Did you guys forget he's only 18 years old? Every single player in the NBA played in high school. Anyone remember the last time ESPN covered a high school game on national tv having Bill Walton and Dicky V commentate??? Tell me who jumped out of high school and became dominant right away? And do you remember how most of the NBA players that came out of high school looked like b4 they came in the NBA? Skinny as a stick. Every single HS NBA player took a couple years at least to develope their skills and their size. McGrady, Kobe, Garnett, J. O'Neil all of them. (Amare is pretty damn big though, perhaps a Future Shaq Stopper.....OOO yeah i said it.) He's already got skillz NBA players are still looking for. The ability to see the court, and great passing ability. Thats what makes players like Jason Kidd so special.
If you saw the McDonald All Star game, then you see how much farther he is than anyone I have ever seen in high school. He can dunk and score the whole time and get 50 points, but he decides to pass the ball, and i mean pass the ball....you see all those alley oops he created!!! He's doing it better than a NBA All Star Game. He's putting it at a perfect spot all the time. Usually when you watch a McDonald All American game, you see a lot of ball hogging and turnovers. But he alerady knows the value of making your teammates better, and he high lighted a lot of people in the game. DId you catch that he didn't do a special acrobatic dunk every time he had a chance to?? He went for a layup!!! That shows already maturity, he knows who he is and what he is capable of, and still setlles for an awesome pass, a simple little lay up or a non-fancy dunk. You check out those other kids with Hops?! Holy cow!! Soon we'll see back flips in dunk contest.
With the comment that he can't shoot J's or doesn't play defense....do you remember a guy named Michael Jordan? His first couple years were all high flying highlight reels, but he didn't have a jump shot and he wasn't really that good at defense....but he WORKED ON IT.... HE IMPROVED, and now no can deny he can't play D or Shoot the ball in your eye. And James can also. You just don't wake up one day and become that good, he worked hard to become the player he is, and he's so good that he look at how many haters he has created for himself!! Thats when you know you're good!!!
Yeah, dont' worry, everyone in the NBA is going to take a shot at this guy, more often than anyone rookie has come in the game. And yes, he's gonna get burned, blocked, harrassed, pushed over and he's going to face the most pressure than any other rookie (maybe tie with Yao). And if i was him, i would love it. Thats just going to make him even better. Look at shaq had to face during his first couple years. Hakeem, Ewing, Robinson. Those guys showed him up. But he learned and became better and three of them combine can't stop him now. Do you guys remember those clutch shots Kobe missed in the playoffs a couple years back?? Hardly! Why? Because he learned from his failures and now he's a 3-Peat (I repeat 3-Peat) champion.
I Can't wait for next year when ESPN is going to hype up the match up's like they are Heavy Weight Boxing FIghts. Kobe vs James, McGrady vs. James. Everyone is going to know about it because there going to hype it up for two weeks jus like Yao and Shaq. How about James vs Anthony?? OOO i can't wait.
Everyone is expecting way too much out of him. He's not going to be 99's across the board in his NBA 2k4 rating but i guarentee he'll get close to it in a couple years. All i'm saying is give this kid a chance to fail, and in return he won't fail to make make every single person love him, or hate him. Oh wait i think he already did that.
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