It's pretty ecxiting whatching guys like Tony Allen and Al Jefferson develope. It makes you wonder what fans in other citys felt like whatching players who are stars now when they were starting out and if they knew how good they were going to be. I suppose it's different now because as a result of kids going to the pros from high school the draft has dramatically fewer guarenteed stars than it used to. That, said I've found myself getting into the habit of looking at Al and Tonys stats and comparing them to other current stars rookie seasons. It's hard not to get exited when you look at Jermaine Oneal and see that his first 4 seasons were not as good as Big Al is this year. Keving Garnett and Amare Stoudemires first year stats understandably dwarf what Big Al has done but consider that they ended up averaging close to 30 minutes a game. If Al played 30 a game (pretty much double what hes playing now) and was able to equal the production he has now over that span he would be putting in about 14 pts a game as well as 9 rebounds and 2 blocks. In their rookie seasons with those minutes KG and Amare did 10 n' 6, and 13 n' 8 respectively. Als numbers compare favorably to those but before we start thinking "damn hes gonna be better than ALLL those suckas" heres where it gets dubious because Al is a high school kid and clearly isnt as physically developed as someone like AMare. If you played him that many minutes a game right now, hed collapse, he already llooks winded sometimes already. Now we all hope its safe to assume that being a professional, Al will get in good enough condition eventually to where he can play 100% for the 30-40 minutes a game. But the it's hard to just EXPECT the kid to improve to a 25 and 10 guy within 4 years. Strangely enough its even trickier to project what Tony Allen is going to be like as he developes, or at least it's harder to tell where his cieling is having come out of college, especially when trying to gage how big of an offensive force he could become. If Tony Allen was playing 30 minutes a game (goddamnit Doc, why ISNT he???) with the same production (and I think you could expect Tony to do that better than Jefferson just because of his superior physical condition and energy) he'd already be in the 10-13 pts per game area! People who start like that can do one of two things; level out and be a 9-15 pts per game guy their whole career (hello marcus camby) or get a little better every year over teh next 3 or 4 and become ray allen or paul pierce. The realllly nice thing about Tony Allen is that you may not be expecting him to become a 15-20 a game scorer as I have chosen to hope for (Im sorry but a really dont think its out of the guys reach if he can work on that jump shot) but you probably dont care because regardless, you know that hes going to give you that fancy Bowen/Artest agressive smothering Defense. THe question is, In today's NBA when do you expect a 23 year old rookies prime to begin and end? And whats reasonable to go ahead and EXPECT your high school pick to become? What, do you feel is appropriate as far as looking at where other guys were when they were rooks or do you consider that a bunch of rubbish because of all the things that happen on and off the court in an individuals life that can effect his level of success or lack thereof as he gets older.
Tony Allen reminds me of Sprewell and Al Jefferson reminds me of Shaq. Celtics will have a bright future if the young players develope and dont get traded away. But i personally thing that the best players out of the draft will be Al Jefferson J.R Smith Sebastion Telfare and Shaun Livingston (This is not including Okafur and Howard)
Al Jefferson is definitely going to be a stud, you can just tell he's a natural, now just imagine when he starts lifting weights and eating like an NBAer should instead of what he was doing in high school which was probably McDonalds. You can tell he can add a lot of muscle to that frame, he has long arms and a wide body. Allen is a little tougher to gauge, he will be an unbelievable defender like Mickael Pietrus, but his J is not good, and I don't know if it ever will be, but that's an aspect of your game you can continually work on. also, you can't really compare using stats, because it all depends on the situation, O'Neal's stats are terrible because he never played, the Blazers were contenders and O'Neal was just a baby. But after watching the blazers from 96-2000 (I was in college at University of Oregon) you could just tell that Jermaine was going to be a stud, he just had an explosive presence on the court, the day Trader Bob traded for Dale Davis I knew the Blazers were done. <font size="1"><font color="blue">The edit button is your friend.</font></font>
also, you can't really compare using stats, because it all depends on the situation, O'Neal's stats are terrible because he never played, the Blazers were contenders and O'Neal was just a baby. But after watching the blazers from 96-2000 (I was in college at University of Oregon) you could just tell that Jermaine was going to be a stud, he just had an explosive presence on the court, the day Trader Bob traded for Dale Davis I knew the Blazers were done.
