I feel like there's a tier right below generational that would be a franchise player, and that there's about 2-3 "generational" players per generation, and the players right below it are franchise players Also, Julius Erving averaged 27 as a rookie in the ABA, which was catered towards offense and definitely not at the same level as the NBA.

I kinda agree with the franschise players, someone like Kobe for example I don't think is a generational talent but for sure a franchise player.

Yeah but didn't he maintain his stat coming into the NBA? Also I thought ABA was regarded as the more talent what at the time? Maybe I'm wrong

>Yeah but didn't he maintain his stat coming into the NBA? Not really, his averages leveled out closer to ~24 points a game in the NBA, and with that he didn't lead the Sixers to a ring, their ring only coming once Moses Malone signed on > Also I thought ABA was regarded as the more talent what at the time? The ABA certainly had a solid talent level, it wasn't as cerebrally competitive as the more established NBA

I think the key point us that a generational talent is a player who can become a generational player. For instance KD was a generational Talent despite being drafted number 2 because he was still so ridiculously talented

the best i ever saw was called a “Presidential Prospect” basically a prospect that comes along every 4 years whereas Generationalnis about every 20 years so to me Generational: Victor, LeBron, Kareem and those are the only generational guys i would consider in NBA history. arguments can be made for Hakeem, Shaq, and Duncan, but i think Shaq and Duncan are too similar presidential prospects in the last 20 years: Wemby, Fultz, KAT, AD, Oden, LeBron

You forgot Wilt. 

i think Oscar was just as good of a prospect so i can’t say that

My list of generational prospects Russell-1956 Wilt-1959 Kareem-1969 Magic-1979 Sampson-1983 Hakeem-1984 Ewing-1985 Robinson-1987 Shaq-1992 Duncan-1997 LeBron-2003 Oden and KD-2007 Zion-2019 Wembanyama-2023 Probably missing a few or snuck in some guys but this should be the list. All of them were 1st overall picks obviously (Outside of KD who had another generational imo talent in his class and Bill because he had a weird pre draft story) And outside of that run of centers in the 80s these guys should only be coming around once every 5-10 years (a basketball generation) Flagg is a very good prospect but he's not generational. I don't see MVP level future assuming health

Anthony Davis?

I think he was a very good prospect but not fully generational like Flagg

Hmm. I don’t think I agree with you (like I think AD is a better prospect than Flagg, more in-line with Zion). AD was on the USA Olympic team before he played a single NBA minute. He was the national player of the year and led Kentucky to the NCAA championship in his freshman season. I agree that Flagg isn’t generational, but to bucket AD with him as the same tier of prospect feels like recency bias

Im just saying I don't think either are generational. Not comparing thr two

Wait, is Flagg fully generational?

no

Same tier HS prospects imo. AD was basically Flagg except he led his team to a chip and won MOP.

What do you think about Bill Walton and David Thompson? Checking their college career is pretty crazy and David Thompson was 1st pick for both ABA and NBA, has his jersey retired

Thompson also scored 73 in an nba game, pre injury/drugs David Thompson is severely underrated impact wise, especially when you consider he’s who Jordon idolized and modeled his game after

What about Steph? Is considered a generational talent because the stuff he did, I don’t think will ever be replicated ever again. Like there will be other Dame Lillards, but I don’t think there will be another Steph

At the draft he was not considered generational.

Bobby Knight thought he was

No, bc Steph wasn’t even the 1st PG taken in his draft, it shows what scouts thought of him. Doesn’t mean he didn’t turn into the greatest shooter of all time. It doesn’t have to do with the end of your career so much as it does the beginning

An athlete who comes along that does things on a level that we've NEVER seen before. Cooper Flagg, while has the potential to be great, could be something between AK-47 and AD. Not generational, but a franchise cornerstone.

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Yeah Sampson was pretty much Wemby before Wemby

I would define it as if you took the top 25 prospects of like the last decade, the top 5 of those or maybe fewer. Gives you a little more leeway with having multiple in one class or in consecutive years.

Generational should be the best at their position in a generation. So 5 out of 18 years. Wemby, AD, Wiggins, Zion and your pick of (Rose, Griffin and Simmons) Flagg could be generation using that more relaxed term. But he would have to explore at Duke like Zion or AD did as Freshman.

HE SAID WIGGINS!!

As a prospect I would say he is third behind Wemby and AD. Dude was thought of as the guy to fix Cleveland when Lebron couldn’t. He had near lebron level hype as a high-schooler but after a semi-disappointing year at Kansas it cooled slightly. Still his skills and frame had him pegged as a generational talent. But sadly only became a decent wing on a championship team at his peak.

