FanPost

How did other Point Forwards perform in their NBA Rookie Year? Should we give Bender more time?

It is funny how fast some fans already attempting to put Busts label on Dragan Bender.

I noticed that the general expectation from the fans on Bender seems to be higher than Chriss, partly because Bender is supposed to be a skilled big man projected to be able to turn into a point forward in the future. Chriss, on the other hand, suppose to be a raw athletic specimen at the moment, so anything else is a plus.

However, we should also note that there are a lot more skill sets involved in order to be a successful, point forward type of players. Those are skill sets that can only be learned and perfect over time, and not something that you are born with, like athletic ability.

I am curious to find out more about how similar players performed when they first enter the league, to have a feel of whether Dragan Bender is indeed far behind the norm among successful point forward. Thus, I try to dig out the rookie records of the following players: Toni Kukoc, Boris Diaw, Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler:

Age Min Pts FG% 2P% 3P% FT% RB Asts Stls Blks
Toni Kukoc 25 24.1 10.9 43.1 46.2 27.1 74.3 4 3.4 1.1 0.4
Jimmy Butler 22 8.5 2.6 40.5 44.1 18.2 76.8 1.3 0.3 0.3 0.1
Draymond Green 22 13.4 2.9 32.7 36.8 20.9 81.8 3.3 0.7 0.5 0.3
Boris Diaw 22 18.1 4.8 42.2 47.1 18.0 74 2.6 2.3 0.6 0.3

As you can see, all of them enter the league at least 4 years later than Dragan Bender. This is an evidence to show that players with such unique skill set takes time to develop. And none of them perform really well in their first year except Toni Kukoc perhaps, but he is already 25 years old back then, 7 years (!) older than Dragan Bender today.

Such players require more time to develop because they are expected to do a lot of things at the same time. They need to build up their size, develop their handling, shooting, and passing skills, and improve their ability to understand the game and read the play all at the same time. The expectation is a whole lot more than a one dimension big that just need to perfect one or two aspect of their game.

Bender's ppg, shooting percentage, assist rate and rebound rate might not be terrific at this moment, but none of his predecessors listed above done very well in their first year. And this is even before the actual NBA games start.

We need to acknowledge that he enters the league way way ahead of the pack of a unique group and it is only fair to be patience and allow him time needed to develop his game over the next few years.