Durant

ESPN's Bill Simmons raved about Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant when he was coming out of Texas, like me and almost everybody else.

Here, he asks us to compare the 20 year-old Durant in his second pro season to 21 year-old LeBron James in his second season and Kobe Bryant in his third season, when he turned 20.

OK.

Durant: 25.5 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 2.8 apg, 47.9 FG%, 85.8 FT%, 42.9 3PT%, 1.2 steals pg, 0.8 blocks pg, 3.1 turnovers pg.

James: 27.2 ppg, 7.4 rpg, 7.2 apg, 47.2 FG%, 75.0 FT%, 35.1 3PT%, 2.2 steals pg, 0.7 blocks pg, 3.3 turnovers pg.

Bryant: 19.9 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 3.8 apg, 46.5 FG%, 83.9 FT%, 26.7 3PT%, 1.4 steals pg, 1.0 blocks pg, 3.1 turnovers pg.

Hmm.

I'd add here that Durant's stats have been improving dramatically since the beginning of the year, so his final 2nd-year stats might totally eclipse James' 2nd-year stats. I think they already blow away Bryant's 3rd-year stats.

Durant is clearly the better shooter of the three -- look at those field goal, free throw, and 3-pointer marks!

On the boards, he averaged 7.7 rebounds per game in December, and 8.8 in January. I expect that to approach 10 rpg very soon.

Might be a future Hall-of-Famer down in Oklahoma, quietly doing his thing on one of the worst teams in the league.

As for LeBron, Simmons writes:

At age 24, he's a cross between ABA Doctor J (unstoppable in the open court, breathtaking in traffic, has the rare ability to galvanize teammates and crowds with one "Wow" play, even handles himself as well off the court) and 1992 Scottie Pippen (the freaky athletic ability on both ends, especially when he's cutting pass lines or flying in from the weak side for a block), with a little MJ (his overcompetitiveness and sense of The Moment), Magic (the unselfishness, which isn't where I thought it would be back in 2003, but at least it's in there a little) and Bo Jackson (how he can occasionally just overpower the other team in a way that doesn't seem human) mixed in ... only if all of that Molotov NBA Superstar Cocktail was mixed together in Karl Malone's body.

Yeah.