NBA Stars Under 25 Who Will Make the Hall of Fame

We have no reason to worry about the state of the NBA once Kobe Bryant begins deteriorating, LeBron James loses his athleticism and Dwyane Wade's injuries catch up on him, if they ever do.

Appreciate those players right now because they are currently the best players in the league. However, they won't be here forever and it's becoming that time to begin acknowledging the young players and how they will soon take over the league once the current top players enter the twilight.

Actually, the young players of the league under the age of 25 also happen to be MVP candidates. The reigning MVP is the youngest in league history, and a 23-year-old is a contender to win it this year. The NBA is in good hands and we have the five players we are about to mention to thank.

These five players aren't just some of the league's top players right now, but they're also likely candidates to join the Hall of Fame over a decade from now. When you watch these five players do what they do best, it's hard to imagine what some of them have accomplished in the span of three seasons. It only makes you envision what is possible in the future from these stars.

We take notice of these players as we find the five players under the age of 25 who will make the Hall of Fame.

Derrick Rose

In the 2008 NBA draft, the Chicago Bulls were gifted the No. 1 pick in the draft despite finishing with a 33-49 record the year before.

Lucky enough for the Bulls to get the first pick, but they also had the opportunity to pick from numerous players that were worthy of a No. 1 pick. Super athlete Michael Beasley was a destroyer of worlds at the NCAA level, Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love were phenom's out of UCLA and O.J. Mayo was one of the most hyped high school products since LeBron James.

Instead of taking either of those four players, the Bulls decided to take point guard Derrick Rose out of the University of Memphis. Rose averaged 15 points, five boards and five assists per game in his freshman season, while managing to shoot 48 percent from the field and 34 percent from beyond the arc. Rose's jump shot was erratic, but his speed and athleticism was what convinced the Bulls to draft him over Beasley.

A wise choice. While Beasley has already been traded by the team that originally drafted him, Rose has won Rookie of the Year, made it on to three All-Star teams, one All-NBA first team and the prestigious MVP award he won last season. Rose led the Bulls to a 62-20 record, a 21-game improvement from the year before, and averaged 25 points, eight assists and four boards per.

He has improved his statistics and his game yearly, finding new ways to score and somehow becoming more athletic and quick than ever before.

He has the ability to contort his body through multiple defenders, and unbelievable quickness that allows him to go across an NBA regulation court in seconds; he finds ways to score around the basket that you once thought impossible, and, of course, his athleticism has led to some of the sickest and most thunderous slams you've ever seen from someone that's supposedly 6'3".

In only his third year, Rose led the Bulls to 62 wins, a No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, the NBA's best record and a trip to the Conference Finals. The last time the Bulls accomplished any of those feats was when a star by the name of Michael Jordan once walked the halls of the United Center.

Unfortunately for the NBA community, Rose has been dealing with nagging injuries throughout his fourth season. He's only played in 34 of the Bulls' 56 games with back spasms and a groin injury to blame. However, with the Bulls resting his injuries in order to prevent further damage, he should be back in time for the playoffs to lead the team to another playoff run.

Either way, Rose is a certain Hall of Famer. He's one of the NBA's top scorers, is one of the league leaders in assists per and is just now beginning to develop a mid-range game that's going to expand the versatility of his already dangerous game.

Kevin Durant

We started off the last slide with a history lesson, so we'll continue with this theme.

In 2007, the Oklahoma City Thunder took Kevin Durant out of the University of Texas with the second pick in the draft. They missed out on center Greg Oden, who was taken with the first pick by the Portland Trail Blazers, and passed up on the likes of national champion Al Horford, point guard Mike Conley, Jr. and even Chinese import Yi Jianlian.

It was a good thing the Thunder had the second pick.

They most likely would have taken Oden had they possessed the first pick with centers being such a high commodity these days. Oden was a force at Ohio State and Durant was basically a consolation prize even after averaging 26 points on 47 percent shooting, 40 percent from deep and 11 boards per in his freshman season.

Durant failed to bench press 185 pounds once at the NBA combine. It gave good reason for a team to be skeptical. NBA defense's are a lot more physical than any defense in the NCAA and it would be easy to fear Durant possibly being pushed around on both sides of the court. Unless he was willing to play aggressive in order to compensate for his wiry frame, Durant could have been a bust.

