ELITE NBA BIG MEN, WHO'S NEXT?

Ive done a fair bit of reading and youtube watching for Joel Embiid. Theres like 4 guys that interest me in this draft, but at this stage he’s the only one that really excites me. Since I literally like none from last years pool, with the exception of Victor possibly (who I haven’t watched enough of to know), Im starting early on this years class. Im not getting ahead of myself though as I’ve only seen him play 1 college game, but he’s definitely the guy who I like the sound of the most. A legit 7ft with great defensive instincts, massive wing span and hands, great athlete, great skills for only a few years playing and moves well (simmons describes him as a taller serge). Other than Jordan and Wade, most of my favourite players have always been big men.

This playoffs is proving their importance again. If you want to make the playoffs, get an all star of any position and put some pieces around him. If you want to win a ring, get 2 or 3 all stars and make sure one of them is big (or Lebron James).Ive always wished that I could have seen more of Olajuwan and Robinson in their prime, but have only seen a couple of their games. Their defensive numbers are just amazing and they have attributes that set them apart. Hakeem in the post was just beautiful and Robinson was an absolute freaklete. 

Seriously, look at this guy

From what Ive read he could cover a stupid amount of ground defensively. I’m also trying to savor what its like to watch Tim Duncan, although I need to despise him right now, and certainly did last year, (I'm an all time Wade fan, and therefore follow the Heat) he’s probably going to be in the top 5 players I will get to watch in my life time.

"What did you say about me not having a Title?"

Over the next 50 years there will be other great players, but ill always remember watching Duncan, Kobe, Lebron, Wade and Durant, thats a lot of top 25 guys playing around the one time. And I also got to see a lot of KG and Shaq but they were out of their primes before I got to see many of their games. Watching KG absolutely destroy the league defensively on those early celtics teams will always be a good memory. Anyway, the point to all this is that I hope that Davis, and possibly Embiid can join this big man group one day. When the most intimidating big in next years playoffs might be Hibbert or Ibaka or Gasol or even Dwight, that sucks. Im keen for the next elite big man to come (Dwight never quite got there). I was a big Dwight fan in his first few years and I fully expected him to be the leagues next dominant championship, KG type big man. While he was elite on D for a few years, he never developed as a scorer, passer or leader and therefore fell way short of the guys I mentioned before. 

So Im going to compare the first few years of a few of the best big men from the past 20 years and see what kinds of things Davis needs to do to get into that conversation. Ill include KG, Duncan, Hakeem, Robinson, Malone, but not Shaq. Shaq was just too different and is not even worth comparing. Its like he played an entirely different position. Obviously these guys are the best of the best, and most of them have rings to back up their numbers. KG has huge career totals and will finish his career with one of the all time best combination of points, rebounds, blocks and steals. He has also won an MVP, DPOY and a ring. Duncan is the best PF ever, Hakeem is the best post player ever, is the all time leader in blocks and has 2 rings etc, Robinson is one of the all time great PER monsters and has a couple of rings and Malone is currently 2 on the all time list for total points. He scored more points in his career than MJ. So this is a pretty damn good list to be compared too, and obviously Davis has a very long way to go. To finish his career alongside these guys he will need to win a ring or two and continue to improve and put up big numbers. But based on what we have seen over his first 2 years, he has a great chance of being right there. Here’s the numbers for the first 2 years of this group. Note the drastic differences in the age that these players were drafted due to college/ high school trends.

Average stats after 2 years

Name	Rookie Age	PPG	RPG	APG	BLK	STL	PER
Kevin Garnett	19	14	7	2.5	1.8	1.5	17.0
Anthony Davis	19	17	9	1	2.5	1.5	24.1
Tim Duncan	21	21	11.5	2.5	2.5	0.8	23
Hakeem Olajuwan	22	22	12	2	3	1.5	22.6
Karl Malone	22	18	9.5	2.5	0.5	1.5	15.8
David Robinson	24	25	12	2	2.5	0.8	26.8

 Per NBA reference.com

The thing with big men is that they take a long time to develop, firstly they need to fill out physically and also very few have polished offensive games when they first come in. So for KG to come out of high school and play at 19 was a very interesting move. After a few years he obviously turned into a beast, but to begin with hes at a clear disadvantage just because of his age (he was almost Kevin Durant thin anyway).  Compare him to David Robinson who started playing at 24 after a full collage  career and time in the Navy to become on of the most manly men to ever man, and you can see why their numbers are so different. Seriously its incredible that Robinson put up those numbers in his first 2 years, Id take rookie Robertson over any NBA big man now in their prime. Comfortably. But at 24, he wasn’t really a rookie, he was a full grown man victimizing other men like they were children (while also being the nicest guy ever, he thought he was getting to egotistical so he went on a Christian cleansing camp…….what). Anyway Duncan, Hakeem and Malone all had college careers and came in at 21/22. Now obviously Davis’ raw numbers don’t quite stack up, expect on defense, but his PER is second only to the 24 year old Robinson! And he came in after one year of college at 19. Pretty impressive.

Now lets assume that he improves slightly over the next 3 or so years and his raw numbers increase while maintaining an elite PER. Heres what he will be aiming for

  

Average stats after 5 years

Name	Rookie Age	PPG	RPG	APG	BLK	STL	PER
Kevin Garnett	19	18	9	3.5	1.8	1.5	20
Tim Duncan	21	23	12	3	2.5	0.8	24.3
Hakeem Olajuwan	22	23	12	2	3	2	23.5
Karl Malone	22	25	10.5	2.5	0.5	1.5	20.8
David Robinson	24	25	12	3	3.8	1.7	27.2

As far as I can tell, keeping with this group is totally achievable from a statistical standpoint. Its fair to expect him to climb to roughly 22, 11, 2, 2.5, 1.5, 27 over that time which would statistically put him right there with Duncan, again only trailing the much older Robinson and Hakeem.

Barring injury theres no reason why this shouldn’t happen. His career is going to need to be assisted greatly by teammates, and hopefully things go more towards the Duncan or Malone rout rather than the KG one. KG wasted his youth and prime in Minnesota playing for horrible teams. Had he been drafted somewhere else, KG v Duncan could have really been a legitimate conversation. I just hope that AD doesn’t get stuck in a horrible situation.

He's obviously very thin, and a little injury prone at this stage, but his upside is through the roof. Hes a 6”11 PF who can handle the ball, shoot from range, score around the rim, and be a defensive menace. If he adds either a solid low post game or develops his corner jumper into a major weapon, I can see him averaging 25 for sure. Going in another direction, his brow is a funny gimmick at the moment. Hes still young and can get away with something goofy like that. However if he's going to become a superstar, hes going to want his play to shine brighter than his brow. I think he will get rid of it at some point.

"Hey Girl"

On to the next big man related topic, Ive heard media people pronounce Embiids name both Joel and Jo-el. Im not sure which one I think sounds better. Obviously Joel is a better name for 99% of the population, but I kinda like Jo-el Embiid. Maybe my reservations are due to Jo-el Anthony, a man who I dearly love, and whos game is the worst case scenario for any big man. Joel Embiid sounds solid, dependable, and so on, while Jo-el Embiid sounds exotic and unpredictable. Its these kinds of observations that convince me I’m destined to write for ESPN.

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