Was Patrick Ewing really the best NBA prospect of all time?

[BigGargamel]

Thread title should probably be "most hyped".

I can't say because I was just a child during the mid 80's, and vividly remember the LeBron hype, but Ewing to New York is the reason everyone thinks the lottery is fixed.

[pipfan]

I think top 10 is fair for Ewing-he was rated VERY highly

LBJ/KAJ are on a tier by themselves

Ewing/Sampson/Walton/Oden/Duncan next tier, with Wemby, Wilt and Big O (guessing on the last 2)

Zion/AD/Hakeem/DRob (due to his 2 year Naval commitment) and some others on the next tier

[SmashMouthRod]

Ewing hype was because of the expectation of him being a bonafide superstar right out the gate. Superstar players change franchises immediately. Also it was a big mans game more so back then. There wasnt much talk about upside or development as it is now. The expectation was for players to walk into the league already a good/great player. The evolution of young players (like Giannis) into superstars wasnt a thing.

[Yallbecrazy]

hype ≠ best prospect.

Ewing was before my time, so was Duncan, and KAJ.
I remember Lebron having a lot of hype and was an excellent prospect, and Luka was an even better prospect than Lebron, but had relatively little hype. Lebron hit near the very top of his range of outcomes so he sometimes gets overrated as a prospect and Luka probably only hit his middle ground as he's been overweight/out of shape, and his shot has been disappointing relative to what it was as a prospect playing for Madrid. I can't know for sure, but it seems as though he spends less time working on his game than other top players.

[SK21209]

Yeah as others have said, LeBron and Kareem were on another level in terms of expectations. A big part of the Ewing thing was that the 80s were the pinnacle of college basketball and Georgetown was the heaviest weight in the Big East at the time. They were the most prominent team in the Northeast corridor where most of basketball media was still focused.

[Norm2953]

In the more modern NBA era, Lebron was the best NBA prospect, the physical prototype of
what every team wants in a player.

Prior to ESPN and the more recent AAU programs, it was Kareem. It was however a different era
for today, there is no way Kareem would have went to UCLA for the NIL programs likely mandate
he would end up at Duke/Kentucky, who can afford to pay for every top prospect to go to their
programs.

[hauntedcomputer]

Mikan
Wilt
Russell
Baylor
Robertson
Kareem
Walton
David Thompson
Magic Johnson
Ralph Sampson

were all as good/as hyped/as coveted prospects.

Admiral, Shaq, Duncan, Lebron, Anthony Davis, Zion, and Wemby since.

Ewing's most notable achievement was underachieving.

[SomeBunghole]

First of all, reading comprehension is a good thing. The article clearly says since 1979 so not sure why some of you are bringing up Kareem.

Second, people just don't seem to get what basketball looked like in 1982 when Patrick Ewing finished his first season at Georgetown. In the 27 years up to that point, only 3 NBA MVPs weren't centers. Dr. J in '81, Big O in '64 and Cousy in '57. Big men won championship and anchored dynasties.

It was clear all the way in 1982 that Ewing would be the number 1 pick as soon as he declared for the draft. No ifs, no buts. Generational talent, defensive anchor, he was supposed to be a better Bill Russell. And the hype and the anticipation just grew over the next 3 years.

Now, hindsight is 20/20 and we know that the introduction of the three-point line in 1979 would slowly but surely tilt the balance in favour of perimeter players. Between 1983 and 1993, Magic, Jordan and Bird would win 3 MVPs each. Those dudes also won Finals MVP awards, as did Dumars and Isiah. In the early 80s though, conventional wisdom was that if you were going to build a franchise around anyone, it was a big man.

The combination of the Knicks being the Knicks and the league changing meant that they never could quite build a dynasty around Ewing. That doesn't change the fact that Ewing was the most anticipated prospect since 1979.

[Jables]

I haven't seen anyone mention this but Ewing had a lot of injuries in college and his early years, even though he played a lot of games he'd basically play through injury. Nearly his entire career was played on two dodgy knees with one being particularly bad, and then he got a wrist injury which **** up his great jump shot.

We basically saw the floor of what he could've been, barring him just giving up and not playing at all. Ewing was one tough dude.

EDIT: Youtube channel won't let me share it but basically he played with a torn achilles in the playoffs.

[dhsilv2]

Hyped maybe. Best? I mean I've never heard anyone say he lacked work ethic and in injuries were after he'd had ample time to show us how good he was. He was a great prospect, elite for sure. But the best? If he were legit the best prospect, he'd have gone on to be a top 15 player.

[dhsilv2]

I haven't seen anyone mention this but Ewing had a lot of injuries in college and his early years, even though he played a lot of games he'd basically play through injury. Nearly his entire career was played on two dodgy knees with one being particularly bad, and then he got a wrist injury which **** up his great jump shot.

We basically saw the floor of what he could've been, barring him just giving up and not playing at all. Ewing was one tough dude.

EDIT: Youtube channel won't let me share it but basically he played with a torn achilles in the playoffs.

Hmm...I recall some injuries, but I thought he was relatively healthy through 1990 and then early 90's the injuries ramped up. Am I off?

