Granger Greatness Must Be Earned

Mike Wells has a nice look at Danny Granger and the emerging big-time game he revealed toward the end of the season. Sounds like Danny has realized that experience in the league alone is not enough to develop into an all-around, All-Star level player. It's all about exceeding the expected work load, understanding the flaws in your game, and putting in the extra time to improve.

Many say the soon-to-be fourth-year forward will only get better if he continues to commit himself in the gym this offseason. They view Granger as a future All-Star who has the ability to dominate on both ends of the court.

An assassin, assistant coach Lester Conner said, someone opponents cannot stop from getting to the rim.

Granger has set the bar as high as possible.

"My goal is to be like Kobe (Bryant) because he scores and he locks people down on defense," Granger said. "That's my ultimate goal. I've never really created with my dribble. I need to become the isolation player where coach can come to me and I get a bucket for the team."

This will be a big summer for Danny to raise his game even higher. He's tasted success at the highest level of the game and now must develop his game to bring that level consistently and patch up his flaws to become an even tougher cover.