Welcome to the latest chapter in “John Pretends He Writes for ESPN.” The Worldwide Leader asked its network of blog writers to answer a few questions about the point guard position, so I thought I’d chime in with my (totally unsolicited) take.

Who’s the best point guard in the NBA today?

Today? As in right this very second? I had some questions about CP3′s knee, but after the way he torched the Lakers in the playoffs, I have to go with Paul. No other guard combines a pass-first mentality with an ability to take over when needed quite as well Paul does.

Here are my top 10: 1. Paul, 2. Rose, 3. D. Williams, 4. Nash, 5. Curry, 6. Rondo, 7. Westbrook, 8. Parker, 9. Wall, 10. Kidd

Who’s the most underrated point guard in the NBA?

Williams jumps out, only because people forget him during “best point guard” discussions. I also like Ty Lawson and Kyle Lowry as two up-and-coming PGs who will eventually break into the top 10.

Who’s the most overrated point guard in the NBA?

I have them ranked #6 and #7, but I would not want Rondo or Westbrook running my team. I prefer Rondo (that’s why I have him ranked higher), but he’s too moody to lead a team with any consistency. Westbrook is talented, but he shoots too much and turns the ball over WAY too much. (By the way, once we have a new CBA, I think the Thunder should offer Westbrook for Paul straight up and see if the Hornets bite.)

Who’s the most promising point guard in the NBA?

I have to go with Wall given all the upside. I’m really interested to see what kind of player he turns into. I like Lawson as well. The most interesting young point guard is probably Ricky Rubio — is he going to pan out? If not, David Kahn will finally be without a job.

Who’s the best point guard of all time?

Magic. He could take over when he needed too, but got more joy out of getting his teammates involved with easy buckets.

When the Oklahoma City Thunder drafted James Harden #3 overall in the 2009 draft, it was a sign that the team had confidence in Russell Westbrook as their point guard of the future. After all, the 2009 draft was loaded with point guards (Ricky Rubio, Ty Lawson, Brandon Jennings, Stephen Curry, Jrue Holiday and Darren Collison, to name a few), but the Thunder elected to go with a shooting guard instead.

After the 2009-10 season, while Tyreke Evans was winning Rookie of the Year, and while Jennings, Curry, Collison and Taj Gibson were joining Evans on the All-Rookie First Team, Harden was something of a disappointment. He was an important player in the Thunder rotation, but he came off the bench and could only muster an All-Rookie Second Team nod. It was a solid if unspectacular rookie season.

Now, with the Thunder in the Western Conference Playoffs, Harden is playing 31+ minutes off the OKC bench and is often closing out games. He’s like Manu Ginobili — he’s not a starter, but he’s a closer, and that’s what matters.

It got me wondering — how does Harden’s playoff performance (12-5-4 on 46% shooting) stack up with other guards his age (21)?

Below you’ll find a table with the Per 36 Minute stats of the Top 30 guards in Efficiency Per Game (EPG is also normalized to 36 minutes).

Keep in mind that all of these players were 21 years old on February 1 of the season in question and the data only goes back to the 1982-83 season. I only included players that appeared in at least 50 games during the season to eliminate the riffraff.

I included both Harden’s regular season stats (#17) and his 2011 playoff stats (#6). As you can see, both sets of numbers should be encouraging for Harden supporters. His efficiency is up in the playoffs because he’s shooting at a higher percentage and is tallying more rebounds and assists.

If Playoffs James Harden is the real James Harden, then he has star written all over him. Even if his regular season numbers are more indicative of his ability, he’s still going to be a solid starter in the NBA for most of his career.

Whenever I see Ty Lawson play, I think of Chris Paul. The two players have different games, but physically, they’re similar. Paul stands 6’0″ and weighs 175 pounds. Lawson is 5’11″ and weighs in at 195 pounds, so he’s a little stockier than CP3, but they’re both fairly undersized for the point guard position.

Here are the per 48-minute stats from each player’s rookie and second season. Since Paul played about 16 minutes more per game in his rookie season (and 10+ minutes more in his sophomore season), we need to adjust per minute for an apples-to-apples comparison.

ROOKIE SEASON

SECOND SEASON

(Note: Blocks are negligible so I excluded them to save space.)

It’s clear from Paul’s assist numbers that he’s the superior playmaker. He averaged 3.0 more assists per 48 minutes than Lawson. But Lawson is a far more efficient scorer, making over 50% of his shots in his first two seasons. This is helped by his excellent three-point shooting, which is over 40% for his career. Paul is quite a bit better at getting to the line and makes a higher percentage when he gets there.

From an overall efficiency standpoint, Paul actually regressed a tad in his sophomore season, while Lawson improved about 11%.

Ty Lawson is no Chris Paul, mostly because he doesn’t have the pure point guard mentality that Paul does. But he’s a fine player, and is superior to Paul with his efficient shooting and scoring. Paul does a better job of changing gears, while Lawson seems to be going 100 mph all the time. It will be interesting to see how his game develops over the next two seasons as he matures as a starting point guard.

In general, NBA players play better at home. That’s a fact. The Top 250 players (in terms of total minutes played this season) are 6.3% better in Efficiency Per Minute (EPM) when playing at home.

But as with anything in life, there are exceptions to this rule. There are certain players who, for whatever reason, play better on the road.

The table below shows the Top 50 players (in terms of Efficiency Per Game), along with both their home and away EPM, and the “percent better” they are when playing at home. If the number is negative, the player actually performs better on the road.

So Kevin Garnett wins this year’s first annual Road Warrior Award since he plays 11.5% better on the road than he does at home. This is not shocking given his mental toughness and ability to thrive off the negativity of the crowd. Joakim Noah, Al Jefferson, LeBron James, Kevin Martin and Andrew Bogut played significantly better on the road than they did at home this season.

