0311sdp;1103704 wrote:No he did not possess that skill at 20 years old, he came into the NBA straight out of high school. As he matured he developed a face up jump shot and became a force in the NBA and was also fortunate enough to play on a 76er team which was an elite team for much of his career (Bobby Jones, Julies Erving, Mo Cheeks, Charles Barkley) I'm old enough that I watched and was a fan of Malone his whole career and saw him play live in Cleveland. I do agree with you that Sullinger will probably never be the ball player that Malone was but that was not my point. My point in bringing up Malone and Unseld was that you don't have to have great athletic ability or great size to be a good player. Sullinger has as much natural ability as both of those guys, what he does with that ability is up to him and so far he has underachieved. I never meant to imply in any way that Sullinger is going to be a hall of fame type player but I think if he stays in school and works on getting in better shape (stamina) and develops more of an offensive game than just run over people that he can have a decent NBA career. He probably can come closer to Unseld ( a great rebounder and passer, average scorer) than Malone. I'm just saying that he will be drafted when he comes out and if he is willing to put in the work he will be a decent NBA player, if not he'll be the washout that so many think he will be. You're correct that at this point in his career he does not belong in the same sentence as Malone but at 19-20 years old you would be surprised how similar they play. I really don't think we are that far apart in our evaluation of Sullinger, the difference is that I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt that he will get better and you're more at he has reached his ceiling and what we see now is all that he'll ever be. We'll see in 3-5 years down the road.
Sully?