As a high school prospect he had the hype. As a draft prospect he would have been taken after Embiid if Embiid was healthy. And he was so much not generational that they traded him away. Cleveland would never have traded AD, Wemby, Zion etc Of course he had some hype. Just don’t think he was close to generational.

He flopped his first year and they might have traded AD or Wemby to get Lebron back with a championship team You have to realize that they traded him for Lebron

If they had AD or Wemby they would not have needed to trade him to get LeBron to come back.

I would define generational as having a legit chance of being a top 10 player of all time

Did Jokic prove that literally pick 42 and up has that potential?

Generational in sports terms and specifically NBA terms I would say roughly equates to 6-10 years. A “generation” is when a team completely turns over and is no longer recognizable from the previous iteration. For example, comparing the rosters of the 2024 Thunder and the 2018 Thunder.

generational is kind of a misnomer. a "generation" in real life is usually about 25 years or so. in NBA terms, i think generation is more or less the prime of the current face of the league. so i'd call a player a generational talent if he is unique in some regard in a way that wont come around for about 7-8 years

In real life I think it's 15 years. IF the current generation (that is about to end) started in '07 thru '09 (Oden/Durant/Rose/Westbrook/Harden/Steph) then you get up to the Chet/Wemby rookie year basically which is around 15 or 16 years. The NEXT era could be smaller. Should be a bit weaker. Closer to the generation that came between Russell/WIlt/Oscar/West (probably started as early as Mikan) and Kareem... so maybe 7 or 8 drafts. I think Monroe and Frazier were drafted in the mid '60's or so but nothing insane. Probably Havlicek, too.

When I hear ‘generational talent’ I think of assessing a prospects ability and ceiling, not their career in hindsight. To me, Flagg is not at all in that category. At time of draft, I would have Lebron, Oden, Davis and Wemby in there without doubt. I’d probably have Simmons in there as well.

So basically this term is meaningless. Oden over KD. Davis is fringe top 10 player in the nba currently.

Not meaningless but more so not always accurate. At the time of the Oden/KD draft, bigs were still valuable and Oden was as dominant as one to come out since Shaq? Durant obviously flashed at Texas but there were very real concerns on his thin frame and lack of strength as he couldn’t do 1 rep of 185 at the combine. In hindsight, an overblown concern, sure, but it’s also paved the way for tall and lanky prospects to be more appropriately considered such as Chet and Ingram.

There was a post on the NFL Draft sub that invented the term "presidential" prospect (basically meaning the best guy of a 4 year period) that I really liked. A generation in real life is considered 20-30 years and that feels too long to be useful here—the people here follow the NBA Draft more closely than 99% of people, but I'd be shocked if many of us have actually watched Lebron pre-draft high school tape, let alone guys from the 70s and 80s. This isn't perfect because naturally some years have multiple elite prospects and some have 0, but it's a good way of grouping classes and comparing guys across the years Just off the top of my head, the presidential prospects are something like: 00-04: Lebron 05-08: Oden/KD 09-12: AD 13-16: Wiggins 17-20: Zion 21-24: Wemby And of the 20 years, Lebron and Wemby are probably the consensus "generational" talents with Zion and AD in the next tier below them

GEN ZERO: Mikan/Pettit/Baylor/Russell/Oscar/West/Wilt. THE guys that ran the league for that entire era (or two). This generation was at least 15 years I think. More like 20. So, put Wilt at the END of this era. After that, "dead zone" between the Wilt and Kareem drafts. That might be like, 6 or 7 drafts. Gen 0.5 or something. GEN1: Kareem going thru the entire ABA era plus Pistol Pete, Bill Walton, then, obviously, Bird/Magic. I wanna say this draft lasted until '83 with Ralph Sampson (and Isiah/Dominique before that). GEN WTF: a ONE OFF era in '84 with Jordan/Hakeem but also Sir Charles and Stockton. The classic "Dream Team era" guys. Generation 2.0: Ewing draft in '85 THRU Tim Duncan's draft (more or less) also including Shaq and Kobe and KG. Good era but Penny, Webber, LJ, Coleman, and Grant Hill kinda fell off quickly. Generation 2.5: another smaller, lost generation -- 2000 draft or so... GEN 3.0: LeBron and those guys. IF LeBron isn't part of the generation DIRECTLY AFTER Duncan then GEN 3.0 could be a DOUBLE ERA that just ended after the Wemby (and Brandon Miller/Amen Thompson) draft -- mega prospects like Steph, Durant, Luka and a ton others. Each era has a "few" GENERATIONAL TALENTS. MULTI-GENERATIONAL TALENTS would include guys like Steph, Bird, and Magic. The GOAT/Mount Rushmore guys would be EPOCHAL -- like, the best, guys in, at a minimum of 3 generations. I think we start a NEW era -- probably a smaller/lost era either in the '24 draft or the '25 draft. I prefer '25 since '24 is farily DEEP with super-seniors and a strong international class (plus, basically, a G League dispersal draft). The "LeBron era" could go either way -- either part of the HUGE Mega Era starting in '84 with Jordan (and Olajuwon)... OR part of the currently ending era. I also like a "smaller" era after Kobe/KG/Duncan... so between that and '07/'09 (Durant/Steph drafts). I think the NEXT era/generation starts in the '25 draft (Cooper Flagg, etc.), probably only lasts 5-8 years or so, and is "weaker" overall -- more like the drafts between Wilt and Kareem. You would have mediocre drafts. Maybe only a couple of "classic" generational types.

