Rank in terms of talent: Yao vs Oden vs Cousins

[The Infamous1]

NBA Ceiling
Oden - Slightly better Patrick Ewing (used smarter/more efficiently offensively in today's NBA)

Yao - Healthy Yao

Cousins - Super Saiyan Zach Randolph
....

What's a "Saiyan?"

Dragon ball z

[Winsome Gerbil]

NBA Ceiling
Oden - Slightly better Patrick Ewing (used smarter/more efficiently offensively in today's NBA)

Yao - Healthy Yao

Cousins - Super Saiyan Zach Randolph
....

What's a "Saiyan?"

I had to look that up as well. And after about 5 minutes on a Dragon Ball wiki I still didn't know what the hell was going on, and so I left.

Pretty sure though that it was meant as "suped up Zach Randolph".

[EasternHeretic]

NBA Ceiling
Oden - Slightly better Patrick Ewing (used smarter/more efficiently offensively in today's NBA)

Yao - Healthy Yao

Cousins - Super Saiyan Zach Randolph
....

What's a "Saiyan?"

The Saiyan is an alien race. The Super Saiyan is a form they attain through anger and hatred that makes them much more powerful.

[O_6]

Haha yea it was just a reference to that TV show.

A much more athletic and bigger version of Zach Randolph is what I meant

But even that isn't an excellent comp because of how unique Cousins is. Cousins is a guy who looks like he has no business going coast to coast but he's capable of doing it with ease. Zach Randolph just does not have that kind of fluidity at all.

Cousins is a very very unique basketball athlete and it's tough to compare him to any player. But I think he is going to be a guy like Zach Randolph whose defense limits his true ceiling but whose go-to offensive ability makes him a dangerous player. Cousins' athletic edge should also make him more efficient than Randolph ever was.

Cousins put up 23/12/3 on .555 TS% in 32 mins

There are very few 25 PPG scoring bigs in today's NBA and he should be one of them. And he should also put up 10+ boards and be a good passer/ball-handler. He is just a very unique and potentially devastating offensive player. But as of this moment his offensive stats are greater than his offensive impact imo. His game needs to grow bit and he needs to become smarter with his usage.

I think Cousins' offensive ceiling trumps Yao's and Oden's. I think people greatly underestimate what kind of offensive player Oden would've been, but he didn't have the go-to guy down the stretch type of scoring potentiql Cousins or Yao had. And Cousins' athleticism allows him to do more things than Yao.

But all that being said, Cousins' defensive potential has always felt woefully weak to me. No-D Bigs simply have a limit to their potential. Cousins' athleticism SHOULD mean he has a high defensive potential, but we haven't seen it yet and I've seen no signs of it.

Oden and Yao were just sooo much better defensively, especially Oden. I think Oden absolutely had an MVP ceiling. I can't say the same about Yao or Cousins. But IF Cousins turns into a plus defender, I'd change my opinion about his ultimate ceiling. But I haven't seen it yet.

[SactoKingsFan]

But IF Cousins turns into a plus defender, I'd change my opinion about his ultimate ceiling. But I haven't seen it yet.

Cousins already is a plus defender.

[ShaqAttack3234]

1.Yao
2.Oden
3.Cousins

Yao was showing he could be a 27/10 big man around '06-'07. Look at true post players the last 15 years and who else can you say that about other than Shaq? His offensive skill set was simply unstoppable because he was several inches taller than just about everyone, was over 300 pounds and had become quite adept at using his strength in the low post and he had shots like his hook and fadeaway which were not only very accurate, but impossible to block unless you got them from behind. And you couldn't foul him with that strong interior skill set because he was an 85% free throw shooter. His problems were turnovers and defensive mobility, but he was still a defensive presence in the paint and a pretty skilled passer for his size.

Oden was never going to be the offensive player Yao was, but his size and athleticism were why he was viewed as a once in a generation big man. He was clearly going to be a great rebounder and I have little doubt he was going to be a perennial DPOY candidate and a legit anchor. Plus, while he was raw, he was already a good enough free throw shooter, and considering how raw Dwight was, I could have seen Oden developing into an 18-20 ppg player with his athleticism, especially since he had much more of a center frame than Howard. Look at how much of an impact Hibbert was able to have in Indiana before he disappeared. Worst case, Oden would have been a 15 ppg player, but he'd at least have had Hibbert's game changing defensive ability while also being able to control the boards and whatever points he got were going to be efficient. In his brief career with Portland, I saw a number of instances where just his physical superiority changed games.

Cousins has a great skill set and a large frame, but I don't see him ever taking the league by storm quite the way Yao and Oden could have had they stayed healthy, imo.

[O_6]

But IF Cousins turns into a plus defender, I'd change my opinion about his ultimate ceiling. But I haven't seen it yet.

Cousins already is a plus defender.

He hasn't looked like one when I've seen him play. But I also don't watch too many Kings games. But Cousins is a unique player so I do tend to follow him throughout the year like I do a lot of players. He's got the athleticism to be a real presence down low on D but right now he's pretty mediocre imo. It does seem like most people think he has been improving on D so that's a great sign.

