but I'm assuming it has something to do with the fact he hasn't been healthy or eligible to play but a single month in the last two seasons. And that he's looking right now at trying to make it back from an injury there's a pretty high probability he never fully recovers from.

It's pretty hard to tap into All American potential if you can't even go through the motions on the court.

That fact doesn't rightly undo whatever intensions Pope might've had in heaping such praise on Wyatt way back when he did, though. If it were a lil over-the-top in terms of optimism, then Pope would hardly be the first leader of men to do so.

My guess is at least one in three men in the NBA today were told by more than a few influential people in their lives that they had no shot of playing the game at that level. To keep Pope's encouraging words in perspective, perhaps.