Cavsfansince84 wrote:I'd agree that college was generally better in 1985 because even the best players would stay 3-4 years but still, college numbers are generally lower at top tier schools because the teams are stacked with blue chips and don't usually ride a star the way they do at smaller schools. Ewing for instance when he was considered a near generational talent at GT only avged like 15/10 in his senior year.
Jalen Brunson was a POTY on historic championship team averaging 19-3-5 on +60TS% and he was 8PPG player in his 2nd year in the NBA because he was drafted by playoff team. Now, imagine an actual NBA all-star on collegiate level and how big was growth of Brunson until he's become one. Some Kentucky players like Booker or Towns are good examples to your point, but that's not the case with Flagg (and that's not the case in most cases in NCAA these days), he was an anchor of an elite team. There is an argument to be made that Flagg is already better than Banchero as a shooter, defender and playmaker, so once he become an all-star level scorer, he should in 2-3 years become a better overall player. That's 2-3 years from now tho, Banchero is averaging 30PPG in his last 20 games, for example, it goes beyond my imagination what he would've done on collegiate level.
Btw. once we started our hot-taking, I don't want to be preposterous in comparing Flagg to Mr LBJ, but when you consider that in terms of shooting, Flagg's projection is Tatum-level shooter, and how amazing was Flagg for his age this year - next year's comparison with rookie LeBron will be really interesting considering he'll be almost the same age LeBron was as a rookie in 2004. It will be even more interesting as Doncic and Wemby were 10-11 months older as rookies than Flagg as well and I can imagine him having a dominant season from rookie's standards.