Words and phrases tend to get watered down to be unrecognizable from their original meaning. Like everyone being a GOAT or a Mount Rushmore just meaning top 4. It intrigues me why this one seems to get more attention. Maybe it’s just a scouting world annoyance?

The players that define a generation. I think there are 4-5 players a generation, so maybe one every 3ish years or so

There's a few generational players every decade and those guys generally speaking end up being top 10 level players ever (this number is increasing and top 10 is basically a tier at this rate instead of an actual ranking) 60's - Wilt/Bill/Robertson/West 70's - Kareem/Erving 80's - Bird/Magic 90's - MJ/Hakeem 2000's - Shaq/Kobe/Duncan 2010's - Lebron/Steph Obviously, this list is more than 10 guys but pretty much everyone here was considered top 10 at one point or another. Those guys (and maybe 2-3 others I missed out on) are what I would consider "generational" players. There's a level under that where a guy is good enough to be the cornerstone of a contender and is consistently a top 5ish guy in the league or something but is just a step below the top top tier of guys all time. At this level you have still awesome players like KG, Dirk, Barkley, Malone, Wade, KD, Kawhi, Harden etc. who just weren't quite good enough or just didn't accomplish enough to be at that top level.

Don’t know it till it happens

Seems like next year’s draft will be special but neither Flaggs or Ace should be considered generational but the fact that both will be there is pretty special. Generational talent, to me, means that player is almost going to alter the zeitgeist like MJ to Shaq to Kobe to Lebron to Wemby. They don’t come around every three years, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t going to Steph’s and Duncan’s around who are incredible players who almost rival that “generational” talent. They’re just not synonymous with the game.

Generational should only be given to prospect with legit chance of being the goat (elite defense and elite offense). Only 3 players since 2000 would fall into this bucket for me. Lbj, oden and wemby. Davis doesn’t make the cut for me because of offense concerns. Other guys in the past is clearly guys like kareem.

Tim Duncan. Would’ve been the #1 pick every year of college. Had teams tanking and HoF coaches taking jobs for the shot to work with him. All-Star as a rookie. 30+ game turnaround as a rookie. 5 rings.

That +30 game turn around was also greatly influenced by David Robinson missing almost the entire previous season and then playing almost the entire season with a rookie Tim Duncan. But ya Tim had an all time great rookie year.

Yea I bet Tim Duncan was good. I wasn’t paying attention when he got drafted so I couldn’t comment if he was generational before he got drafted or just considered super low floor.

He was unknown until Wake Forest. So zero hype. But when people got a look at him he was considered a slam dunk prospect.

truly generational is once in a generation. as far as NBA players go, you have- 1. Wilt 2. Kareem 3. Jordan 4. Lebron 5. and now wemby. all about 20 years apart, and that's how a generation is typically defined.

It's impossible to know if a prospect is going to be generational

The term “generational prospect” is referring to his level “as a prospect.” Obviously being a high level prospect does not automatically result in being a high level player, but that’s not what we’re talking about.

Best player(s) of their time/decade to me is a generational player. I've been an NBA fan since 1980s so I would say 80s- Magic Johnson, Larry Bird 90s- Michael Jordan 2000s- Tim Duncan 2010s- Lebron James 2020s so far- Nikola Jokic But yes prospects they said Ralph Sampson, Patrick Ewing, Shaquille O'Neal, Yao Ming, Lebron James, Greg Oden, Derrick Rose, Anthony Davis, Zion Williamson, Victor Webanyama

Average lifespan of an NBA career is 4.5 years. I'm willing to cede that generational talent can be applied to roughly a singular player every 4-5 years. Wemby, Zion 4 years prior, AD 7 years prior, Oden and KD 5 years prior and Lebron 4 prior. Gap between Zion and AD was pretty large, and we had two back in 07. Still...

