No NBA team would draft him. 3 years later, he’s still trying to prove that was a mistake.

The best high school athletes — the ones that lead their teams to championships, and earn all-city, all-county, all-state or maybe even All-American honors as individuals — often go on to become good-to-great athletes in college, or some sort of developmental league.

But the vast majority of the young men and women who have hopes of ascending to the top of their respective sports eventually come to a realization that we non-star athletes figured all along: Becoming a “major-league” athlete is very, very difficult, if not impossible.

Today, we’re introducing you to four of those from the Charlotte area, two men and two women who were sports stars at local high schools; who still maintain home bases here; who have struggled in their pursuit of stable top-tier pro careers; but who haven’t given up yet.

Devon Dotson thought he had it all figured out.

The former Providence Day star guard — who was a McDonald’s All-American as a high school senior and then a 2020 Men’s Wooden Award All-America team member as a sophomore at powerhouse University of Kansas — decided to forgo his last two seasons with the Jayhawks so he could enter the NBA Draft.

Prognosticators projected that he would go early in the second of the draft’s two rounds, or possibly as high as late in the first. Confidence was high.

But when the event wrapped on Nov. 18, 2020 (five months later than usual due to COVID), it did so with every NBA team having passed on Dotson. And because of NCAA rules in place at the time, he was ineligible to return to Kansas.

“It was just a blow,” Dotson said, shaking his head, still seeming a bit shell-shocked almost three years later. “It’s a tough blow to the chest, man. I cried that night. I ain’t gonna lie. Just saying, Why? Like, How did this happen? ... I mean, my lifelong goal was hearing my name called.”

He said it took months to recover, mentally. In a practical sense, though, he almost immediately managed to find his footing.

Athletes on the Brink

These four Charlotte-area athletes were sports stars at local high schools. They still maintain home bases here and have struggled in their pursuit of stable top-tier pro careers -- but haven’t given up yet.

• When this pro golfer isn’t chasing her LPGA dreams, she’s delivering food for Door Dash

• At 18, this pitcher had $746,000 and aimed to ‘cruise to the big leagues.’ What happened?

• Former NC hoops star is chasing WNBA dreams. But she also fantasizes about a normal life.

• No NBA team would draft him. 3 years later, he’s still trying to prove that was a mistake.

Just minutes after the draft ended, several teams called to offer Dotson a two-way contract, which allows players to simultaneously be included on the rosters of both an NBA team and its affiliate in the NBA’s “minor-league” system, the G League. He settled on a deal with the Chicago Bulls worth half a million dollars, and flew the next day to the Windy City, where the team already had a jersey with his name and the number 3 on the back of it waiting for him.

Since then, he’s been so close to having a stable NBA career, yet so far.

On the one hand, Dotson has lived out childhood fantasies. He’s played in more than two dozen NBA games and had some surreal experiences: On a road trip to Los Angeles with the Bulls his rookie season, he counts being that close to Lakers star LeBron James — who’s “been in the league since I was 2 years old” — as one of his most memorable moments. He also signed a $450,000 two-way contract with the Washington Wizards last year, and in a preseason game at Madison Square Garden made a 3-pointer against the New York Knicks with his childhood hero Derrick Rose on the floor.

On the other hand ... while he has done well in the G League and been fortunate enough to sign three NBA contracts, he’s also been waived three times over the past three years.

This past spring, following a solid 2022-23 season with the Capital City Go-Go (the Wizards’ G-League team), Dotson returned home to Charlotte, where he has been working out religiously and playing high-level pickup games at UNC Charlotte maybe twice a week. He told us, at the end of July, that he was weighing invitations he’d received to attend multiple NBA teams’ training camps, which start in September.

Of course, whichever team’s camp he settles on, he’ll still have to earn a contract offer there.

Meanwhile, he is well aware he could probably forgo the NBA to have a prosperous career overseas — maybe even in the top-tier EuroLeague, which offers salaries that can eclipse $1 million.

“But I’m young right now. I’m 23,” said Dotson, fresh off a grueling training session at Velocity Sports Performance in Pineville, when asked about the prospect of international play. If he hasn’t landed a permanent NBA role in another three to four years, he might explore that route. At present, though, “I’m just not ready to pack up things and go over there.”

No, he wants to focus on the NBA.

It just so happens that, on the day we met him in June, the NBA Finals matchup between the eventual champion Denver Nuggets and the Miami Heat was tied 1-1. And when the topic of the series came up, Dotson talked about how inspiring it was to him, and why.

“There’s seven undrafted guys on the Heat,” he said, “so it’s like, Yo man, you’re still good. Just adds to the motivation. ... I mean, these seven guys weren’t drafted, and they’re in the NBA Finals, making an impact with the team. So it’s definitely possible. It’s not impossible.”

“I’m close, man. I just gotta get over that hump.”