It is not about whether or not an opinion is valid or not or even if the comparison is true or not. There is absolutely no value in a discussion like this as judging ANY draft class without waiting multiple seasons (in this case before the its first season is over) is grossly premature and on top of that, attempt to compare it with one of the best draft classes in what is largely considered the golden era of basketball.
But, we discuss player projections all the time....You're just put out that I brought up the gold standard. This rings hollow.
37 years??? It just sounds like prisoner of the moment. 03 draft was insane multiple players had INSTANT winning impact as the focal point on their teams same cannot be said for this year. Neither Barnes/Mobley are the focal point on either side and are playing with two other stars. Hell even 04 draft- at the top Dwight Okafor Gordan Devin Harris Iggy Luol Deng Then Al Jefferson, Smoove, JR, Kevin Martin, Jameer Nelson, Tony Allen, Varejo, Ariza, Livingston Then lots serviceable dudes who played for years: Beno, Duhon, Biedrins That's deep but doesn't come close to '03. There are plenty other deep drafts far more recent('08; '09; I mean jury still out for '18) and its a bit strange to over look legendary classes like '96 & '03.
@Plowman what about this class is making you think it has "a decent shot" to rival the 1984 class? Maybe if we know what criteria you're using it'll make for a better discussion.
"But, we discuss player projections all the time..." From a developmental perspective yes, and even those usually end up dumb as all hell "You're just put out that I brought up the gold standard." Re-read what I have been saying. That distinction was made years after the draft took place. Trying to claim that distinction in 1984 would have been dumb as ****.
It is too early to tell. But it seems that the Draft class will produce some legit mainstay NBA talents. Green is starting to touch his stride. He’s going to be a decent NBA starter at a minimum, with all the ability to turn into an MVP as he grows into his game. Mobley has already shown how he is handling the NBA, and fiercely holding his own as he learns how to dismantle his opponents. Barnes seems like such a solid talent, and so dominant. I am very impressed with his demeanor. Draft class of 2021 has some great talent and the potential has started to shine bright.
Hollinger: Could 2021 NBA Draft class rival ’96 as the best ever? We’ve got less than a week before the 2021-22 regular season is a wrap, and there’s one thing in particular that’s been nagging at me. I’ve been struggling with how to quantify this rookie class, and I want to stop and take another look for a minute. We weren’t that high on this group coming into the season, but it’s turned out to be a fairly exceptional group. The lack of a Jordan/LeBron/Davis type talent at the top of the marquee has hurt the hype, but this overall appears to be a remarkable class, both in terms of quantity and quality. For instance, here’s what’s happened just in the last five weeks: Detroit’s Cade Cunningham averaged 22.9 points, 7.0 assists and 5.9 boards for the entire month of March, including 22-12-5 in a win at Toronto and 28-10-6 in a win over Atlanta. Houston’s Jalen Green ripped off four straight 30-point games and is averaging 21.5 per game since the break. Cleveland’s Evan Mobley had 27 points and 11 rebounds while matched up against the league’s reigning MVP in a crucial overtime win over the Nuggets. Toronto’s Scottie Barnes had 31 points and 17 rebounds on 14-of-21 shooting in a loss to the Lakers, one of the five double-doubles he’s posted since the All-Star break as a point-center-hybrid-pterodactyl thing terrorizing the league. He’s averaging 17.8 points on 58.0 percent true shooting since the break; scoring was supposed to be his weakness. Orlando’s Franz Wagner hung 28 on the Wizards and was riding an eight-game streak of double-figure outings before spraining his ankle 20 seconds into Friday’s loss to Toronto. More amazingly, he was a plus-4 in that stretch despite playing for the Orlando Magic. Those five likely are this year’s All-Rookie squad, but they’re not alone. For instance, Oklahoma City’s 19-year-old Josh Giddey posted three straight triple-doubles before his play was deemed too great a threat to the Thunder’s next lottery pick and he was shut down for the year. (While we’re here: Somebody missing nearly two months with “hip soreness” is either really dodgy tankeration or an insufficient description of a more worrisome injury.) Overall, 10 rookies have played at least 50 games and averaged double figures this year. An 11th, Herb Jones of New Orleans, is averaging 9.6 while absolutely terrorizing opponents