[Fencer reregistered]

There happened to be three unusual aspects to Ewing's story.

1. He immigrated to the US at age 13 and only learned basketball then. He quickly rose to be a dominant high school player in an area not known for high school sports. (His high school was founded over 300 years earlier to educate the sons of Harvard faculty. Its most famous graduates other than Ewing are Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and former mayor Bill de Blasio of New York.)

2. He came along a few years after freshman could play NCAA varsity ball. (I think Walton couldn't, but Magic and Bird could.) Few NCAA players had had remotedly comparable 4-year careers.

3. He was the first ever NBA lottery pick.

[BobbyPortisEyes]

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/37996676/best-draft-prospect-bracket-nfl-nba-mlb-nhl-wnba
I just read this article and it says Patrick Ewing was the greatest NBA prospect of all time. Better than Lebron too apparently because of Ewing's college experience. I wasn't alive in 1985 but it seems pretty weird to me that a guy averaging 15 and 9 in his college career was the greatest draft prospect of all time. Can someone who was alive shed some light on this? What did people think Ewing was going to improve on and develop as he entered the NBA?

He was incredibly heavily hyped, and a big part of the reason why the draft lottery was introduced

Right, creaky, the question here is 'most hyped' prospect of all time. The headline is intentionally misleading but that's what the panelists were being asked to rank, not who was actually the best prospects per se.

To me that makes even less sense seeing how hyped Lebron was even before social media. There's no way Patrick Ewing was more hyped.

[JasonStern]

[dc]

Yeah as others have said, LeBron and Kareem were on another level in terms of expectations. A big part of the Ewing thing was that the 80s were the pinnacle of college basketball and Georgetown was the heaviest weight in the Big East at the time. They were the most prominent team in the Northeast corridor where most of basketball media was still focused.

All of that, plus the Ewing draft was the first year the NBA instituted the lottery concept, so it definitely made things more of a spectacle.

[zimpy27]

He potentially was. He was seen as second coming of Bill Russell.

But Ewing injured his knees as a rookie in the NBA, we never really saw Ewing without knee soreness and despite that he was a multi All NBA player and a hall of famer.

So just imagine his career without the injured knees.

[SeattleJazzFan]

hard to say biggest, but he was right up there. he was the most hyped prospect of my generation for sure.

i'll say this - he was hyped to a point that when he averaged 20 and 9 with 2 bpg, as a rookie, it seemed like a disappointment.

[HotelVitale]

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/37996676/best-draft-prospect-bracket-nfl-nba-mlb-nhl-wnba
I just read this article and it says Patrick Ewing was the greatest NBA prospect of all time. Better than Lebron too apparently because of Ewing's college experience. I wasn't alive in 1985 but it seems pretty weird to me that a guy averaging 15 and 9 in his college career was the greatest draft prospect of all time. Can someone who was alive shed some light on this? What did people think Ewing was going to improve on and develop as he entered the NBA?

He was incredibly heavily hyped, and a big part of the reason why the draft lottery was introduced

Right, creaky, the question here is 'most hyped' prospect of all time. The headline is intentionally misleading but that's what the panelists were being asked to rank, not who was actually the best prospects per se.

To me that makes even less sense seeing how hyped Lebron was even before social media. There's no way Patrick Ewing was more hyped.

It's measured relative to the time and the ways hype looked at the time. And the person ranking it was involved in draft/scouting media from the 1980s on, so remembers both Ewing and Lebron.

Those were his top 2 most hyped prospects, and what he's saying is basically that EVERYONE thought Ewing was a sure-fire generational star at draft time, from casuals to scouts to front offices. Ewing had the size and skill to be an obvious elite prospect and had also been dominant and proved himself over and over again on big national stages in the NCAA, while Lebron's hype was crazy but fewer people saw him in HS and weren't as personally invested in the hype train.

[jkvonny]

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/37996676/best-draft-prospect-bracket-nfl-nba-mlb-nhl-wnba
I just read this article and it says Patrick Ewing was the greatest NBA prospect of all time. Better than Lebron too apparently because of Ewing's college experience. I wasn't alive in 1985 but it seems pretty weird to me that a guy averaging 15 and 9 in his college career was the greatest draft prospect of all time. Can someone who was alive shed some light on this? What did people think Ewing was going to improve on and develop as he entered the NBA?

He was incredibly heavily hyped, and a big part of the reason why the draft lottery was introduced

Right, creaky, the question here is 'most hyped' prospect of all time. The headline is intentionally misleading but that's what the panelists were being asked to rank, not who was actually the best prospects per se.

To me that makes even less sense seeing how hyped Lebron was even before social media. There's no way Patrick Ewing was more hyped.

Early '00s wasn't that ancient lol.
We definitely had internet, chat rooms, message boards/forums, etc back then.
Not the intense social media like we have nowadays. But there were online communities at the time. As well as normal personal interactions.

[LakersLegacy]

Hakeem was far more hyped. Horry says Jordan feared Hakeem. Hakeem had hype. Jordan had won the NCAA title. Jordan had won a gold medal. Jordan was hyped. Hakeem was more hyped as the giant from Africa when the game was expanding globally