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Sports

The Incalculable, Ineffable Bummer-ness Of O.J. Mayo

O.J. Mayo is far from the worst player in the NBA, although he's not the star he could've become. But, in ways big and small, he's the league's saddest case.
Photo by Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

OJ Mayo was in the news last week, sort of, for "aggressively pursuing a game official" in the first quarter of a Midwest showdown against the Timberwolves. He would be held back by teammates, security, and an assistant coach; he would be ejected and leave the game scoreless. Earlier this year, Mayo had altercations with both Draymond Green and DeMarcus Cousins, who had already punched Mayo in the groin in a previous incident.

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For casual fans, the reaction to this was simple: "oh dang, OJ Mayo is still in the league. Well, how about that!" His team, the Milwaukee Bucks has failed to live up to expectations this season, but is ultimately still a half-full glass of pterosaur wingspan potential. But then there's also OJ Mayo, hovering grimly at the periphery, and he is just a bummer that reeks of failure to launch. He's the most depressing player in the NBA not because his situation is replete with tragedy or outright failure, but because, like most of us, he remains slightly out of step, all too easily overlooked, and already half forgotten. And because it didn't necessarily have to be this way.

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One is aware that OJ Mayo is still an NBA player the way one is aware that the "Big Bang Theory" still produces new episodes and that there is still a Queen in England. It doesn't really affect you and it's not important, but it must matter to someone, somewhere. Plucked with the third pick of the 2008 NBA Draft—right after Michael Beasley, and right before Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love—and touted as a possible superstar, Mayo's career has been mostly dreary but never quite calamitous. He's just there. He shoots, sometimes he scores, most times he doesn't, but always he's OJ Mayo, and that name still rings with the connotation of someone that should be better.

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Instead, his greatest contribution to the NBA's arc is being a central character in a morality play. In a story that Aaron Sorkin wouldn't dare to dream, gritty underdog Tony Allen kicked OJ "Silver Spoon" Mayo's ass on an airplane due to unpaid gambling debts and stole his spot in the starting lineup, and later became the unlikely object of adoration for a fanbase crazy for their resurgent and gritty working class bears. It was a victory for the people. OJ Mayo, a guy Michael Jordan himself described as "the best high school player" in the country, slunk away, denied his great moment. He became a supporting character in a failed spin-off about a more interesting supporting character. It was not supposed to be like this.

He kept running. Dude just ran right out of the building. It was weird. — Photo by Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

Ovinton J'Anthony Mayo has been sparring with unrealistic expectations for most of his life. He earned Next Big Thing status in high school, joining the many innocent kids that have worn the crown of "the next LeBron" and found it more curse than prophecy. Essentially a boy genius whose peers caught up and then surpassed him, Mayo had the poor fortune to enter the NBA during the shooting-guard paradigm shift.

The no-conscience early-aughts gunslingers personified by Kobe and Iverson and Vince Carter and lesser figures like Michael Redd, Jason Richardson, Joe Johnson, and that masked malcontent Rip Hamilton were very slowly being shoved to the periphery by the time Mayo stepped into the league. The platonic ideal for a starting two-guard was migrating towards a rough draft of the 3-And-D template. Reckless gunners belonged on the bench. What happened next would be easier to take if Mayo was just downright shitty at what he does. He isn't. He's competent and intermittently pretty good, but he's still OJ Mayo, the guy with a nondescript beard and the grumpily vacant look in his eyes.

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Mayo had a pretty nice inaugural year, finishing as the Rookie of the Year runner-up. But that was the high point in Memphis, and the fates have kicked him around pretty rudely ever since. During a game against the Sacramento Kings in his sophomore season, the Grizzlies were down one with 5.5 seconds to go. Receiving the inbound and finding just enough empty space, OJ Mayo launched an off-balance jumper that would have made Kobe nod with stoic approval. He nailed it, swish, cue disgruntled pandemonium. This was the OJ Mayo of (minor) prophecy, a cold blooded crunch-time killer. Except, as the cosmos would have it, 1.5 seconds remained on the shot-clock. Tyreke Evans, another player cut more or less from the same bleak cloth as OJ, heaved a half-court prayer in response. Swish, cue elated pandemonium.

That is but a microcosm of his NBA tenure, which is a tale of defeat snatched from the jaws of victory again and again. He is still a very viable NBA player, and will be for some time, but he quickly became a dour Human Trade Rumor, and he's as sure a bet for well-paid NBA vagabondage as anyone in the game. You don't even blink when his name is brought up in baby-sized scandals like testing positive for dehydroepiandrosterone or failing to pay $19,000 in private jet fees. That's where O.J. Mayo is now.

Okay dude, see you later. — Photo by Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

The year after OJ Mayo was drafted, a dumpier and altogether goofier Pac-10 shooting-guard waltzed into the league in Mayo's third-overall spot. This was James Harden, who fulfilled the promise of what OJ Mayo was supposed to be. Harden is a complicated figure in his own right, as his petulant princehood in Houston has shown, but he is at least still unpredictable. When Mayo gave the world false hope with a promising start in Dirk-less Dallas, the glum and achingly predictable collapse already felt like a certainty.

From there, he headed to Milwaukee, a long time safe-zone for mediocrity. Except Milwaukee was going against their own grain and putting together an intriguing squad built around Jabari Parker, Khris Middleton, Giannis Antetokounmpo and throwback big-man Greg Monroe. OJ isn't part of that core, but neither is he some font of veteran wisdom, though he did receive rave reviews for not being scared of Draymond Green. He's mostly just along for the ride, at least until his contract is up.

It's become conventional wisdom that Stephen Curry has become the NBA's relatable superstar. That's nonsense. Even as a spindly rookie dropped into the chaos of Don Nelson's system and dealing with the maelstrom of Monta Ellis' moods, Steph Curry was special. He came into the league shooting three-pointers with elite precision and cruelty. You watched his handles get better every game, you witnessed near-transcendent passing and elite court vision. He did not walk off his job at a car wash and reveal himself as Zeus. Steph Curry stayed healthy and found the right system and got better, and this does not make him an everyman simply because he's not 6'9. He's too damn good for that.

No, it's a guy like OJ Mayo that most of us can actually relate to. He's a melancholy drone, a professional whose exuberance and joie de vivre have mostly been sawed off by the failures and near-misses we file under "experience." He's had bosses that didn't give him a chance or didn't like him, and co-workers that sometimes straight punched him in the face. Like most of us, he's treading water, not swimming to safety but refusing to give in and drown. There are plenty of busts and tragic flame-outs in the NBA, but Mayo is something altogether more…normal. He reminds those of us watching on the couch of where and how we've fallen short in our own lies. He is still working at it, though, because he's stubborn and because it's his job and because what else are you going to do. There's nothing aspirational there, really. But there's plenty, almost too much, that's easy to recognize.