on defense. Two other 19-year-old rookies (Golden State’s Jonathan Kuminga and Houston’s Alperen Sengun) look like surefire long-term keepers, already sporting PER marks around the league average in steady doses of playing time despite being among the league’s youngest players. Dig deeper, and the quality still resonates. At least three other project wings have shown enough flashes to feel optimistic about them making a dent next year (Ziaire Williams, Brandon Boston Jr. and Moses Moody). On the other side of the age equation, undrafted two-ways Jose Alvarado and Terry Taylor already seem like long-term rotation players, while second-rounder Ayo Dosunmu is starting for a playoff team. We don’t know what these players are going to be long-term, but based on the quality of their rookie campaigns, there’s a really good chance this goes down as one of the great rookie classes ever. The only thing that’s really missing — at least at the moment — is that one, singular megastar to define the class. Just how good is this draft? Reach back for historical comps, and it quickly becomes apparent this year’s group has a rare depth of quality. The group offering the most obvious reference is the gilded 2018 draft, which featured Luka Doncic, Deandre Ayton, Trae Young, Jaren Jackson Jr., Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Mikal Bridges, Miles Bridges, Michael Porter Jr., Robert Williams, Jalen Brunson, Anfernee Simons, Gary Trent Jr., Wendell Carter Jr., De’Anthony Melton and Collin Sexton, among others. Phew, that is some quality. Fifteen players who have left a serious dent, plus a few others still pushing to expand the list. And yet … compare them as rookies, and 2018 comes up a little short. That 2018 draft, like this one, had 10 double-figure scorers as rookies, but two of them were busts getting charity minutes (Kevin Knox and Marvin Bagley) and a third was Allonzo Trier. This draft, by comparison, has 10 who all seem legit. There might not be a Luka from the 2021 draft, but the rest of the group stacks up quite well to 2018 so far. Doncic and Young have made the leap to All-NBA-caliber players, and one imagines a few other players from this group will be in All-Star Games soon (Ayton, Jackson, Gilgeous-Alexander, Mikal Bridges and Porter, for instance). The depth of quality is impressive, too — 16 players from the 2018 draft sport double-figure career scoring averages, and 11 have positive career BPM. But again, this does not seem an insurmountable task for the 2021 class. With six bangers in the first eight picks, and Kuminga threatening to make it seven, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that a couple of them — if not several — ascend to second- or third-team All-NBA level. And in terms of sheer numbers, the ’21s are on track to rival or surpass their ’18 counterparts.
About the only thing our ’21 class doesn’t have is a Jordanesque headliner. This brings us to one other draft to rival this one: 1984. On one level, the 2021 class can’t compete. In terms of top-tier awesomeness, the ’84 group had Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley selected in the top five, and John Stockton at No. 16. The odds of anyone in this draft being a top-40 player in history is probably less than 50-50, let alone four of them. But that draft can’t hang with 2021 on depth. Only a few other significant players came from that group (Alvin Robertson, Otis Thorpe, Kevin Willis, Jerome Kersey and Sam Perkins). To wit: The ’84 class only had three players who averaged more than 14.0 points per game for their career; the ’21 class already has five. Yes, points per game is a shaky lens through which to view the landscape, but from 10,000 feet, it paints a fairly helpful composite picture. A better rival, for both this year’s class and the 2018 group, might be 1996. This, for me, is still the best draft ever. It gave us one all-timer in Kobe Bryant (picked 13th), but the real strength of that draft is just how many players a tier or two lower came from it. That rookie class had three MVPs (Bryant, Steve Nash and Allen Iverson), two Defensive Players of the Year (Marcus Camby and the undrafted Ben Wallace) and an amazing 11 All-Stars (Bryant, Nash, Iverson, Wallace, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Peja Stojakovic, Stephon Marbury, Ray Allen, Jermaine O’Neal, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Antoine Walker). Even beyond that group, ’96 had several other guys (Derek Fisher, Kerry Kittles, Malik Rose, Shandon Anderson and the undrafted Bruce Bowen) who were just darned good players who became important parts of multiple Finals teams. (Also, between Camby, Wallace and Bowen, 1996 has to be the best defensive rookie class