[EasternHeretic]

Oden was never going to be the offensive player Yao was, but his size and athleticism were why he was viewed as a once in a generation big man. He was clearly going to be a great rebounder and I have little doubt he was going to be a perennial DPOY candidate and a legit anchor. Plus, while he was raw, he was already a good enough free throw shooter, and considering how raw Dwight was, I could have seen Oden developing into an 18-20 ppg player with his athleticism, especially since he had much more of a center frame than Howard. Look at how much of an impact Hibbert was able to have in Indiana before he disappeared. Worst case, Oden would have been a 15 ppg player, but he'd at least have had Hibbert's game changing defensive ability while also being able to control the boards and whatever points he got were going to be efficient. In his brief career with Portland, I saw a number of instances where just his physical superiority changed games.

How do you think Oden's athelitcism compared to say Dwight, young Shaq or Drob.

[ShaqAttack3234]

How do you think Oden's athelitcism compared to say Dwight, young Shaq or Drob.

Similar to young Shaq, but not as big. Couldn't jump quite as high as Dwight, but he was considerably bigger, and wasn't as fast as Robinson, but had a stronger, larger frame. He wasn't far off from them as athletic freaks, maybe slightly below, though.

[studcrackers]

Yao was much more talented.

Oden was second. I would have taken Yao over Oden in the draft though. Despite Oden being maybe the strongest guy lb for lb I've ever seen on a basketball court.

Nothing against Cousins but if your a 20 10 center and your team sucks your not that good. My problem is Cousins has no impact on the defensive end. That is the most important thing you need to get from your bigs. Offensive only bigs constantly under achieve. You have to keep making excuses for them. When in reality a big man's job starts with defense. If your not an elite defender at that position your impact is marginalized.

When Yao came into the league he look like he would change the position. He was a great passer. He could shoot with range in China. He was doing Hakeem like post moves. Then Patrick Ewing and JVG got a hold of him. JVG told him to stop passing. He was 7'6 so no reason to worry about a double teams. Patrick Ewing had him doing his arsenal of 2 post moves. Which should tell you something about why Dwight post game has advanced more in a few months with Hakeem than years with Patrick. Suddenly the Yao that we thought we was going to get turned into a better version of Rik Smits. Which still was really good. If not for injury I'll say he could have been a top 25 player all time when it was all said and done. He still one of my favorite players and people. I just wish he had more health and better coaching. I really like JVG as a coach. I hate some of his offensive concepts though.

Outside of having Saint Riley step back down from his big office in the sky, you could hardly do better than having a Van Gundy as your coach for a big center. They are the heirs to the Riley tradition. In the past 20 years every great center in the league has pretty much been coached by Riley, a Van Gundy, Pop or Phil Jackson (and with Phil it was kind of an accident, his system wasn't built around it).

Yao didn't really emerge as a franchise level center until he was 25, when he had a season where he put up numbers quite similar to what Cousins did this year. Hence you would rather have had Joakim Noah. And he only had those 3 injury ravaged years at that level. He just never had any shot at all to be a Top 25 all time player.

See you throw all the Van Gundy's together. I don't. I've always said SVG is a lot more offensive minded than his brother. JVG will sacrifice offense for his defensive philosophy. IMO he coached Yao to limit his decision making on the offensive end. With it took away some of his potential offensive impact. Now I'm not blaming it all on JVG. Patrick Ewing is highly overrated especially as an offensive player because his passing and post moves were not that great.

Not sure what you mean Phil system wasn't built for it. Phil system is the triple post offense. Yao would be much better in the triangle than that garbage JVG had Houston running.

i'll echo the sentiment on jvg. he's a rich man's mike brown, great defensively, dogsh*t offensively.

i saw many a time Yao get stifled offensively simply by just fronting him and taking him outta the play. and either their pg's werent talented enough and he was incapable of making proper adjustments to fix this. Yao's lack of mobility didnt quite help etiher

[nurseryc]

oden had most talent

[tha_rock220]

Talented??? Don't really know how we're using that, but Yao was elite at both ends of the floor. I'd say he's above the other two.

[RayBan-Sematra]

I thought Yao had scary potential in some ways.
He could have become a 7 foot 5 version of Dirk who could offensively either dominate in the post with his b2tb or on the perimiter with his jumper which no one would be able to block.

Obviously this would entail him improving his handles/ball control (not so sure he could have done this cause of his short arms), low post game and further enhancing his jumper but I thought he potentially had the tools inside him.
For a man of his size his shooting touch was very impressive.

His only real weakness would remain his lack of mobility which would hurt him most on the defensive end when it came to guarding quicker C's or when he needed to switch on the PnR or come out on the perimiter in general.

[EasternHeretic]

You know, you can't establish who is the MVP or anything by highlight reels. But you can certainly go a long way to addressing talent by seeing what a player can do.

If you honestly have not seen much of Cousins, watch some of this compilation that was just from this year alone. not only just what he can do either, listen to the various team announcers. They know. There's no >>>>> involved in this comparison of centers, unless it be dumping poor Oden at the end of it for being unlucky.

This is a SPECTACULAR talent:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nEXo7K8QZU[/youtube]

He doesn't seem to have the super athletic physique but can definitely do some very athletic stuff.

[GYK]

I was shocked two people did know what a Saiyan was.
As for the thread
I thought Oden was the most talented. He had finesse moves but performed them with extraordinary power. Of course his career was short and his playtime was managed but those were dominant minutes.

Yao and Cousins are extremely similar players skill wise. Yao was the better rim protector and Cousins the better court vision....sidenote, I would think Hibbert should be mentor by Yao instead of Duncan. Although older Duncan is less of banger, Yao saved his banging for the defensive side. My belief he knew his body.