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It makes sense that players who are whipping boys early in their careers become good players.

A player becomes a whipping boy early in their career usually because they keep getting picked when Johnny public thinks they don’t deserve their spot.  So why do they keep getting picked when they are in average form?   Because the coaching staff sees qualities in them that are worth persisting with and worth plowing games into. Now, the coaching staff is nearly always better at judging these things than Johnny public, so the players in this situation usually work through their early form stumbles and become very good players.