National Basketball Association

NBA: Three Teams With Game-Changing Young Talent

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 12:33 p.m. ET

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Apr 8, 2016; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Injured Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid (21) practices prior to a game against the New York Knicks at Wells Fargo Center. The New York Knicks won 109-102. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

Exploring three NBA teams with game-changing young talent that will quickly change their franchises’ fortunes for the better

In every NBA season, there are always teams that going into training camp have the intangible value of having “high potential”.

In other words, there is a sense of indefinite possibility that makes them exciting. There is a small possibility that this team will overachieve, but it will most likely perform just as badly as young teams filled with players who don’t know how to play NBA basketball are supposed to play.

But what if the team does overachieve? How exciting would that be! Teams with this mystique usually have exciting young talent, often rookie talent. The talent is expected to produce, but not necessarily immediately.

There is an slight chance of premature production, and that unlikelihood only makes that potential to awe more exciting. So which teams this season are likely to in this way grab our collective attention?

Which teams’ rookies are going to be truly game-changing, or at the least fun to entertaining to watch?

The Philadelphia 76ers: A Process Payoff

While Philadelphia 76ers General Manager Sam Hinkie was often reviled for his seeming disregard for the feelings of both NBA players and fans, it is arguable that his plan to accrue as many premium assets as possible (often to the detriment of watchable basketball) worked.

Looking across the roster aside from the point guard position, the 76ers have potential top talent across the board. Ben Simmons is being compared to LeBron James if LeBron James barely ever scored; people were calling Joel Embiid the next Hakeem Olajuwon during his college career; Dario Saric is an international and Olympic competition stud; and a genetic splicing of Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel would result in a complete NBA big man.

Depending on how much you buy into TJ McConnel’s star potential, the 76ers lack of a starting caliber point guard is concerning. Fortunately, as I’ve touched on in my other articles, starting caliber NBA point guards more or less grow on trees nowadays. Jeff Teague was an All-Star on a 60-win team two years ago and the Hawks couldn’t get more than a pick for him in their trade with Indiana.

Value comes with scarcity, and Teague’s high talent, confusingly high availability, and relatively cheap cost point to the lack of scarcity at his position. Whether through trade, draft, or free agent signing, the point guard position is the most relatively easy one to fill from a team building standpoint in the NBA.

Even so, the 76ers have some of the most high potential talent in the NBA. By both regular and advanced statistics, Joel Embiid had a great season at Kansas. He posted 11 points, 8 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks a game. Even more unusually, his success was the result of years of conditioning and training.

He began playing basketball at the age of 15. He essentially went from not knowing how to play at all to being the 3rd pick in the NBA draft in five years. One can only imagine what he will turn into with NBA trainers and resources and the time to take full advantage of them. I hesitate to analyze his game and highlights of it any further however, since the guy hasn’t had recorded action in two years.

For all we know his game looks completely different now than it did when he played at Duke. So our discussion of him will end a bit shorter than expected.

Ben Simmons of course combines the advantages of having an unfair physical profile like Lebron James with the deity given unfair passing ability of pre-body disintegration Steve Nash.

The first action he does in this video is a full court one man fast break against Jaylen “Lateral Quickness Monster” Brown which leads to Simmons getting him out of position and results to Simmons earning two free throws. Out of the gate we see that he handles the ball extremely well for someone his size and he is able to earn fouls against a strong defensive prospect.

And while he doesn’t score much in this video outside of drawing fouls, his much lauded passing is already on display. At the 58 second mark he delivers an extremely on point quick over the shoulder pass to a curling Timothe Luwawu. The next two consecutive highlights after that in conjunction are mildly jaw dropping.

He hits a jumper even though his shot is supposedly broken, and then you’ll see him catch a rebound, push the ball a couple of dribbles, and then somehow throw a curling bounce pass through two Celtics to a running Luwawu while Simmons himself moves at close to full speed.

