The reason Durant was picked 2nd is because Greg Oden was thought to be generational. Maybe Oden could have been if he ever actually played consistently. But Greg Oden had Lebron hype basically. I do know a lot of teams still had Durant over him but IIRC it was more like a 50/50 split. Both Oden and Durant had a ton of hype.
Oden's career was derailed by injuries, I believe. But who knows if he could have lived up to the hype.
Nope, you said worst player. You're changing it to performing after I brought up that there are worse players on the team that would super likely perform a lot worse if given the minutes. I'm not even sure it's an 'Objective' fact. He leads the team in blocks, 2nd on the team in rebounding, 13th in BPM (AKA, not last), 10th in Winshares. So nope, it's not an "Objective" fact that he's the worst player on the team. If you look at all those numbers, it's basically Nix. Nix has been consistently the worst performing player on the team. He's playing a little better now at least.
Greg Oden, Lamarcus Aldredge, and Brandon Roy only shared the court for 82 games over 5 seasons in Portland. They went 60-22. A potential dynasty derailed by injuries before they could leave the station.
Yeah, it feels unfair to call guys like him a bust but...his body just wasn't up to playing professional basketball. I think he had one leg that was shorter than the other or something?
That's true. Roy I almost forgot about that guy. He looked like he was going to be the next great SG and was just destroyed by injuries. It kind of reminds me of how Yao finally was putting it all together, DESTROYING a Lakers team that was a heavy favorite and then suffering a career ending injury basically. I'll never forget that series, Yao was unstoppable.
Nobody is going to be KD in the next 10 years. Also it is quite futile to talk about Durant as high volume 3 point shooter as Durant evolved to shoot the majority in the midrange and especially clutch midrange shooter. Jabari isn't going to be a high volume midrange shooter or clutch midrange shooter, not with the Moreyball Rockets, post Moreyball Rockets.
Y'all really remember a different Yao than I do. Most easily stopped player in the history of the league. Just front him with Najera or anyone and he's basically useless. in the 9 games before he got hurt in the playoffs he scored the following points. I remember vividly in game 1 vs blazers Yao in the first half was like 8-8 for 20 points. The Blazers fronted him the rest of the series and he basically could do nothing. He averaged 17-10-1 for the entire playoffs. I didn't realize that was unstoppable. James hardens numbers blows those away but he's a choker.. 24 11 7 21 15 17 28 12 19
You’re right to an extent. Although scoring is up probably 25% or more these days. So more like 21 & 10 now. It has been mentioned here countless times that Yao would be a good 3 point shooter if given the play style opportunity. Guarding on defense these days I don’t know about that though he may be unplayable.
i'll die on the hill that i believe Yao would have been MVP caliber for the next 5 seasons had he stayed healthy. the saddest thing is that we never got to see Yao shoot threes. He easily could have shot AT LEAST 37%.
Even nba backups like TyTy and Josh Christopher averaged like 25 ppg 5-6 apg, in the g league. I doubt Jabari could do that in the g league…
Probably not, he'd likely average somewhere around 17 points per game in the G league, but his defense would look a LOT better against that level of competition. He'd probably have been better off catching some G league time this season, help him find his shot rather than just getting flat out embarrassed at the NBA level. That's just another example of how the Rockets have no accountability whatsoever, they play scrubs like Smith heavy minutes based on his draft position alone.
A rookie Yao developed in this era would be dominant, an upgrade on Porzingis / Lopez. We bulked him up way too much. See Zion. Maybe we will get the chance again to do it right with Wemby. And for as much as the current Rockets suck, I still prefer it over having our best 2 players predictably take turns getting injured.
