A friend of mine recently sent me an e-mail that got me a little fired up.  This is the meat of what he asked...

"when has a college superstar come out and really lit things on fire at the next level when compared to those that came before them?  How many of them can you name?  Are they household names today because of what they did their rookie year?  I can only think of one of these stars recently and his name is LeBron.  He didn't even go to college, so maybe that's not a decent comparison to what's came out of college."

He goes on to ask...

"Are Beasley and Rose really like the guys we've compared them to, or will they just be a face in the crowd after a few years? "

Finally, in what was bound to get my goat,

"Maybe the fact they are coming out so young is skewing what I'm thinking and it just takes longer to make the kind of impact I'm talking about that others have made that came before these guys.  They are still 19-20 yr olds playing against seasoned vetrans.  Bird and Magic weren't 19 when they came out.

  Who really will be the next Rice, Favre, Sanders, Smith, or Montana in the NFL?  Who will be the next Jordan, Magic, Bird, or Alcindor in the NBA?  What % of the players in the NBA are run of the mill NBA players?  Half?"

As you can tell, these questions are related to the Bull's recent run of luck in aquiring the first pick in the NBA draft...so it got me to thinking...and so I replied...

Well, Magic was 19 when he was drafted.  I think some players like Edgerrin James really separated themselves from the pack.  LaDanian Tomlinson also had a pretty sizable impact as a rookie.  In the NFL though, RB and interior positions are really the only spots that you can have a "dynamic" impact and as we know those aren't the positions that get you noticed like a QB would, and it's next to impossible to star as a rookie in the NFL as a QB.  That being said, Montana, Elway, even Marino to some extent had to be in the league for a while before they found sustainable success.  

The NBA is a different animal.  I think it's taken about 15 years to recover from expansion, and to some extent it may never happen.  When you had 5 less teams in the league, that dropped about 65 players back in the pool, that meant that the days of someone like Piatkowski roaming the sidelins for the Suns never would have happened, because they would have had to stash young good players on the bench instead of carrying veteran insurance.  The talent level just doesn't allow for that anymore.  If you can play, because of the salary cap and because of the dearth of talent, you play today.  The problem this creates is that players don't have to work as hard to earn a job, therefore driving the desire level down, in turn lowering the level of competition and play.  

The reason I bring that last paragraph up was to illustrate this point.  Young players get on crappy teams that are bad because of whatever reason, (poor management, terrible coaching, bad drafts, injuries) and they are asked to carry a load on a nightly basis that even a veteran All-Star would struggle with.  Case in point, Dwyane Wade.  When the Heat had some players on their team, he was able to play at another level, because other teams couldn't double him every time he touched the ball and he wasn't expected to be the playmaker each and every time down the court.  Since the team basically disbanded after the championship run, and no suitable replacements were found, Wade has had to carry the load, so to speak, and he and the Heat have been downright dreadful.  Kevin Durant falls into that same category.  Who on the Sonics roster would start for a playoff contender?  Nick Collison?  Earl Watson??  How should we expect Durant to make any more of a "Star" impact?  The way the talent in the league is distributed makes it almost impossible for a player to lead a team that was horrible before he got there.  

One last thing to consider is, who are the "Stars" in either league?  Favre, Jordan, Rice and Montana really were once in a lifetime players, so to put anyone in their category really isn't realistic.  It takes time to develop players like that, but I think that there are players on their way to that type of status.  Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are certainly moving into that territory.  LaDanian Tomlinson maybe as well.  Randy Moss may be the most talented player to ever play the game.  In the NBA, you could argue that Tim Duncan and Kobe Bryant are moving into the "Greatest at their position" status and certainly are Hall of Fame bound.  LeBron will probably be in that group in a year or two, especially if he ever takes Cleveland to the Finals again.   

And for good measure, the NBA was probably in it's peak at the end of the 80's, and it climaxed with the Dream Team.  You probably won't ever see a group of stars as dynamic as those again, because of personality, professionalism, athleticism and locality.  You have Hall of Famers for whatever reason, (Jordan, mostly) that never even won a championship. (Barkley, Ewing, Malone, Stockton)  If it weren't for Jordan's brief retirement, you may have had to add Olajuwon and Drexler to that list.  That was a golden era for the league that they will try to replicate, but never be able to duplicate.  The timing will probably just never allow for it again, and you aren't going to see someone with any more athletic ability than Jordan with that type of skill level.  Kobe is close, but because of the non-originality, "we've seen this before" nature of what he does, it will never be as special.   There is a learning curve in sports, and I don't know if a "Star" comes about more than once or twice a generation, and LeBron is already out there.  I don't know if that is anyone or anything's fault.  That's just the way it works.  

If none of that makes sense, you could always blame soccer...