the point. There's an open question about whether he can defend the one or the two at the next level. It's enough to make you wonder why he was in the first round in many mocks last summer. Safe to say, he isn't anymore.

Let me give you a sense of what I mean. Same Florida State game as with Giles, Leonard Hamilton sent Xavier Rathan-Mayes over to bother Allen with three-quarter court pressure. Mayes is about what Allen can expect pretty routinely in terms of size of defender in the NBA, maybe slightly bigger, but closer than typical collegiate point guards. Here's how he responded:

That's not just a guy who needs to learn the point guard position. That's a guy who seems to lack the physical tools necessary to run an offense at Duke speed, let alone NBA speed.