David Harrison
With just four seasons in the NBA, most of which time he spent riding the bench, former first-round draft pick David Harrison had the shortest career of anyone on this list. Drafted in 2004, he was out of the league by 2008 and on the other side of the world playing in Beijing. He played in China until 2012, at which point he came back home to play in the D-League for the Reno Bighorns.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Harrison was featured in an ESPN documentary entitled 30 for 30: Broke, wherein he described his struggles after the NBA, claiming to have worked the night shift at McDonald’s just to make ends meet.
Thankfully his story has a happy ending, as he now works in stock trading and hopes to be able to go back to finish his degree at University of Colorado.
Greg Oden
In 2007, Greg Oden was selected number one in the NBA draft and it appeared as if he would go on to have an extremely successful career. But unfortunately his knee injuries soon made him retire from the game he loves and he was never able to make his mark in professional basketball.
Today, he still has dreams of competing at the highest level and has even been playing in China in an attempt to restart his career.