ever. The Bill Russell-KC Jones draft in 1956 is probably the only real rival.) Again, we might not have a Kobe in our 2021 group. But can this crop rival that class in terms of its depth of quality? It seems possible. It’s already become apparent that this draft could have as many truly significant players as any draft in recent memory. Especially at the top, the quality is staggering. It’s not hard to talk yourself into seven of the top eight picks appearing in an All-Star Game, which means we just need a few more to break through from the rest of the pack to catch the ’96 group’s total of 11. Additionally, look at that “pack.” There is almost nobody selected in the top 40 picks in 2021 whose rookie year would cause you to write off their future prospects, especially if you don’t follow the Charlotte Hornets closely. For the most part, the rookies with the worst stats are also the ones we already knew were projects — the Primos and Aldamas whom we weren’t expecting to check in on for a while. I mean, what’s the ceiling for this group right now, other than the lack of a Jordan/LeBron God-tier player at the top of the draft? Is it crazy to think this draft could have six Hall of Famers? What about a dozen guys who play in an All-Star Game? How about two forwards who become fixtures on All-Defense teams (Mobley, Barnes) and four guards who slug out for the perimeter spots (Jalen Suggs, Alvarado, Dosunmu and Davion Mitchell)? Remember, too, that this is a very young rookie class — the first seven picks were one-and-dones or their class equivalent, and eighth pick Wagner was the same age as the one-and-dones despite playing two years at Michigan. Overall, 19 of the first 30 picks have yet to turn 21; three others only recently crossed into legality. We still have a ton of runway for this group, and they’re already killing it. Of course, a lot of the future of a draft class is still unknowable — slumps, injuries, trades, petty jealousies and whatnot all will come into play at some point. The other part we especially don’t know is which prospects will leap out of the shadows in future seasons. That vaunted ’96 rookie class, for instance, had four future All-Stars (Nash, O’Neal, Bryant and Wallace) who hardly played as rookies but vaulted into stardom in later years. So far, however, when you put the classes side by side, the 2021 group doesn’t seem overmatched … which is an amazing start. Overall, this probably won’t be the “best” draft of all time. Somebody among the top-five picks would likely have to achieve off-the-charts greatness for that outcome to be in play … and, by the way, that 2018 group isn’t going away, either. Comparing these two classes going forward will be tremendous fun. For whatever reason, this year’s class hasn’t had the 2018-level hype. But in terms of the depth of quality players, guys who matter, this could be the best draft in a quarter-century. The 2021 group still has a lot of work to do to match that awesome 1996 class, obviously, but the fact that this outcome is even on the table is a testament to what a strong rookie class we’ve had.
Stupid. Because so many from 1984 played for so long, their averages dropped off of their peak. For instance, Perkins has an 11.9 ppg for his career, but averaged over 14.0 for his first 11 seasons before a gradual decline saw him go for 5.0, 6.6, and 3.8 in his last three years, the final one coming at age 39. Similar story with Kevin Willis who had 14 consecutive years of 10+ ppg with a high of 21 ppg before ending his career at age 44 with four seasons of 4.2, 3.4, 3.0, and 2.4. Jerome Kersey had a 7 year stretch where he averaged above 14 ppg and then went downhill before retiring at age 38. What's more, even Stockton doesn't have a career average above 14 ppg (in part because he was a backup his first three years), but he did have 10 consecutive years over that mark and 16 straight in double figures. You get the idea. Just for grins, here's the rookie years of the first few plus some others from 1984. Olajuwon: 20.6/11.9 Stocks number was 319, which would lead this year's NBA by a huge number. Bowie: 10/8.6 with 258 Stocks, which would lead the NBA this year. Jordan: 28.2/6.5/5.9 with 265 Stocks, which would lead the NBA this year. Perkins: 11.0/7.4 Barkley 14/8.6 Turpin: 10.6/5.7 Thorpe: 12.8/6.8 Willis: 9.3/6.4 Fleming: 14.1 Stockton: 5.6/1.3/5.1 Kersey: 6.1/2.7 Looking at this, it's clear you need a few years to sort things out before drawing any real conclusions. For 1984 some of those considered busts had pretty good rookie years. Take Mobley, er, I mean Bowie for example. Others, like Stockton, Barkley, and Jerome Kersey took a few years to come into their own. That said, nah, 1984 won't be beat this time.
