The opportunity to draft a center prospect like Embiid comes once every 15-30 years.
Even Oden was a lesser prospect, and was much less smooth in his motions than Embiid. If Oden had real skills, he could still be putting up points even in limited minutes. But he can't, because Oden was mostly just a specimen, and never really had a great work ethic as well.
Embiid is right up there with KG and Duncan and Hakeem as far as potential. I'd put Embiid above Anthony Davis as a talent without much hesitation.
Even if there's only a 50% chance of Embiid reaching his potential, that is a risk most definitely worth taking, and would make just about any team a perennial contender.
Even if Embiid is nagged by injuries his whole career, he can still be as good as old KG was for us from 2009-2013.
And we traded half our team for KG in 2007.
This is our big chance to give ourselves a real chance for the next 10-15 years. This is a guy who has grown significantly even from the college season until now.
Embiid is already up to 255-260. Hakeem never had this kind of strength, or height for that matter. So even if Embiid never perfects a 15 foot turnaround fadeaway from the baseline, he's still going to be able to score tons of buckets with simpler shots. And he probably is going to perfect that 15 foot baseline turnaround fadeaway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp7PX7hYUFQ
I'm not so sure about that. Sure, Embiid is quicker and more fluid, but Oden also played much of his college career with his left hand because of an injury. He can use both hands on the block and has an up-and-under move, so it's not like he's hopeless offensively. Quite the opposite. I really hope we can get him, regardless of whether or not we somehow land Embiid. Put Oden on the 5-5-5 plan, and great things might happen. You never know.
I do agree that Embiid is already far superior to Anthony Davis, and has the potential to be a KG-Duncan-Hakeem type. Davis actually surprised me because it never looked like he had much of an offensive game in college. Plus, I also think that his unibrow scares off as many players from taking it to the basket as his shot blocking ability does
If Embiid can play, he is your cornerstone for the next 15 years. It's also much easier to build around big guys, imo, as opposed to point guards, simply because of the span of their respective primes. By 32-33, a point guard starts to lose the quickness needed to guard his opposition, but a big guy can adjust and make up for that because of his intelligence and skill, provided that he has both of those traits. Look at Duncan. Look at Parish. Even Kareem was still impacting games on both ends at 42
when he should have been a major liability because his severe loss of quickness. Again, that's just me, and I would never trade Rondo (I love the guy too much and he's the most unique player in the game. He makes players better and is unguardable. It was interesting that Lebron could shut down Tony Parker in, really, consecutive finals, but he has no clue how to stop Rondo. Neither does Wade, Chalmers, Cole, Mike Brown, or Eric Spoelstra.), but building around big men has a much larger window for success, imho.
