Winsome Gerbil wrote:Biddy77 wrote:Winsome Gerbil wrote:I will say again as I have said before: the very smartest thing Penny Hardway ever did was ruin his knee. Its allowed him to go on to become this legendary thing, when there's about 1 months proof he was ever going to be anything special without Shaq there to take all the attention. Shaq leaves, Penny's game magically goes into the crapper, shocker, the knee goes...and 20 years later we put him above HOFers based on 2 seasons work next to a top 10 all tie player.
This topic is about "who would you have drafted?", not "who actually had a better career". Penny's upside was astronomical.
As for actual career? Yeah, Webber all day long. That's not in question.
His upside is precisely what I have always challenged.
Penny Hardaway was very talented...and very much Shaq's "little buddy". We treat him like a superstar because of what he did on a loaded team as a 2nd banana. But the very instant Shaq leaves his numbers plummeted. And he was 25 by that point too, so not as if he was going to get much better. So what I have long challenged is the very idea that he had some unlimited potential. On the contrary, I think we may have seen the best he had as a second banana. And you took away his leading man, and his efficiency plummets as a #1 guy. The next season he was still a 20pt scoring 6'7" guard on 55TS%, which isn't chopped liver, but that's not a legendary player. Basically I'm not sure you can assume more than Joe Johnson once you take away Shaq.
Hold up.
You don't have the luxury of watching a few NBA seasons before drafting a player. WHEN HE WAS DRAFTED, the perception of his upside was Magic/Bird level. He obviously never actualized that, but that isn't what this thread is about.
He's in that category of "what if" guys with Grant Hill, Brandon Roy, Len Bias, etc.