is Zion basically Shawn Kemp?

[Big J]

Kemp absolutely shat on dudes heads. This was a different era. If he was playing today there wouldn't be a million guys clogging the lane in his way. I know this is hard for people to understand, but dudes from previous eras would be completely different animals in todays game. He had all of the physical tools in the world.

[SirChurros]

Zion projects as a better shooter, too, in my opinion. I know he doesn't take many, but I'm confident he could hit what he's at now (35%) at volume.

[The_Hater]

Zion already has a much better offensive game then Kemp imo. He can handle and pass which weren't strong parts of Kemp’s game. However they played in Different era’s for sure, Kemp played in a slower paced league that didn’t create those same fast break and matchup advantages Zion often gets.

But defensively, Zion’s still lagging well behind. He’s been highly disappointing thus far.

[Duke4life831]

Really? You just check regular season? Have you even bothered to check playoffs?

Why would he check the playoffs?

Because Shawn Kemp was above 20 ppg 4 times peaking at over 26 ppg? Regular season is fine and dandy but playoffs are just as important.

Really? You just check regular season? Have you even bothered to check playoffs?

Kemp's career playoff ppg average: 17ppg
Kemp's career playoff ppg average if we dont include the 2 times he played in his 30s: 19ppg
Kemp's career playoff ppg average only with Seattle (prime Kemp most people think of): 18ppg

Kemp was never a high volume scorer, why are people trying to pretend like he was this high volume scorer? Again even if you dont compare him to today's stats, even comparing him to his peers at the time, he still wasnt ever a high volume scorer.

Career average? Really?
Peak playoffs ppg in Seattle was 25 ppg in 1995. That is not even considering that the mid to late 90s was one of the slowest paced eras in NBA history while the current one is one of the fastest.

So 4 games? So let’s not look at his regular season body of work, let’s not look at his entire playoff body of work, let’s go off of 4 games. Because he averaged 25ppg in 4 games one year in the playoffs, he would be a scoring champ in today’s NBA. Makes a ton of sense...

[chrisab123]

Kemp/LJ hybrid. I see a little Barkley to his game too. I think people sleep on how good Kemp was before the lockout and he found unlimited McDonald's. LJ was a beast too.

[coldfish]

Zion as a 20 year old is already a way more dominant scorer and better passer than Kemp ever was at any point of his career. He’d have to regress a fair bit to get down to 20 ppg on 48% shooting like Kemp’s peak scoring season.


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+1

Zion might be the most underrated player in the NBA at this point.

[Big Joke Line]

Hes less than halfway into his 2nd year, i think there is still time to grow. To be compared to Kemp and Larry Johnson at this point in his career is quite a compliment.

Not compared to where most were projecting him pre-draft.

[Texas Chuck]

I think we tend to badly undervalue really talented bigs who are good at everything if they don't volume score. Kemp in his prime years was roughly at 60% TS without the benefit of shooting 3's while playing terrific defense. His stats are also deflated because the Sonics had quality depth and so he was playing in the low 30's minutes wise. We saw in the playoffs as his minutes went up so did his production and his efficiency and defense remained quite strong.

Sheed is another player like this who clearly had the talent to volume score more, but was wired as a team guy who wanted to win more than he wanted individual glory. He was absolutely unstoppable offensively in Portland but realized he was on a deep team where a lot of guys needed touches and so he was unselfish.

And we overvalue volume scoring on good efficiency from players who offer little else. Zach Lavine, Kevin Martin.

Again Zion is barely started. I'm not remotely suggesting he will never rebound or defend and the Pels are doing some interesting things sacrificing wins now to try and run more stuff through Zion. I love this approach even as its costing them wins as he's not ready to really do that yet.

His potential remains through the roof. But we do need to remember that scoring points on high efficiency is only so valuable yet most treat it as the most valuable thing, but its clearly not. Volume scoring is much more like individual rebounding than people want to acknowledge. It helps the individual way more than it helps the team if it doesn't come with a lot of other things. And players who score less efficiently are often still much better offensive players because of the lift they provide the team.

[dc]

Kemp/LJ hybrid. I see a little Barkley to his game too. I think people sleep on how good Kemp was before the lockout and he found unlimited McDonald's. LJ was a beast too.

Yep. And people looking at scoring averages need to remember Kemp's prime was during the 90's slow it down era when there were simply fewer possessions per game. There were fewer 20 ppg scorers back then.

For example, Scottie Pippen's best scoring year was in 93'-94 when he averaged 22 ppg, good for 8th best in the league and he finished 3rd in MVP voting. To put things in perspective, Pascal Siakim averaged 22.9 ppg last year, good for 20th in the league.

[Dollop]

I think we tend to badly undervalue really talented bigs who are good at everything if they don't volume score. Kemp in his prime years was roughly at 60% TS without the benefit of shooting 3's while playing terrific defense. His stats are also deflated because the Sonics had quality depth and so he was playing in the low 30's minutes wise. We saw in the playoffs as his minutes went up so did his production and his efficiency and defense remained quite strong.

Sheed is another player like this who clearly had the talent to volume score more, but was wired as a team guy who wanted to win more than he wanted individual glory. He was absolutely unstoppable offensively in Portland but realized he was on a deep team where a lot of guys needed touches and so he was unselfish.

And we overvalue volume scoring on good efficiency from players who offer little else. Zach Lavine, Kevin Martin.

