Which young player is most likely to have a breakout season?

[yosemiteben]

Troy Daniels. But I voted for Kidd-Gilchrist.

You think 25 year old Troy Daniels is more like to break out than 23 year old MKG?

[Mystical Apples]

I think by the end of this season you'll hear the national media liken MKG to a young Jimmy Butler

Yep - Butler is a reasonable comp from an impact perspective. MKG's ability to defend 1 additional position and rebound like a PF gives his team a higher ceiling, or at least a more versatile one. I think we'll see the edge of Butler's versatility when Chicago struggles trying to get 3 wings on the floor.

[JohnStockton]

Isn't MKG on the radar already? 2nd Round Pick, elite defender... it's just his inexperience and shooting that has been holding him back, so a good MKG season wouldn't be as much of a "breakout" as it is him finally putting the pieces together after enough proper time in the league.

That said, if MKG is healthy, he's pretty easily going to have the best season out of anyone on that list. With Jefferson gone, MKG will probably be the third option who scores off occasional drives/cuts, hitting like 30% of his 3's, and his PPG will be around 14-16 IMO. If MKG stays healthy, I think he averages 15.1/8.5

Frank is the next best candidate to improve, but Zeller is at a higher level than him right now, so even if Frank improves, I think it'll just put him near Cody level (which is a solid place to be).

As for Lamb, he is pretty much who he is. He's a dude with zero defensive awareness, but this weakness is supposed to be offset by the fact that he's a shooting specialist... yet somehow every year of his career he only shoots something like 30-34% from 3... To be fair, he's gotten pretty good at shooting long-2s off-curl plays, and he's improved at attacking the rim when he's handling--but in order for him to get those shots, you have to actually run plays specifically for him when he plays (and his D is so bad, he might give up a 3 at the other end--nullifying the 2pt baskets he can actually reliably make).

If Clifford decided to feature Lamb with the ball on drives, and to always have him in motion off curls, I legit think he could average 13-14 PPG off the bench in about 30 minutes. He'd give you terrible defense though, and his overall-production might actually be a net-negative. That said, Clifford is obviously a defense-first guy, which is why Lamb got buried last year. I suspect he'll get buried again, since he'll always have an extremely low defensive ceiling. Marco will take the majority of the bench wing minutes.

[yosemiteben]

MKG's injuries mean that he is off the radar of a lot of casual NBA fans. If he can stay healthy and consistently hit threes, he's going to break through the ceiling that a lot of people have on his potential.

[amcoolio]

I wholeheartedly believe MKG is our best player. And the combo of Kemba/Batum/MKG at the 1-2-3 is one of the best 1-2-3's in the league and will be shown by metrics and numbers. That damn dude just has to stay healthy. He better not end up like Brandon Roy.

[Liver_Pooty]

I wholeheartedly believe MKG is our best player. And the combo of Kemba/Batum/MKG at the 1-2-3 is one of the best 1-2-3's in the league and will be shown by metrics and numbers. That damn dude just has to stay healthy. He better not end up like Brandon Roy.

Brandon Roy. Geez. Almost forgot about him. If MKG could end up that caliber of a player in his prime I'd be thrilled. Roy was a stud.

[HornetJail]

I wholeheartedly believe MKG is our best player. And the combo of Kemba/Batum/MKG at the 1-2-3 is one of the best 1-2-3's in the league and will be shown by metrics and numbers. That damn dude just has to stay healthy. He better not end up like Brandon Roy.

Brandon Roy. Geez. Almost forgot about him. If MKG could end up that caliber of a player in his prime I'd be thrilled. Roy was a stud.

I mean, Brandon Roy was probably the third best player at his position, and today would be deadlocked with James Harden as the best or second best two-guard in the league. If MKG was the Brandon Roy of small forwards, we'd be looking at Paul George, a guy who will never be in the conversation for the top SF (not with Durant and LeBron in the league, not even a chance), but consistently top 5. MKG getting to that level would be insane.

And I'm not worried about MKG turning into Brandon Roy injury-wise. He doesn't have a chronic degenerative knee or anything like that. He's way more like Crash in that his play style puts him at risk to miss 20+ games. He's 22 years old, and just needs to calm down a bit, play with less reckless abandon, and his body will be fine. I'd be way more worried about someone like Bradley Beal, who's been forced out of games due to the same injury year after year. The guy has stress injuries in his leg and coaches are already talking about permanent minute caps for the rest of his career. I don't think MKG is fragile. I just think he hustles too much and puts his body under stress that very few people can actually handle.