Michael Redd
Nowadays, people find it shocking that the Denver Nuggets found their franchise player in Nikola Jokic with the 41st overall pick in a draft. Well, that's kind of what happened to the Milwaukee Bucks in the year 2000. With the 43rd pick, they selected Michael Redd, who didn't seem pretty promising in his first season after logging minutes in only six games. But then, things changed.
On a roster full of talent thanks to players like Ray Allen and Glenn Robinson, Redd still proved he deserved more minutes and went from a non-factor to an important piece of the team. He kept growing in his third season, finishing second in the Sixth Man of the Year running in 2002-03.
In 2003-04, with Allen and Robinson gone, Redd took the keys of the team and became an official NBA star. With a scoring average of 21.7 points a game, he showed his talent to the whole world and was rewarded with his first All-Star appearance and his first All-NBA selection. First... and last.
However, it wasn't the last time due to some kind of drop-off. He kept showing up and was even the NBA's fifth-highest scorer in 2007, but the roster around him just wasn't very good. The Bucks were a losing team for five consecutive seasons, so even if he was playing great, he wasn't really rewarded for it by the league. But he was by Bucks fans, who haven't forgotten about him and still think of him as a fan favorite.
He was also really hurt by injuries, which limited him to just 61 games between the 08-09 and 10-11 seasons and ended up shortening his career. He left the Bucks in 2011, and only one season later, he retired at the age of 32, having a short but impactful career that most fans will remember for years.