The god of basketball
Jordan's being the first person in NBA history should be no longer controversial, and even if someone can approach, no one can always threaten his position. With Jordan's retirement, NBA ratings have plummeted, and the league desperately needs a successor to save the league. So Jordan's successor came into being, but the title of "Jordan's successor" is like a curse, almost always ending in sadness.
Penny Hardaway
The first "Jordan successor" was Hardaway, who entered the league with the third pick in 1993, slender body, elegant style, attracted a large number of fans, and averaged 20.9 points, 4.4 rebounds and 7.2 assists per game with a shooting rate of 51.1% in the second season, and led the team to the finals, although unfortunately lost 0:4 to the defending champion Rockets, but everyone saw his potential.
But the injury also unexpectedly found him, in the 96-97 season, the left knee cartilage injury underwent surgery, the team's poor record, early comeback, only played one game to be injured again, once again underwent surgery, once again because of the team's poor performance, early comeback, history repeats, knee injuries.
Since then, Hardaway has been battling left knee injuries, and although he has briefly returned to his previous skills, he is still unable to beat the injuries in the end. A few years later, the Magic selected another talented and equally fluttering number one, Maddy.
Maddy and Grant Hill
The second "Jordan successor" is Grant Hill, who was selected by the Pistons with the third pick in 94, became the all-star ticket king as a rookie in the first year, and made a comeback the next year, but Hill became the all-star ticket king again. That season, Hill achieved 10 triple-doubles, and in his time, unlike now, triple-doubles were everywhere, and some players never got a triple-double in their entire lives. All-round skills, high basketball IQ, and flowing style of play have made him a "Jordan successor".
In the following four seasons, he averaged 20+5+5 per game, but Hill never led the team through the first round of the playoffs, and he was also very disappointed with the team's reinforcements, and in the last season of the Pistons, Hill came to the team with an injury, and his ankle injury deteriorated sharply, and he could not participate in the team game, which also became a turning point in his career.
After being traded to the Magic, the team hopes to build a championship team around Maddy and Hill, but Hill's injury has made everything a bubble, the Magic period, not even a season to play 82 games, many times are reimbursed for the season, play a few or a dozen or twenty games, the rest of the time is in the injury list, although the late trade to the Sun, by the Sun God Doctor, but can no longer restore the former skills.
Starkhouse and Jordan
The third person to be named "Jordan's successor" is Starkhouse, perhaps he is the least famous one, also from North Carolina, the same third pick, Starkhouse, who entered the NBA in 95, was unsurprisingly named "Jordan's successor".
After being selected by the 76ers, he averaged 19.2 points per game in his first season, a career-high single season averaging 29.8 points per game, with outstanding scoring ability, but the shooting choice was not very reasonable, resulting in him not being able to become the core of the team, and the 03-04 season began to be trapped by a knee injury, a sharp decline in form, and eventually faded out of the league.
Weinscat
The fourth "Jordan successor" is familiar to everyone, the Canadian Flyer, Wenscat, entered the league with the fifth pick in 1998. He is talented, excellent bouncing, dunk is very beautiful, fans joked: "The NBA has two kinds of dunks, one is Carter, one is other people", it is he who saved the NBA dunk contest, and the Olympic "death dunk" is even more memorable.
Although I don't want to admit it, Carter has never been selected to the All-First Team in his career, his hard honors are very few, we mention Carter, we think of dunks, he is legendary, but he has never been close to Jordan.
What other "Jordan successors" do you know?
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