Again Zion is barely started. I'm not remotely suggesting he will never rebound or defend and the Pels are doing some interesting things sacrificing wins now to try and run more stuff through Zion. I love this approach even as its costing them wins as he's not ready to really do that yet.

His potential remains through the roof. But we do need to remember that scoring points on high efficiency is only so valuable yet most treat it as the most valuable thing, but its clearly not. Volume scoring is much more like individual rebounding than people want to acknowledge. It helps the individual way more than it helps the team if it doesn't come with a lot of other things. And players who score less efficiently are often still much better offensive players because of the lift they provide the team.

They actually look infinitely better and a flawed playoff team when run through Zion with Ingram as the secondary playmaker than the Lonzo and bled show with Zion as the low post scorer and Ingram picking his spots.

[dickfox]

How many kids does Zion have?

[Texas Chuck]

They actually look infinitely better and a flawed playoff team when run through Zion with Ingram as the secondary playmaker than the Lonzo and bled show with Zion as the low post scorer and Ingram picking his spots.

Infinitely is overselling it. But I agree that for them to get to be a true contender Zion's got to be more than a finisher and as I stated I applaud them for doing this despite it costing them wins.

Right now the roster construction is a mess which is holding them back. But this off-season I expect some significant changes. I think they will try desperately to upgrade Bledsoe with another vet until Kira might be ready for the job. I expect them to try and find a big defensive wing. They absolutely need a stretch big in the mix.

[Jables]

Nah not really. Kemp became a very good defender and developed his midrange shot after a few years. It was pretty obvious he was that 20/10 guy that you partner with a superstar.

Zion is more a huge usage guy you want to be dominant on offense. A bit lazy to make a proper comparison but he's kind of a modern Barkley without the rebounding.

[dennythedino]

I think we tend to badly undervalue really talented bigs who are good at everything if they don't volume score. Kemp in his prime years was roughly at 60% TS without the benefit of shooting 3's while playing terrific defense. His stats are also deflated because the Sonics had quality depth and so he was playing in the low 30's minutes wise. We saw in the playoffs as his minutes went up so did his production and his efficiency and defense remained quite strong.

His minutes were low in the regular season because he was a foul machine. Look it up. He averaged 4.7 fouls per 36 for his entire career. Most of the dominant defensive centers from that era (Mutombo, Robinson, Hakeem, even Rodman) never even averaged that many. I'm not sure I would consider someone an elite defender if they're gonna be sitting on the bench near the end of games due to foul trouble. Kemp was a solid defender, not a lockdown one.

With the Sonics, he scored a lot of his points in transition and didn't really showcase his post game until he got traded to Cleveland.

[Texas Chuck]

I think we tend to badly undervalue really talented bigs who are good at everything if they don't volume score. Kemp in his prime years was roughly at 60% TS without the benefit of shooting 3's while playing terrific defense. His stats are also deflated because the Sonics had quality depth and so he was playing in the low 30's minutes wise. We saw in the playoffs as his minutes went up so did his production and his efficiency and defense remained quite strong.

His minutes were low in the regular season because he was a foul machine. Look it up. He averaged 4.7 fouls per 36 for his entire career. Most of the dominant defensive centers from that era (Mutombo, Robinson, Hakeem, even Rodman) never even averaged that many. I'm not sure I would consider someone an elite defender if they're gonna be sitting on the bench near the end of games due to foul trouble. Kemp was a solid defender, not a lockdown one.

If I said elite, I was wrong, but I don't think I ever did? I stand by my assertion that he was a good defender however.

I also want to acknowledge your point about the fouls. I remembered the Sonics depth but not the fouls. But yeah fouls almost certainly played a role in his minutes. Good point by you and bad omission by me.

[NO-KG-AI]

Hes less than halfway into his 2nd year, i think there is still time to grow. To be compared to Kemp and Larry Johnson at this point in his career is quite a compliment.

Not compared to where most were projecting him pre-draft.

Did anybody here project him to be scoring almost 25 a game at 60% this early into his career? People want to pretend he's disappointng or underachieving so badly. I guarantee you can't find a post on this board that was projecting him to be over 24 ppg and 60% shooting 50 games in.

By the way, the only people to ever put those numbers up for a season (24+ ppg, and 60%+ fg%) are Wilt Chamberlain, KAreem Abdul Jabbar, and Kevin Mchale, and they were all between the ages of 29-32 when they did it, they weren't doing it when they were below the drinking age.

He's off to a special special start, he has a lot of holes and kinks to work out, but he's blowing away the most generous projections of his scoring.

[BrooklynDynasty]

If Zion finishes the year at this pace with these numbers he will be a top 20, maybe top 15 in the league already

[MavfanAus]

This thread didn't age well. Watch today's game against Philly and tell me if you ever saw Shawn Kemp make passes like that.

These idiotic hot take threads always come back to bite a person in the ass especially when it's people making comparisons on young players who haven't had nearly enough time in the league to settle in, improve, and find rhythm.

[Jordan Stopper]

Zion's highlight reel pales in comparison though.

I was expecting a lot more jaw dropping plays from him but he for whatever reason hasn't delivered.

How many solo fast break dunks has he had? none that I can remember

[Winsome Gerbil]

Kemp was a much better rebounder and shotblocker, played much "bigger."

On the other hand, Zion is a MUCH better offensive player. During his prime years Kemp was dependent on the Sonics' pace game to set him up as a lethal hyperatheltic finisher. It wasn't until he got old and fat that we ironically found out he had some decent post moves too. Zion's much more sophisticated on that end.