New York Knicks: Comparing Obi Toppin and Amar’e Stoudemire

When the New York Knicks selected Obi Toppin with the 8th pick in the 1st round of the 2020, NBA draft, many Knicks fans believed the long-term solution for the power forward solution had fell right into their lap. In his final season at Dayton, Toppin averaged 20 points per game on the dot along with 7.5 rebounds and 2.2 assists.

It seemed like every game that Toppin, the son of a streetball legend known as “Dunker’s Delight” would produce highlight-reel plays that had major potential to get fans at MSG out of their seats on a nightly basis. Despite all this, expectations did not become reality as Julius Randle, whose name had been brought up in plenty of trade talks, astoundingly blossomed and eventually got named to his first career all star team and was named the NBA’s most improved player.

As a result, Obi only averaged 4.1 points per contest in 11 minutes. This season, Toppin now gets over 15 minutes per game and has essentially doubled his point total to 8.1 on average with the inconsistency of Randle’s play throughout the duration of the year thus far.

When Toppin was ready to break into the league, spectators and analysts were quick to compare the skillset of the Brooklyn product to former Knick Amar’e Stoudemire. “S.T.A.T” broke into the league in 2002-2003 playing over 30 minutes a game for a star-studded Phoenix Suns roster. Despite the development of Obi taking it’s sweet time, let’s take a closer look and see if the New York fan favorite has a chance of accomplishing what Amar’e did throughout his 15 year NBA career.