Former first-round bust leads Brazil to basketball quarterfinals

Caboclo had a monster game in Brazil's 102-84 win over Japan Friday, scoring 33 points and pulling down 17 rebounds, nine of them offensive. It's the most rebounds in an Olympic basketball game since Dirk Nowitzki in 2008, and the most points scored by a Brazilian player since Hall of Famer Oscar Schmidt in 1996. He also added an impressive blocked shot.

The 28-year-old who was once called the "Brazilian Kevin Durant" showed why the Toronto Raptors were so intrigued by his potential with a dominant effort to lift his home country to the quarterfinals, where they're likely to face Team USA. 

While it was Brazil's first win at the Paris Games, its point differential was better than fellow third-place finisher Greece, sending them through to the round of eight.

Caboclo hasn't played in the NBA for more than three years, though he played two games in the G League in 2022. He's now a member of Partizan Belgrade, competing in the Serbian League and the EuroLeague.

Arguably, Caboclo was two years away from being eight years away back in 2014. Even with his great athleticism, the NBA is a tough place for a teenager to have to learn how to play basketball. But now he has a legendary Olympics performance on his resume.

Plenty of first-round picks don't pan out. Very few of them put up 33-point double-doubles in the Olympics.