Player Development: A Star in Two Years or You are a bust!

Everyone is different. Jalen Brunson is a star player now who just ripped off what like 4 40pt games in a row in the playoffs?

 

it took shenjoon 6 years to be a true star, so i'm gonna say 5+ years

 

It's not about "fully" developing, nobody should be fully developed in 2-3 years. If you have actually reached your ceiling within the first 2 or 3 years that's more of a bad thing than a good thing, continual improvement is necessary. But the "year 3 leap" thing that many people cite is about likelihood and statistics. I don't know the exact number, it might be 90% or 95% or 98%, but the vast majority of players that become superstars have done one of two things by year 3. Either A) they have already had their 'breakout' season, they have arrived, they have made it clear that they are going to be a star, or B) they have shown extreme year over year improvement, indicating a very clear and steep upward trajectory. Or in some cases, both. This is just historically what has happened, you can go check it out if you want, if you look at the top 15 players in the league right now, I would bet either 14 or 15 of them either did A or B by year 3. For any given player, if he hasn't done it by year 3, it is very very unlikely he will ever be "that guy." It doesn't necessarily mean he sucks, it doesn't mean he's a bust. It just means the likelihood of star ascension is very very low.

 

Safe to say it took 100 years to gather the Dragon Ballz to summon Shen Long.

 

it took goku like months. it'll take our gm, white krillin, the same

 

2nd Rounder. 33th pick overall.

 

That is Muten StoneShi for you.

 

I don't think there is any like hardcore rule, but players in year 3 generally break out if they are going to - if you are referencing Jalen, he broke down in year 3, not the direction you want a player to be trending. It was his 4th year as a professional - and he is still a below average shooter, with average to below average handles, and a shaky left hand.

Can he develop into something more - sure - but it is alarming that he hasn't - and yes, I believe it is time to trade him.

DD

 

It's silly that people keep putting an arbitrary 3 years. Giannis took 4 years to break out, as did Steph and Jokic, Brunson took 5.

 

Three years is usually enough to get a sense of a player, but many breakout after that. As long as there is continual improvement in some areas through 3 years, I would continue to give players time.

 

It isn't that, it is the contract situation, the org has to decide what sized contract to offer, neither Sengun nor Green are Max players right now, so you can let it ride and make the decision as an RFA next year, but then you run the risk of someone overbidding and driving the price higher than you planned and making it more difficult to trade them.

I doubt anyone would mind if they both signed 20m or so contracts - but their agents would.

DD

 

Brunson was on the short list for 6th man of the year his 3rd season, and most improved player of the year his 4th season. That’s when he signed with New York and now you’ve seen allstar production in his 5th and 6th seasons. It’s worth flagging that he was an older prospect coming into the league at 22. I point this out to say, I don’t think many folks saw the allstar potential in seasons 3&4, but the trajectory was decidedly trending upward. He went from 34/35% 3pt shooting his rookie year, to 40% in year 3. And he’s been at 39/40% in seasons 4,5 and 6. TS went from 55% his rookie year to 61% in season 3, and he’s been at about 59% the last 3 seasons.

I use Brunson as an example because he’s an allstar/mvp candidate. He came into the league older and a better shooter than Jalen for example. If we assume some sort of youth penalty of a year for Jalen, we’d expect to see a significant jump in shooting efficiency in year 4. This is really the year that will tell us if Jalen will ever become a good shooter. And unfortunately I don’t think you can give him the full year given the lack of any shooting improvement up to now, and his large cap hold and/extension cost. You’ve got to recoup some value if he’s not the guy, and that means having some trade options lined up for the deadline. Jalen simply has to shoot better from the getgo this coming season. If he’s still shooting poorly first half of next season (year 4), I feel confident in saying Jalen isn’t likely to fulfill his potential as the #2 pick.

But I’m willing to acknowledge that even with 3 seasons under his belt, there’s hope for a breakout in season 4. He’s only got the first half of the season to prove it as far as I’m concerned. And let’s acknowledge that that’s part of the downside of drafting super young players. The development runway may not be long enough for a team to truly know what they have in 3 seasons. But I don’t think you can explain away a lack of significant improvement in year 4.

 

That's a bingo

 

I'm generally in favor of waiting as long as possible before committing money. Sengun I wouldn't loose much sleep over giving a max to, but I'm very okay with next year being a prove it year for him to earn that.

Green I would obviously prefer to wait a year, I would hope that the front office has some formula that accounts for production and what players garner on the open market when offering extensions. At this point a Devin Vassell type extension seems appropriate, their careers were pretty similar through three seasons, statistically.

 

For this question to be truly answered there needs to be a study and data from last 10 yrs or more tracking players development and how many of those players in that pool become stars or serviceable players. Of course stars and serviceable players need to be clearly defined.

 

I feel a lot of people refuse to incorporate normal human common sense when it comes to sports, even though they're performing jobs just like regular people.

If your company hires a new employee who come in on day one and exhibit extremely quick learning and appitude, you know that person is at the very least going to be competent. If that person also shows ingenuity and solved problems that even experienced employees can't do, you know that new person is going places. Especially if that person is young and inexperienced compared to rest of the group. I think it's pretty clear both in professional sports and in real life people can agree on someone who perform like this.

On the flip side imagine a new employee who come in and do some things well, do other things badly. Shows some smart but also make tons of dumb mistakes. But wait, he graduated from Harvard, so you think he must be smart. So maybe he's just not familiar with the job and he'll improve once he gets more experience. And then said person still make those dumb mistakes after 2 years on the job. And his other stuff didn't really improve either. So at this point what would you think? Do you think, hey he's a Harvard grad there must be something I'm still missing here. I should give him more time. Or do you start to think, maybe this guy just isn't a good fit, or isn't as smart in the real world as he is book smart? I bet most people would think the latter in life, but think the former when it comes to their team's prospects.

 

This study has actually already been done and it's where the "third year leap" thing came from