The description doesn’t do the play justice. As far as summer league basketball goes, it was a pretty special moment. The next play he decides to show off again and he makes an excellent instinctive touch pass to a cutter who moved to the basket.

A couple of plays later, at around the 1:38 mark, and he tops off his NBA introduction by throwing an almost look away one armed bullet pass to a different cutting player. Add his pretty ridiculous passing to a workable jumpshot form, an excellent for his position-handle, and a strong and athletic 6-foot-9 body that will probably be able to feasibly defend 3 or 4 positions if coached properly, and you could argue pretty well that Philadelphia got an alright prospect.

Ben Simmons will probably do okay in the NBA.

Philadelphia has enough talented assets that they may either result in winning with experience, or if not, they are also flexible and varied enough to move if eventual roster redundancy necessitates a consolidation. Even with their front court log jam, they are in an enviable position. While I was relatively dismissive of Jahlil Okafor in my previous article about defensive value, I could just as easily be proven very wrong this year when Okafor makes 3rd Team All NBA and leads the Philadelphia 76ers to the 5th seed in the Eastern Conference.

Nerlens Noel could also go from being “raw” offensively (“raw” being a polite euphemism for “terrible”) to being Anthony Davis with more eyebrows and flatter hair. Crazier things have happened. Regardless, Philadelphia is loaded at the most scarce positions in the NBA and shallow at its deepest.

The team is in an easier than most position to balance out their collection of young blue chip talent into a very scary team. Once they do, Sam Hinkie will probably be smiling from his private jet as the Sixers take the NBA by storm.

The Los Angeles Lakers: Transitioning From Kobe Bryant To The Next Kevin Durant And The Long Lost Croatian Gasol Brother

It is rare that losing a transcendent superstar probably lead to sighs of relief from said player’s team. But for the Lakers, there was probably a contingent of people who saw Kobe Bryant’s retirement as a signal that the franchise might be on the path to actually being a real NBA basketball team again.

Lost in the past two years of Kobe Bryant’s extended farewell party, many might not have noticed how much honest to god legitimate young talent the Laker’s have been accumulating.

Mandatory Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports

Even just looking at their newest edition, Brandon Ingram, is cause for excitement. He profiles as an NBA level ball handler who’s 6-feet-9-inches tall with a 7-foot-3 wingspan and and a 9-foot-1 1/2 standing reach. To put a couple of those measurements into context, he has the wingspan and standing reach of a center who plays the game like a small forward or guard.

His standing reach is actually a full inch higher than his fellow oft compared to alien Kevin Durant. For Ingram, the only main concern for his development is that he weighs 190 pounds.

To compare, 5-foot-9 Isaiah “Actual Midget” Thomas weighs 185 pounds. While Thomas is much bigger than most players his height, the point still stands that Ingram is proportionally as thick as a modestly sized twig.

However, aside from his apparent need to gain dozens of pounds of muscle, there aren’t many holes in his offensive game. He can shoot at least from the NCAA three point line very well (having boasted a .410 three point shooting percentage and a strong .552 true shooting percentage at Duke), can handle the ball like a guard and can get to the rim with an impressive level of burst.

He also took care of the ball; as evidenced by his 11.3 Turnover Percentage.

In this highlight video you’ll see him make jumpers and handle the ball effectively. However, his lack of strength is pretty obvious, as it looked like his inability to muscle his way just slightly past disciplined defenders meant he had to rely on catch and shoot and step back jumpers to score, and his ability to get efficient looks at the basket was therefore limited.

He did, however, make a good amount of those jumpers. Those plays showed how ready his handle and shot already are, while also proving that his body isn’t quite there yet.

He is a legitimate star prospect with his main career concern (weight/strength) being imminently correctable. What is important is that if he gains the necessary amount of muscle, Ingram looks like he’ll be able to score with efficient volume in any system. If so, it would be quite a pleasing development for the Lakers’ organization and fans, and a pretty scary one for everybody else.