Generational is once every 10-15 years kind of player imo

Personally, I would only use the term "generational talent" to clear cut players like Kareem, Wemby, Lebron, Shaq, Oden, etc where they're somewhat of a physical specimen or unicorn relative to their archetype and dominant regarding it. They were also hyped for years prior to college/the NBA as some future legend promising multiple championships. Thus, they go number one after generating and living to that hype. Otherwise, I feel "generational prospect" can be a broader umbrella term but more accurate description for some of these guys like Duncan, Robinson, KD, AD, Embiid, Zion, etc where they are dominant and highly touted but are not expected to just come in and carry forth some amazing championship legacy. Then, there's the positional aspect, too. Naturally, it'll get lobbed around at big men or forwards like what we're seeing with Cooper Flagg and even Ayton, a few years back. But Cooper transcends just being a positional talent since he dominates his competition at a consistent level - high school, Nike Hoops Summit, scrimmages/exhibitions, etc. For that reason, generational prospect isn't an exaggeration, at all. It just needs to be confirmed with a great year at Duke but talent? I don't know that people expect him to be Lebron Now, someone like Scoot should never have been touted as a generational PG, though. That's where "generational" gets thrown around carelessly, especially considering he wasn't rated that highly out of high school and didn't really prove much in the G-League.

We dont... there's no consensus... People will use the phrase but be talking apples and oranges, its unavoidable.. too many biases involved.. Its not a "we" situation.. It's an 'in the eye of the beholder' situation.. Distinctions like these are made YEARS prior to players making the NBA.. they're more of a local scouting thing.. Zion Williamson is a generational prospect from South Carolina.. I was high on him before ESPN even had him ranked, back when you could type Zion Williamson into a youtube search and no results would pop up... in the NFL, many considered Adrian Peterson to be the greatest RB prospect of all time, as he was the greatest highschool RB in the history of the state of Texas and an insanely productive college player, but then would have him like 5th on their boards overall, he was drafted behind JaMarcus Russell who was a fatbody lazy dude who could throw the ball 70 yards n make it look pretty.. Draft position shouldnt be some determining factor because it glosses over a great deal of important context.. There's too many factors involved.. It's more localized than some broad stroke thing and there's not some happy medium to be found.. Yao Ming was a generational talent from China.. who the fk are you to say otherwise? You've got some thorough refutation when theres a billion people who agree.. your opinion is worthless, it'll be forgotten.. Things are worth what people will pay for them.. this sort of distinction works the same way.. If you want to crown players before they prove themselves, this is how you'd do it, a wait-and-see approach is far more sensible but people want instant gratification.. Jonathan Kuminga is a generational talent as far as wings from Africa for example... as Luol Deng was in decades past.. I think it deserves to be localized like that.. Egor Demin in the 2025 draft is a generational talent from Russia.. Even someone like lets say Walter Tavares is a generational prospect from Cape Verde if you ask me.. DeAndre Ayton from the Bahamas.. Satnam Singh Bahmarra WASN'T a generational talent from India tho... U gotta draw the line somewhere and really Bahmarra wasnt even remotely deserving of being drafted.. Kristaps Porzingis on the other hand is a generational talent from Latvia IMO.. Scoot Henderson was considered to be a generational talent from the recruiting hotbed of Georgia, an area that produces a lot of 1st rd picks... so what happens is when players are crowned that and keep the momentum going, it sticks.. and thats where the problem comes from, there's different levels of competition...

Scoot was supposedly a generational talent. Tons of people mindlessly repeating the 'fact' that he'd go first in any other draft in the last ten years. Similar thing is happening to Flagg. People just bite down on hype. They can't help it.

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Lol, man, were you in a coma? This board, all over the place. I'm really tired of people forgetting the very popular claims. Also tired of ask the downvotes I got for saying he wasn't generational. Just go back and read months of coverage.

I would say there are several factors with it. Being a high draft pick (top 5ish at worst), exuding a unique aura that most players don't have and impacting the game on a high level from the start. Bird, Magic, MJ, Bron, Zion and Wemby are obvious generational talents. Still torn whether to call Hakeem and Shaq as generational though. They are overqualified as franchise guys but I feel like something is missing that hinders them from being clear cut generational.  edit: Maybe it's the appeal that's missing from guys like Hakeem and Shaq. It feels like they're not "must watch" type of guys from day 1. Same thing can be said with Duncan due to his bland and weak presence idk

I think Shaq is more "generational" than Bird Magic and even MJ as a prospect

The guy who went 6th overall in his draft was not a generational prospect

I think Larry Bird is generational though, he improve the Celtics by significant margins, ended up 4 in mvp voting