The Quagmires: Players Who Can Destroy an NBA Team and Its Future

Warning! Do Not Trade For These Stars

With Jonathan Kuminga, Brandon Ingram, and De’Aaron Fox, you can’t lose … or win a lot. (Thearon W. Henderson/Cole Burston/Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)

For an NBA team, there’s no worse fate than being mired in the morass of mediocrity.

Call it the Quagmire.

One key job of an NBA front office is to avoid the Quagmire.

And that means avoiding one type of player — the kind who tends to ensure you are going nowhere.

Here are the NBA players — all very talented, including a pair of All-Stars — who qualify as Quagmires.

I would argue, essentially, that no team should ever employ these players.