Pick well made. Oden isn't even on a team anymore after being waived by Portland earlier this season due to persistent injuries. Durant, on the other hand, is an MVP candidate for the third consecutive season and has the Thunder tied for the first seed in the Western Conference. This comes a year after Durant helped to lead the Thunder to the Conference Finals.

They fell in five games, but held a fourth quarter lead in every loss. Tack this one up as a learning experience.

Durant has been nothing less than incredible during his five-year career. He won Rookie of the Year after averaging 20 points and four boards per, became the youngest player in NBA history to win the scoring crown after averaging 30 points per game at the age of 21 and then proceeded to become the youngest player in NBA history to win the scoring crown in consecutive seasons. He averaged 28 points per the next season.

The three-time All-Star has an unstoppable quick-release jump shot that exceeds the three-point line by a few feet. When critics began to say that Durant would become too reliant on his jump shot, the small forward managed to bulk up and is now playing some of the most aggressive basketball he's played since joining the NBA.

Durant is second in the league in scoring per this season, only .2 points behind the current leader. If Durant wins a third year in a row, it'll be the first time someone has accomplished the feat since Michael Jordan did it in his final three years with the Chicago Bulls. We believe that he's more worried about winning an NBA title before another scoring crown.

When you watch him, it's tough to believe that he's only 23 years old.

Russell Westbrook

In the 2008 NBA draft, the developing Oklahoma City Thunder had the opportunity to choose from a plethora of standout guards.

They could have possibly gone after Indiana's Eric Gordon, Texas' D.J. Augustin or possibly even Arizona's Jerryd Bayless. Instead, the Thunder made the decision to draft the most athletic of all the guards by selecting Russell Westbrook out of UCLA.

Westbrook played two years as a Bruin and averaged 13 points, four boards and four assists per in his sophomore season.

In the span of two seasons, the Thunder had already drafted their small forward, power forward (Jeff Green) and point guard of the future. They also drafted their sixth man the following year.

So much for small-market teams having a disadvantage or a new team needing time to build up. The Thunder went from starting out with a 3-29 record in Westbrook's first year to now currently being a legitimate threat to win the NBA title.

Think Westbrook had anything to do with it? The team went 23-59 their first year with him, 50-32 in their second year and finally 55-27 in his third year. Russell improved his stats yearly and went from averaging 15 points, five boards and five assists per in his rookie season to 22 points, eight assists and five boards per in his third season.

He's now averaging a career high 25 points per on 47 percent shooting to go along with five assists, five boards and two steals per.

Westbrook has had an incredible career up to this point but has been heavily criticized nonetheless. He has received a great deal of criticism and ridicule after the Thunder's five-game series loss to the Dallas Mavericks in last year's Conference Finals. He was accused of attempting to usurp the role of team leader from Durant after taking a number of shots that didn't fall in pressure situations.

Can you blame him? Westbrook knows that he is good enough to be a primary option on nearly any other NBA team. While we can look at it as an immature kid trying to steal the spotlight from his teammate, you can also look at it as an extremely talented player wanting to be the leader that he envisions himself as.

That's why he and Durant were caught arguing in last year's postseason and earlier this season. You have two young superstars who are amazing players and both of them want to be the leader. While Westbrook has settled down and has allowed Durant to be the leader of this team, you still have to imagine that he would much prefer being the primary scorer.

We shouldn't let this power struggle change our opinion of Westbrook because he is an exceptional talent and is quite possibly one of the most athletic point guards we've ever seen. He can kill you with his jump shot and his lightning quick speed that allows him to hypnotize and frustrate defenders into guessing which way he's going to go next.

This is an extremely versatile and multidimensional player, and while it is a pleasure to see him play alongside Durant, it would still be interesting to see how Russell handles himself on a team where he is the true leader.

Kevin Love

History lesson time!

Despite averaging 18 points per game on 56 percent shooting, 35 percent from beyond the arc and averaging 11 boards per, the Memphis Grizzlies still decided to trade away Kevin Love after taking him with the fifth pick.

The deal he was involved in featured Love, Brian Cardinal, Jason Collins and Mike Miller being traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves for No. 3 pick O.J. Mayo, Greg Bucker, Marko Jaric and Antoine Walker.

