By Matt Steinmetz

The Sports Xchange/Special to CBSSports.com

There's a reason it's tough for a young player to have a breakout season.

Two of them, in fact.

The first is that young players need to get an opportunity, and those can be difficult to come by in the win-now NBA. The second is that the few young players who get that opportunity still have to do something with it.

And that's not automatic, either.

Of the following three players, each is on a different NBA plane. One who will assume a starting role, another who will become a rotation fixture and a third who seems to be a virtual unknown.

Still, each of them in their own way seems poised to have a breakout season.

JOSE CALDERON, TORONTO: If you think Calderon already has arrived, you wouldn't be entirely wrong. He played a lot of big minutes for the Raptors last season and did quite well with them.

Calderon's game is intriguing, and so are some of his numbers. He shot 52 percent from the field, including 43 percent from beyond the arc. He's a 90 percent free throw shooter and has an astounding assist-to-turnover ratio of better than 5-to-1.

Yet he's still on this list. Why?

Because his game and numbers are likely to improve now that he's the man in Toronto.

Not only did the Raptors trade T.J. Ford to Indiana, freeing up more playing time for Calderon, but Toronto also brought in Jermaine O'Neal, another legitimate frontcourt talent.

For the first time in his career, Calderon has himself a full-time point guard job -- and a new multiyear contract to go along with it, by the way.

He also has a game that isn't dissimilar from that of a younger Steve Nash. No, Calderon is not in Nash's class. But he's going to get a lot closer to it this season.

RODNEY STUCKEY, DETROIT: With Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton getting up in age a little bit (Billups is 32, Hamilton 30), there are plenty of backcourt minutes available. And Stuckey's going to get most of them, regardless whether those minutes are point guard or shooting guard ones.

In his rookie season, Stuckey showed an uncanny ability to finish around the rim, in large part because of his solid and sturdy frame. At 6-foot-5, he's bigger than most point guards, and when you talk strength, Stuckey's in a group with Baron Davis and Deron Williams.

Stuckey is a perfect third guard for the Pistons because he can play point or shooting guard, both on offense and defense. Stuckey's capable of guarding anyone from 6-foot to 6-8.

He needs a lot of work on his perimeter jumper and he has no 3-point shot to speak of. If he can find any kind of consistency from beyond 16 feet, Stuckey will be a brutal matchup.

Billups-Hamilton-Stuckey isn't quite Isiah Thomas-Joe Dumars-Vinnie Johnson, but then again it isn't bad, either.

RAMON SESSIONS, MILWAUKEE: Few teams are as under-the-radar as the Bucks, and to take it a step further, few Bucks are as under-the-radar as Sessions.

Sessions played most of last season for the Tulsa 66ers in the D-League before getting a late season call-up.

What he did after entering the NBA was more impressive than anything Sessions had done to get him there.

Sessions wound up playing 17 games at point guard for the Bucks, but the last seven were borderline jaw-dropping.

On April 14, in a game against the Bulls, Sessions had 20 points and an NBA season-high 24 assists. The 24 assists were also a franchise record. Sessions followed that with a 25-point, 14-assist game in the season finale, finishing off a run in which he averaged 13.1 points, 11.7 assists and 5.7 rebounds.

Sessions was selected late in the second round out of Nevada in the 2007 draft.

He has size, is heady and is a pass-first point guard. He takes care of the ball, too. But remember, his big scoring nights came in games that had no playoff implications.

The good news for Sessions is that Mo Williams is gone and Luke Ridnour is a Buck. That's a drop-off there, and it should allow Sessions an opportunity to play plenty of minutes.

Tyronn Lue is also going to provide Sessions some competition. But considering Sessions is in his second season and Ridnour and Lue are relatively known commodities, who do you think has first dibs on playing time?

That's right -- Sessions.

(Matt Steinmetz is an NBA columnist for examiner.com.)