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?
Who am I forgetting / who was there before 1992?
Ewing, Sampson, Alcindor, Walton, Bias, Magic, Bird
How strong was the Ewing hype in 1984? He was the clear consensus #1 pick, but I’m looking for “not picking him at #1 would be your last act as a GM” level hype.
Ewing was a no-doubter and one one the most hyped prospects ever. He even has his own conspiracy theory
Wiggins and Oden were very hyped
Oden was so hyped! I thought he was going to be the next big thing.
IMO, Yao Ming could make a case as a “rookie” but those injuries definitely could take him out of that :(
I feel like that’s just a prisoner of the moment thing. By adding the words truly immense you have created a scenario where you can’t be wrong. Any rookie that didn’t live up to the hype just didn’t have truly immense levels of it. What about Kwame brown? Deandre ayton? Greg oden? The three ball Brothers? So many players have had a lot of hype before they played. But again the words truly immense and mostly make your statement completely correct regardless of the amount of examples I can give.
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.
Ben Simmons tho
Your list in the modern time (last 30 years) is accurate. Wiggins, Oden, were not hyped to the level of these players. Dwight was extremely hyped, but wouldn’t put him quite on this level…but his hype is underrated by people.