re: NBA.com Blogtable: What to Make of the Pelicans

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Any talk of HOF potential now is just extremely generous wishful thinking.

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While you are right that he has to prove it, most GMs felt he was a once in a decade talent when he was drafted, so it's a little more than wishful thinking on our part. Thinking Austin Rivers can be a star player is wishful thinking.

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Since 1979-80 and the start of the modern NBA era, six players aged 19 or younger produced more than 5 win shares in a season.(I.E. were worth more than 5 wins by that metric over the course of the season by themselves) The list? Dwight Howard, Kobe Bryant, Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James . . . and Anthony Davis. That is a list Davis should already be proud to be a part of – but here’s the kicker – Anthony Davis is on that list while only playing 1846 minutes. Other than Bryant (who was also in his second NBA season) the rest of those guys played way more minutes. Here’s the chart:
Player Minutes Win Score Mins per Win
Anthony Davis 1846 6.1 303
Kobe Bryant 2056 6.3 326
Dwight Howard 2670 7.3 366
Chris Bosh 2510 6.2 405
Carmelo Anthony 2995 6.1 491
LeBron James 3122 5.1 612

So Anthony Davis not only hung with the big boy 19-year olds of the past, but he kinda pants’ed them. (Here’s a few more notable 19 year olds he outperformed: Kevin Garnett, Jermaine O’Neal, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Tony Parker, Tracy McGrady, Starbury, Josh Smith, Tyson Chandler, and the immortal Maciej Lampe. (Sorry, had to throw him in there. Anyone else remember Lampe? And yes, this is a double parenthetical. I’m that awesome.))
So what can we expect next season? If look at other 19-year old players, three players compare well enough to Anthony Davis, production wise: Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard, and Kevin Garnett.
Here are those three players, their 19-year old seasons, and their second season, normalized for 36 mintues.
TS% OR% DR% TR% TO% AST% STL% BLK% PTS
19 KG 52.2 9.1 17.0 13.1 12.1 10.6 1.9 4.4 13.1
20 KG 53.7 7.6 16.8 12.2 12.5 14.1 1.9 4.1 15.7
19 Bosh 51.3 8.7 16.9 12.8 11.3 5.8 1.3 3.1 12.3
20 Bosh 54.7 7.1 20.0 13.5 13.1 8.6 1.3 2.7 16.3
19 Howard 57.1 12.2 22.2 17.3 16.1 4.4 1.5 3.6 13.2
20 Howard 56.5 12.1 29.2 20.9 15.9 7.2 1.2 3.0 15.4
19 Skynet 55.9 10.5 23.5 16.8 10.3 6.1 2.2 5.1 16.9

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Potential?

You are looking at potential meaning something like a greater than 50% chance. I'd have to say "potential" encompasses significantly lower likelihoods as well. I'd say Davis has--roughly--around 30-60% chance of becoming a HOF as of NOW. You obviously can't calculate that with any sort of accuracy, but if you remove injuries (the biggest negative towards his CHANCES of making the HOF being potential for injury) there is no way he doesn't have significant POTENTIAL to be a HOF.

We're arguing potential. You have to remember that. Potential can be taken subjectively all the way to meaning all that someone needs to be a POTENTIAL Hall of Famer is to sign with an NBA team. We're not arguing about someone who has enough of a stat base to say their potential for being a Hall of Famer is insignificant. From what he has shown, he is undoubtedly a POTENTIAL Hall of Famer. His ceiling is just too high to say otherwise.