The rookies I remember having immense hype, the kind where the draft is considered a sweepstakes for who will get them:
Shaquille O’Neal (1992) Tim Duncan (1997) LeBron James (2003) Zion Williamson (2019) Victor Wembanyama (2023)
Three out of four have had top 10-15 all time careers. I hope Zion gets it together to have at least a Hall of Fame career.
Who am I forgetting / who was there before 1992?
Yup. Everything Jay Bilas said about Zion turned out to be true. Even when I hadn’t seen Zion much myself and didn’t know. Zion averaged 29 and 8 on 58% shooting per-36 as a 19-year-old. So Bilas was the first dude I looked up to get the low-down on Victor and he got me super-hyped.