Defensively, Ingram projects to potentially be just as scary as Durant. With a 7-foot-3 wingspan, and more than adequate lateral quickness, Ingram will most likely thrive on the perimeter as soon as he becomes accustomed to NBA defensive schemes.

There is even precedence for this in Ingram’s Duke tenure. Not only was Ingram a stud offensively, he also had 1.1 steals per game while posting strongly positive Defensive Win Share and Defensive Box Plus Minus scores. Once he puts on muscle, his 6-foot-9 frame will also ensure he is no pushover in the post. All in all, Brandon Ingram barring any unforeseen circumstances seems like he will very much live up to the hype.

The second draftee for the Lakers was Ivica Zubac, who is coincidentally also a candidate for this year’s “Who Is He And Why Has No One Heard Of Him?” Award (also commonly referred to as the “Greek Freak” Award”), which was handily won last year by Nikola “Advanced Statistician’s Wet Dream”/Long Lost Serbian Gasol Brother” Jokic.

Zubac is a 19 year old 7-foot-1, 265 pound center prospect hailing from Croatia.

While he did not have impressive numbers volume wise last year in the Adriatic League, scoring around 7 points per game while pulling down 3 rebounds, he did so efficiently while only playing 13 minutes a game.

When the Los Angeles Lakers drafted him at 32, it was with overall little fan fare. You would be hard pressed to spot any fans in the crowd wearing vintage Ivica Zubac Adriatic League jerseys. However, he made quite the impression during summer league.

In multiple games he showcased some very intriguing physical tools. As with most of my other highlighted rookie prospects, here is a video of some of Zubac’s summer league highlights that do a decent job in showcasing some of his offensive and defensive strengths.

Here he demonstrates a consistent ability to finish over the shoulder hook shots, a great understanding of when to roll and when to crash the offensive glass, and very good hands. At the 1:10 mark not only do you see Zubac run a pick and roll very well, but you’ll also get a bonus Ingram highlight as he is the player that makes the right pass to Zubac as the big man rolls. Zubac also convincingly made a few midrange jumpers in other games as well, which if cultivated as a consistently usable skill would drastically increase his value as a prospect.

Zubac did have some very exciting blocks, but he also committed his fair share of defensive errors in terms of both in the pick and roll and in terms of defensive rebounding. There were a few times when he would run to block a shot on one player only to not get back in position; allowing the opposing team to have multiple second chances.

There was a glaring example of this in his summer league debut highlight video against the Pelicans, as shown starting at the 1:26 mark until the 1:41 mark, which is somewhat ironic.

Instead of trying to stay vertical and rebound, he goes for the block which does result in a couple of deflections, but this also puts him out of position which allowed the opposing team to get offensive rebounds and second chance attempts.

Also while he is not “un-athletic”, Zubac is not the most explosive athlete and he showed to be very capable of getting burned on pick and roll switches. Guards will gladly make plays against him rather than against opposing guards.

All in all, Zubac might fall just a bit short of being prime Dwight Howard level annoying as a perimeter secondary defender. However that is a pretty high standard, and Zubac has the chance to more than hold his own respectably after he receives enough NBA coaching.

As with Ingram, his issues were more related to mental seasoning and physicality rather than talent deficiencies. He could very well reach a very high ceiling, and he could plausibly end up a player who could function as a rim protector on defense and as a jack of multiple trades on offense.

Minnesota Timberwolves: Only A Matter Of Time

Much has already been written about how Karl-Anthony Town’s rookie season compared favorably in terms of rebounds, field goal percentage, and player efficiency rating to no-discussion Hall Of Famers like Tim Duncan and Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

Much has been written about he lead all rookies in rebounds and player efficiency rating. And of course, many words have been written legitimately comparing Towns to Anthony Davis if Anthony Davis had more eyebrows.

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He is going to be pretty good.

