Drafted: 40th pick, 1989
NBA seasons: 1993-1997
Regular season games played: 224
Regular season win shares: 14.3

Radja was on his way to an excellent NBA career, to the point that he had averaged as-near-as-is 20 points and 10 rebounds per game in his third season. What keeps his win share total artificially small, though, is how short his stint in the NBA was. He played only four injury-riddled seasons, and a combination of contracts, politics and uncertainties postponed his move to American shores until 1993.

The saga began as soon as he was drafted. In what became one of the more convoluted NBA draft-and-stash situations, the Celtics’ attempt to bring Radja over turned into a proper mess. Fresh off Eurobasket success in 1989, the 22-year-old was nabbed by Boston with the 40th pick, but his club Jugoplastika wasn’t having it. When Rađja tried forcing their hand by just showing up in Boston and signing for a reported $500,000, Jugoplastika went nuclear. They wanted $6 million in damages and got their way when a Massachusetts judge essentially told Radja to get back to Split.

The kicker came in 1990, when after all parties had supposedly agreed to let Radja join the Celtics, he signed with Virtus Roma instead for a reported $15-18 million over five years, outdoing even Serie A soccer stars Diego Maradona and Roberto Baggio. The Celtics, burned once already in court when Radja’s agent exploited a contract loophole, chose to keep his rights but let him walk to Italy.

Radja eventually arrived in 1993, and did so ready to play, averaging 15.1 points and 7.2 rebounds per game as a rookie. Yet more drama came four years later, when he unceremoniously left the NBA amid accusations of broken promises and absent knee cartilage. Considering his quality as a player compared to his lowly draft stock, Radja can still be considered a success of the draft-and-stash model – but there could have been so much more.