Jay Bilas compares Otega Oweh's senior situation at Kentucky to Tim Duncan's at Wake Forest

Tim Duncan was a star as a teenage freshman at Wake Forest, nearly averaging a double-double at 9.8 points and 9.6 rebounds with 3.8 blocks per game in 32 starts. Then came his superstar transition, averaging 16.8, 12.5 and 4.2 as a sophomore, 19.1, 12.3 and 3.8 as a junior and 20.8, 14.7 and 3.3 as a senior.

That list of accolades includes ACC All-Freshman, two-time Consensus All-America, three-time All-ACC and three-time All-ACC Tournament honors while taking home the Naismith Award, Wooden Award and Rupp Trophy. The Big Fundamental was everything you could dream of in a college legend turned No. 1 pick turned Hall of Fame inductee — the perfect basketball career that also included five NBA championships.

Is Otega Oweh on his way to something similar? Even the most passionate fan with blue-tinted glasses wouldn’t say that confidently, but that doesn’t mean Duncan’s trajectory can’t be the model for the Kentucky star to follow.

Confused? Let former national champion Jay Bilas explain.

“I always go back to Tim Duncan — and I’m not saying Otega Oweh and Tim Duncan are comparable,” the ESPN analyst told KSR on the Sources Say Podcast this week. “What I’m saying is Tim Duncan’s numbers weren’t substantially different from his sophomore and junior years to his senior year at Wake Forest, but the way he did it was such an elevating factor for his team.

“I think it’s going to be similar for Otega Oweh.”

Oweh is coming off an All-SEC debut season at Kentucky, jumping from 11.4 points per contest as a sophomore at Oklahoma to 16.2 as a junior to lead the Wildcats. He also earned career highs on the glass (4.7 RPG), assists (1.7 APG) and steals (1.6) while also cutting down on turnovers (1.5 TPG). The 6-4 guard was brilliant and now enters his senior campaign as the likely Preseason SEC Player of the Year and All-American.

What’s the next step in his development? Mark Pope believes Oweh can be “the top defensive player in the country” and “has a chance to become an elite-level playmaker.”

“He’s going to grow — he’s going to grow exponentially again, and he’s going to help us win a ton of games,” he told KSR. “He’s going to play great basketball and he’s going to put himself in even better position to be a pro.”

For Bilas, it’s not about Oweh becoming something he’s not as a scorer or watching his counting stats jump again. That’s where the Duncan argument comes back in, perfecting your craft on the things that already separate you as an elite player. Improve efficiency and, like Pope explained, become a top-tier defender and facilitator.

Master that role and prove you are a winner that NBA teams would kill to have at the next level.

“For him to be a first-round pick or thinking beyond Kentucky, it’s not like he has to go out and average 24 (points) per game next year,” Bilas continued. “I think it’s just being more efficient and impacting the game on both ends of the floor, which he’s fully capable of doing. He may average the same amount of points, but he gets them in a more efficient manner.

“You’ll be wowed by 16 and 6 or something like that, whatever he winds up with. He can pass it and I’m sure his defensive efficiency can go way up, but I guess what I’m talking about is the maturity in the way a player plays. That’s where I think he can really jump.”

Do those things, and Oweh will be playing in the NBA for a long, long time. It may not be the Hall of Fame path Duncan went on as one of the greatest forwards the game has ever seen, but it’s how you get (and stay) in the league making millions of dollars for winning franchises.

He’s got it in him, Bilas believes, and it starts in year two at Kentucky.

“He may disagree with this and maybe his agent would, but I don’t think any NBA team is going to be looking at Otega Oweh and saying he’s going to come in here and right away we’re going to bank on him becoming an NBA All-Star and an All-NBA player,” he told KSR. “Most players like Otega are going into the league to help a team win.

“If they can do that, they’ll have a long career — and he’s capable of having a long NBA career, because he can impact the game on both ends.”