The main part of the deal was swapping two players who had just been taken within the first five picks. The Grizzlies seemed to favor Mayo even though they could have used a power forward. Meanwhile, the Timberwolves franchise was still looking for its identity after trading away Kevin Garnett for a number of young prospects.

Mayo is now a backup to Tony Allen. Love is an MVP candidate that has made historical stat lines, has given the Timberwolves a product worth watching and even had the team near a playoff spot if not for a crucial injury to the team's point guard.

The Timberwolves may not be making the playoffs this year, but they're due for one as long as they keep Love on their team.

That little piece of history he accomplished was recording the first 30-point and 30-rebound game since Moses Malone did it 28 years ago. He also averaged the most amount of rebounds per since 2003.

Something must have happened between Love's second and third seasons because he came back as a force to be reckoned with. He increased his points per by six, led the league in rebounds at over 15 per and suddenly developed a consistent three-point shot that was nearly at 42 percent.

In case you already forgot, Love is the reigning champion of the three-point contest.

Not only can he thrive in the post utilizing his wide frame and timing, but he can also help stretch the floor with his three-point shooting.

We are now in Love's fourth season and the former UCLA phenom is the fourth leading scorer in the league averaging nearly 27 points per. He's hitting 45 percent of his shots overall, nearly two three-pointers per on 38 percent shooting and grabbing nearly 14 boards per.

He's led the Wolves to 25 games this year after the team had 32 combined years the previous two seasons.

Kyrie Irving

The fact that Kyrie Irving is as good as he is right now is proof that the NBA's age limit and the requirement to attend college is a joke.

Irving played nine games at Duke University. He played in the first eight games of his freshman year before suffering a ligament injury in his toe that kept him out until the beginning of March Madness. For his finale, Irving scored 28 points in the Blue Devils' Sweet 16 loss to Arizona.

He averaged 18 points, four assists and three boards per and shot 53 percent from the field, 46 percent from deep and 90 percent overall. It was enough for a distraught Cleveland Cavaliers team to take him with the first pick. Despite the injury that kept him out his entire freshman year, Irving was selected over proven NCAA star Derrick Williams.

The pressure on Irving to perform in Cleveland was immense. Even though the franchise has never had too many stretches of success, the fans became accustomed to winning a lot. Former No. 1 pick LeBron James led them to their first playoff appearance in eight years, their first ever NBA Finals appearance in 2007, a franchise record 66 wins and back-to-back seasons of at least 61 wins.

James led the Cavs to the semifinals in 2010 and left the ensuing offseason.

The Cavaliers went from 61-21 to 19-63 in the span of a year. It was their worst record since the year before they drafted LeBron. They also managed to go down in infamy after losing an NBA record, and tying a professional sports record, 26 consecutive games.

Additionally, they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers by 55 points and gave up 38 points to LeBron James in his first return to Cleveland. It was a depressingly bad year for the Cavaliers.

They had basically the same team from the year before, but were without their two-time MVP, and it made all the difference as they saw their win total drop by 42 wins.

That will be the last time we see the Cavaliers win less than 20 games in a season, that is until Irving decides to take his talents to South Beach seven years from now. Too soon?

There were skeptics of Irving and his potential, but he has quietly proved every one of his doubters wrong and is the leading candidate to win Rookie of the Year. He's averaging 19 points per game on 47 percent shooting from the field, 41 percent from deep and 87 percent from the foul line, as well as six assists and four boards per.

Perhaps the most redeeming quality of Irving is his aggressiveness and his ability to hit shots in pressure situations. Irving has already hit a few game-winners this year, including a game-winning layup against one of the NBA's toughest defenses in the Boston Celtics.

It's tough to say that a player is going to be a Hall of Famer after witnessing him play only 46 games, but Irving has the talent to become one.

He has an exceptional jump shot and range, has the speed and athleticism to drive at will and can facilitate and lead his team as a scorer and passer. He's confident in his abilities and he truly believes that he can lead this Cavs team back to what they were before.

I'm not saying that Irving is going to lead the Cavs to the finals anytime soon or 66 wins. However, I will say that Irving will be an All-Star within the next two years and will be one of the league's top five point guards within the next five years.