I don't think that I have ever seen anyone who can simultaneously be the most powerful player and the most agile player on the court every game he plays.
I don't think that I have ever seen anyone who can simultaneously be the most powerful player and the most agile player on the court every game he plays.
There was a play last night that was truly remarkable. He went up and pulled a rebound away fro two players and then went back up so fast before the other two had even landed.
I have never seen another Duke player, make that player anywhere, do that.
In short he does more things better than any other Duke player. If that makes him the greatest, then...
Different strokes for different folks, but I find the discussion of the players who had the greatest season at Duke to be much more compelling than one which also factors in the NBA, particularly if we are trying to measure the greatness of Zion. I'm generally not a big NBA guy so though I obviously root for Duke players to succeed in the NBA, I care far more about what they did at Duke.
My metric is the guys who I, or a random college basketball fan in Peoria who doesn't have a tie to any team, would stop everything and pay a lot of money to watch play. The ones who consistently generate talk around the water cooler, not solely because of the occasional highlight reel play but their overall body of work. For instance, I live in NY and a colleague on the west coast who is marginally interested in sports but is well aware of my Duke ties has been e-mailing me a lot about Zion.
That being said, my top four are Laettner, Jason Williams, JJ and Zion. These four could all take over a game and had a certain "wow" factor about them. JJ's senior year when he and Adam Morrison were putting up crazy numbers and he was fighting off ridiculously physical play to get his shots is not getting the credit it deserves. And Williams could truly take over games as a powerful point guard, such as the 54 second Maryland game and the Kentucky game at the Meadowlands. Unfortunately Dawkins is a little before my time.
I think that RJ deserves honorable mention on some of these lists too. He is getting overshadowed by Zion but is also a truly great player who is very smooth and makes big shots.
At least you're still alive posting:
larson-far-side-dinosaur-extinct.jpg
[redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.
This is pretty damn impressive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZQJzI572Gc
He beat 3 UNC players for the first rebound off Grayson's shot, then went back up for the put back on his own shot before the 4 UNC players in the paint even realized it was a miss.
Bagley's second jump actually is quicker than Zion's. But Zion is more explosive and he's much stronger.
College is college, and the NBA is the NBA -- they are different games. Non-Duke observers have argued that Laettner is undoubtedly one of the top ten college players of all time and perhaps one of the top five. Four Final Fours and two championships certainly bolster his resume.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
There's nothing in my post that disputes what you said here . . . in fact, in my own post that you quoted, I literally said Laettner is the greatest college player ever. That was probably aggressive, considering Lew Alcindor averaged 26 and 16 in his 3 years playing for UCLA . . . but sure, Laettner absolutely had the best college career of any Duke player, ever.
He's just not one of the top 4 or 5 most talented basketball players to play at Duke. I don't think that's an unfair statement. It's just true.