NBA Current Stars - Potential Hall Of Fame Players Other Than Lebron, Kobe, Durant Etc.

[DaveO]

As far as Okafor- his offensive game is much more advanced than Davis was when he came out. At Duke he was pretty much the only post player in a 4 guard lineup a lot of the time. He will be able to score in the NBA from the get go- his defense and rebounding are of course nowhere near Davis and never will be. No one else in the league is near Davis in those regards either though, except perhaps Dwight Howard on the rare occasions he has a fire under his behind. They are all indeed projects when they leave college as boys and move into a league of grown men.

I was trying to think back to recent players that came into the league and developed quickly into stars.  Off the top of my head I came up with Lebron, Durant, Rose, and Davis.  Any others???  Possibly Westbrook and Love developed big numbers pretty quickly. Everyone else is a development prospect imho.  .  I think most, though, need a lot of development.  Good luck to Okafor.

Porter came out of nowhere in the very last few games of the season and then in the playoffs.  He was terrific, playing starter minutes and doing a little of everything including getting stops on Dee.  If he keeps that up next year and stays healthy he solves the 3 problem.  That leaves the big men.  Oi.

[DonRocks]

On 5/18/2015 at 8:52 AM, DaveO said:

I was trying to think back to recent players that came into the league and developed quickly into stars.  Off the top of my head I came up with Lebron, Durant, Rose, and Davis.  Any others???  Possibly Westbrook and Love developed big numbers pretty quickly. Everyone else is a development prospect imho.  .  I think most, though, need a lot of development.  Good luck to Okafor.

Stephen Curry. He has a career .900 FT% and a career 20.9 PPG .

[farmer john]

I was trying to think back to recent players that came into the league and developed quickly into stars.  Off the top of my head I came up with Lebron, Durant, Rose, and Davis.  Any others???  Possibly Westbrook and Love developed big numbers pretty quickly. Everyone else is a development prospect imho.  .  I think most, though, need a lot of development.  Good luck to Okafor.

Porter came out of nowhere in the very last few games of the season and then in the playoffs.  He was terrific, playing starter minutes and doing a little of everything including getting stops on Dee.  If he keeps that up next year and stays healthy he solves the 3 problem.  That leaves the big men.  Oi.

i would add Lillard and Griffin off the top of my head, Chris Paul too maybe. Carmelo and Wade as well- they came in the same year as Lebron.

i agree that Porter is going to be solid. Gortat is fine too when he is engaged mentally- his defense and rebounding seem to suffer when his offense isn't there though. I think it's time to give Seraphin some major playing time and see if he can live up to the glimpses we see once in a while. At least his errors are of commission rather than omission. I also thought Dejuan Blair would see playing time this year but he was invisible. Humphries is limited but gives consistent effort. I would rather see any of them play than Nene who rarely strikes me as actually giving his all.

[DaveO]

On 5/18/2015 at 10:01 AM, DonRocks said:

Stephen Curry. He has a career .900 FT% and a career 20.9 PPG .

Ahhhh...Stephen Curry.  It took him a couple of years and he suffered an injury toward the beginning of his pro career.  Man he is playing great Now.  A guy who has developed A LOT!!!

On 5/18/2015 at 10:16 AM, farmer john said:

i would add Lillard and Griffin off the top of my head, Chris Paul too maybe. Carmelo and Wade as well- they came in the same year as Lebron. 

Oh yeah.  All those guys developed right away and have been top notch virtually from their entry into the pro's (Griffen lost his first year to injury--but then BOOM!!!).

On 5/18/2015 at 10:16 AM, farmer john said:

i agree that Porter is going to be solid. Gortat is fine too when he is engaged mentally- his defense and rebounding seem to suffer when his offense isn't there though. I think it's time to give Seraphin some major playing time and see if he can live up to the glimpses we see once in a while. At least his errors are of commission rather than omission. I also thought Dejuan Blair would see playing time this year but he was invisible. Humphries is limited but gives consistent effort. I would rather see any of them play than Nene who rarely strikes me as actually giving his all.

@farmer john.  I agree with and  observed during the season everything you referenced above. BTW: Blair was a Big East beast in college.   The Wiz scarcely used him.  I suspect he is gone next year.    I can't figure out what happened to Humphrey at the end of the year.  He was first off the bench for most of the season, but he was either injured and/or he didn't fit into that stretch 4 thing.

And back to Davis, Olajuwon, and Okafor.   Davis is so incredibly quicker than any big man in the game now.  His quickness is like that of Olajuwon.  But from my observations, as you noted above, he doesn't have or use post moves whereas Okafor has them (I just never saw them effectively used this year in my sporadic watching.).   Meanwhile Dwight Howard has had offensive training from Ewing and from Olajuwan....and he still can't do cr@p with post moves.  I wonder if Davis had Olajuwon tutor him...if he developed post moves he is the one guy that could mimic Oljajuwon's quickness against anyone else.

But all of that for next year.  Meanwhile ongoing for these playoffs of the big stars, Curry, Harden, and Lebron are still at it, and the Atlanta (play the game like San Antonio Spurs) are now in the elongated NBA final four.

[DonRocks]

On 5/18/2015 at 11:52 AM, DaveO said:

I was trying to think back to recent players that came into the league and developed quickly into stars.  Off the top of my head I came up with Lebron, Durant, Rose, and Davis.  Any others???  Possibly Westbrook and Love developed big numbers pretty quickly. Everyone else is a development prospect imho.  .  I think most, though, need a lot of development.  Good luck to Okafor.

Porter came out of nowhere in the very last few games of the season and then in the playoffs.  He was terrific, playing starter minutes and doing a little of everything including getting stops on Dee.  If he keeps that up next year and stays healthy he solves the 3 problem.  That leaves the big men.  Oi.

On 5/18/2015 at 1:01 PM, DonRocks said:

Stephen Curry. He has a career .900 FT% and a career 20.9 PPG .

Add to this list Giannis Antetokounmbo, Kristaps Porziņģis, and Joel Embiid - none of whom are American.