So will Andrew Wiggins, who while in high school was subject to so much ridiculous hype that people were saying un-ironically that he was going to be the Canadian Michael Jordan. After two seasons, he hasn’t quite lived up to that ridiculous level of expectation, but he is still obviously going to be a very productive NBA player.

Being a defensively versatile 6-foot-8 with the ability to shoot drive and pass proficiently is nothing to sneeze at. Neither is a two season career average of 18.8 points per game. If his game stopped growing right now, Andrew Wiggins would still essentially be a slightly shorter and more productive version of Harrison Barnes, and Harrison Barnes was just given a max contract to help ensure that Dirk Nowitzki never win a second title.

On physical tools alone, Zach LaVine also looks like quite a prospect. 6-foot-5 with a disgusting 46 inch vertical leap, LaVine is the definition of a freak athlete. He was solid enough as a ball handler that his NBA coaches were confident enough to allow him to play spot minutes as a point guard.

Over two seasons, he has a posted a .373 three point percentage. Without hyperbole, his ceiling looks about as high as he can actually jump. Just like other young prospects such as Brandon Ingram and Ivica Zubac, it looks like that with added weight and mental seasoning that LaVine could be a pretty special player.

Even Ricky Rubio, who might just be the odd man out in Minnesota, is no slouch. For his career, he has been one of the leaders in the NBA in assist and steals percentage, while being known as one of the best defenders at his position. One could argue that Rubio is a pretty useful asset.

The same could be argued for Shabazz Muhammad and Gorgui Dieng. Unfortunately for Rubio specifically, Kris Dunn just looks a little more special, and Rubio could be soon be suiting up for a different team (New York when Derrick Rose’s knees inevitably explode?) as a result of it.

Kris Dunn is a 6-foot-4 point guard who averaged around 16 points, 6 assists and 5 rebounds his senior year while being named Big East Player of The Year for the second consecutive time. He was an early contender for the “Obviously Too Good For Summer League” Award after averaging 24 points,7 rebounds, and 3 assists in two games before being pulled out for the remainder of the league after allegedly “suffering a concussion”.

Though honestly, it could be argued that he was pulled out because he quickly proved anything his summer league tenure was supposed to prove. In two very impressive games, he quickly demonstrated a more than NBA ready handle, and as well a working jumpshot that wasn’t supposed to be working yet.

In this video, you’ll see Dunn score in multiple ways. You wanna see strong drives with technically sound finishes? Go to the 31 second mark to see Dunn drive right, maintain strong control of the ball during two long strides, and then finish gracefully with one hand off one foot.

Technically sound passes out of high screen and switch actions? Go to one 12 for a seemingly simple but crucial to master quick pass out of an action with point guard Tyus Jones. Jumpers from a supposedly non shooting guard? Go to 1:27 and watch him curl out of a pin down with Adreian Payne into a jump shot that he makes with good form and arch.

The guy seems to already have a relatively full offensive pakage, and he already has the benefit of being an athletic 6-foot-4.

The video also only shows a glimpse of his defensive potential. He not only displayed in his two games that he could effectively utilize quick body and 6-foot-9.5 inch wingspan on offense, but also on defense. On the ball he frequently made opposing guards give up the ball when in isolations, fought to get over screens, and made good ball denial efforts.

He also showed solid defensive awareness in terms of appropriate positioning. He occasionally made errors off the ball, as he sometimes was obviously trying to use his athleticism to grab steals as opposed to staying in position, but the potential is obviously there for Dunn to be a lockdown defender.

Basically, Dunn has the potential to be a very special two way player. Combining him, Towns, Wiggins, LaVine and the rest, and Minnesota has a very bright future if even just a couple of their prospects pan out as expected. It would almost be an upset if enough of Minnesota’s talent isn’t part of a team that will soon contend in the Western Conference for years to come.

Young talent is alive and well in the NBA, and as these three teams show basketball is only going to get better.

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