Bulls fans should be happy to see Derrick Rose (#21), Carlos Boozer (#13) and Joakim Noah (#2) all in the upper half. That would imply that Chicago’s stars have the mental makeup to win on the road, and that will come in handy in the postseason.

On the flip side, Monta Ellis really struggled on the road this season. He averaged 6.4 fewer points and shot 6.2% worse from the field away from home. Moreover, he was almost 10% worse from long range on the road. He wins our Home Cookin’ Award in a landslide.

Two Clippers show up next, with Eric Gordon and Blake Griffin rounding out spots #48 and #49, respectively. Gordon averaged 1.8 fewer points on the road, which isn’t a whole lot, but his shooting accuracy dropped 4.3% away from home. Griffin averaged 4.2 fewer points and while his FG% dropped 5.5% on the road. These two players are going to have to play better away from home if the Clippers are going to become a perennial playoff team.

Dwight Howard’s 46-point, 19-rebound effort in a Game 1 loss to the Hawks got me wondering — when a player scores 40+ points in a game, does it give his team a better chance to win? Conventional wisdom would be yes, it should increase the chances of his team winning, but by how much?

To find some answers, I fired up Basketball-Reference’s excellent Player Game Finder. Here are a few of the more interesting results:

– Since the 1985-86 season (which is as far as BR’s data goes back), a player has scored 40+ points 1,734 times or 66.7 times per season, including the postseason.

– In those games (both regular season and playoff), teams who had a player score 40+ points won 1,205 of 1,734 games (.695) so it does indeed mean a team has a better chance to win.

– A player has scored 40+ in the postseason a total of 148 times. His team won 104 times (.703), so it does not make a huge difference whether or not the game is regular season or postseason when it comes to win %.

– Of the 1,734 games, 893 (51.5%) were by guards, 657 (37.9%) were by forwards and 184 (10.6%) were by centers.

– The most points scored in a game (since 1985) was Kobe Bryant’s 81 points against Toronto in 2006. David Robinson scored 71 against the Clippers in 1994. Michael Jordan scored 69 against the Cavs in 1990. The most points scored in a playoff game in that span was a tie between Charles Barkley (1994 vs. Golden State) and Michael Jordan (1992 vs. Miami), each with 56 points.

– There have been 16 games where a player has scored 60+, and only one player (Michael Jordan, in 1987 and 1993) managed to lose the game. Jordan went for 60+ four times and went 2-2 in those games. All other players were 12-0 when scoring 60+.

– There have been 180 50+ point games since 1985 with a winning percentage of .716.

– The youngest player to score 40+ was LeBron James, who was 19 years, 88 days old. Kevin Durant (19-200), Carmelo Anthony (19-306) are the only other players to score 40+ before they turned 20 years old. Eric Gordon (20-029), Brandon Jennings (20-052) and Shaquille O’Neal (20-347) join them as the only players to score 40+ before they turned 21.

– The fewest field goal attempts needed to score 40+ was 13, a feat accomplished by two players. In 1986, Rolando Blackman 10-of-13 shots from the field and 22-of-23 from the free throw line. Shaq also scored 40+ on 13 shots. He hit 11-of-13 from the field and went 19-of-31 from the free throw line. What is maybe the most surprising, neither player hit a three-pointer! Unsurprisingly, these two games have the highest points per field goal attempt (PTS/FGA) with 3.23 and 3.15, respectively.

– The most shot attempts to reach 40+ points was Michael Jordan’s 49 in 1993. Amazingly, he hit 27 of them (55.1%). Of the 22 games where a 40+ point scorer attempted 40+ shots, the player won just 10 games (.455)

– 772 of 1,774 40+ point games came on the road (43.5%). That means 56.5% of 40-point games come at home, which makes sense because players are generally more comfortable shooting the ball in familiar surroundings.

– During this span, Michael Jordan leads the way with 185 40+ games. Kobe Bryant (118) and Allen Iverson (89) are second and third, respectively.

– Amazingly, seven players (Hakeem Olajuwon, Wally Szczerbiak, Chuck Person, Joe Dumars, Mark Aguirre, Dennis Scott and Robert Horry) scored 40+ without even making a free throw. Olajuwon did it without making a three-pointer, either!

– Kobe Bryant made the most threes (12) in any 40+ game, and it wasn’t his 81-point game. He hit 12 threes against Seattle in 2003. He “only” had seven threes in his 81-point game.

– Only 17 players scored 40+ without starting the game. J.R. Smith did it three times, while Al Harrington, Ben Gordon and Nate Robinson each did it twice.

– The fewest minutes required to score 40+ was Sleepy Floyd’s 24 minutes in 1991. He somehow managed to hoist 25 shots in 24 minutes. Patrick Ewing was second with 26 minutes. In terms of points per minute, Kobe Bryant’s 1.93 came during his 81-point game. He owns five of the top seven games in points per minute. The top 50 players/games in terms of points per minute had an eye-popping win/loss record of 47-3.

– Two players have scored 40+ in the same game 57 times. Michael Jordan was involved in eight of those games. Allen Iverson was involved in six, while Kobe was involved in four.

– Six games have featured two players scoring 50+ points: Tom Chambers (60)/Patrick Ewing (51) in 1990, Charles Smith (52)/Patrick Ewing (50) in 1990, Michael Jordan (64)/David Robinson (52) in 1992, Kobe Bryant (51)/Antawn Jamison (51) in 2000, Tracy McGrady (52)/Jamal Mashburn (50) in 2003, and Allen Iverson (53)/Vince Carter (51) in 2005.

So that’s about everything you could possibly want to know about the 40+ point game, right? If you have any other questions/ideas, let me know in the comments section below and I’ll do my best to answer them.