We hear it all the time. NBA analysts call one point guard “pass-first” and another “shoot-first.” Or they say one guy is “turnover-prone” while another “takes care of the ball.” But really, what makes a player a “pass-first” point guard? How carefree must he be with the ball to be considered “turnover-prone”?

I first tackled this subject two years ago, and settled on the shot-to-assist ratio to determine whether a player is “pass-first” or “shoot-first.” The higher the number, the more of a “shoot-first” player he is. To determine whether or not a player is “turnover-prone,” I calculated each player’s assist-to-turnover ratio. The higher the number, the better the player is at taking care of the ball.

I narrowed the list of players to 33, one for each team plus a few extra for teams like Cleveland, Sacramento and Denver, who have a couple of players manning the position. I also added eight prospects (indicated in green) just to see where a few of the younger guys land. Here’s the graph — it’s small, but if you click it, you’ll get to a bigger version:

So the pass-first/shoot-first aspect goes left to right, and the turnover-prone players will be towards the bottom, while the guys that take really good care of the ball will be up top. Players indicated with a blue diamond are in the Top 10 in this group in Efficiency Per Minute. I set the axis for each category at the average of the 33 players in question, so 1.97 for FGA-to-assist and 2.70 assist-to-turnover.

Two years ago when I conducted this study, seven of the top 10 EPM performers were in the top left quadrant (pass-first, takes care of the ball). This year, only five of the top 11 (I included both Rondo and Calderon, since they tied for #11) are in that quadrant. This is due to the emergence of three shoot-first, (fairly) turnover-prone guards who are emerging as stars: Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook and Stephen Curry.

A few takeaways:

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The Los Angeles Clippers just pulled off the unthinkable: they managed to trade away Baron Davis’s untradeable contract. But it cost them a lottery pick.

Mary Schmitt Boyer of The Plain Dealer has the details.

An NBA source has confirmed to the Plain Dealer that the Cavaliers are about to send guard Mo Williams and forward Jamario Moon to the Los Angeles Clippers for guard Baron Davis and a No. 1 draft pick in the 2011 draft. That likely will be a lottery selection, although this draft is not considered to be particularly strong.

Below you’ll find a table with each player’s age, ’10-11 Player Efficiency Rating (via John Hollinger of ESPN) as well as their salaries for the next two seasons. Both contracts expire in 2013.

The Clippers are going to save approximately $11.7 million over the next two seasons with this trade. Even though Davis has a higher PER this season, they’re probably getting the better player in Mo Williams, who has battled injuries this year and hasn’t been the same since LeBron left last summer. I suspect he’ll be revitalized playing with Blake Griffin just as Davis was for the first half of the season.

When I first saw the headline about the Cavs trading for Davis, I chuckled, but with the Clippers’ first round pick included in the deal, it makes a lot more sense. The Cavs are basically buying the Clips’ #8 overall pick (which could end up being quite a bit higher or a little lower) in the 2011 draft for around $12 million.

Side note: It just goes to show how out of whack the NFL rookie salaries are for the top picks because it’s almost impossible to find an NFL team that wants to trade into the upper part of the draft. And here the Cavs are spending $12 million for that right because the NBA rookie salary scale is a much better deal for teams drafting in the lottery.

There’s no telling how this trade is going to work out until we see what kind of player the Cavs get with the pick. One thing it does buy the Cavs is hope. Mo Williams wasn’t going to take this team anywhere and neither is Baron Davis. Williams has more value because he’s going to provide about the same production at a fraction of the cost, but by acquiring a lottery pick, the Cavs have another building block for their rebuilding project.

The short-term winner in this trade is definitely the Clips. Not only did they shed themselves of Davis and his terrible contract (which they gave him in the first place), they also freed up enough cash in the summer of 2012 to make a run at a max free agent, assuming the next collective bargaining agreement allows for this. There are already rumors swirling that Deron Williams could join the Clips that summer, and Chris Paul could be a free agent next summer as well.

One thing is certain — the Clips have to sign/acquire a great player to play alongside Blake Griffin before he has an opportunity to sign elsewhere. If they can sign Deron Williams/Chris Paul, re-sign Griffin, and can keep Eric Gordon in the fold as well, the Clippers will really be in business.

GMs around the league were worried that there wouldn’t be much action leading up to Thursday’s trade deadline, but once the Carmelo Anthony trade went down, there has been a flurry of activity highlighted by the Nets’ acquisition of Deron Williams.

Here are five more trades that should happen, but probably won’t. They generally include one older player on a bad team that isn’t going anywhere.

Click on each trade’s headline to see it in the ESPN Trade Machine.

1. Steve Nash to Atlanta for Jamal Crawford and two first round picks
Free Steve Nash! The Hawks aren’t the ideal destination for Nash, but the Hawks really need a floor leader and the team has the defensive frontcourt (Josh Smith, Al Horford) to make up for Nash’s weakness on that end of the court. Smith and Horford would work well in Nash’s patented screen-and-roll and he would take the pressure off of Joe Johnson to create as the shot clock is winding down. The Suns aren’t going to get much out of this deal other than cap relief (Crawford’s deal is expiring) and a couple of first round picks, but Nash is 37 years old and deserves to play in the postseason. The Suns aren’t going anywhere anyway.

2. Rip Hamilton to Chicago for Kyle Korver and Ronnie Brewer
Rip can still play. He’s averaging 13.3 points per game and his shooting 40%+ from 3PT even though his minutes are sporadic. He works hard on defense and has kept himself in great shape throughout his career, so he should be able to contribute for the remainder of his contract. His spot up jumper would be a nice fit alongside Derrick Rose in the Chicago backcourt. The Pistons would be rid of the headache of keeping Rip on the roster without playing him and would get a couple of youngish wings in Korver and Brewer that could actually contribute.

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Mo’s dunk in Game 1 against the Celtics was apparently the first of his career. After the game, Mike Brown was asked about it and could barely respond.

Last night, with the game tied and 0:28 to play, the Cleveland Cavaliers ran one of their favorite plays against and scored the go-ahead bucket against the Bucks.

It’s pretty easy to identify, as it’s one of the few sets where the ball starts out in Mo Williams’ hands. The Bucks should have seen it coming, but they didn’t. Here’s a look.

LeBron (#3) inbounds the ball to Mo (#1) and heads over to the top of the key. Delonte West (#2) sets a block-to-block screen for J.J. Hickson (#5), which is only meant to free up Hickson so that he can set an on-ball screen for Mo. West heads to the corner to spot up for a three. Mo uses Hickson’s ball screen and dribbles towards the baseline.

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After last week’s home loss to the Bulls sent the Cavs 3-3, it wasn’t clear how this team would respond having to play the next three games on the road. After a win against the Knicks, the Cavs upended the Magic in Orlando, and defeated the Heat, 111-104, last night in Miami. That’s an impressive stretch, for sure.

Mo Williams was the key to the last two wins. He scored 26 points (on 12-20 shooting) against the Magic, and posted 25 points, four rebounds and three assists against the Heat. Over the two games, he hit 9-12 shots from long range.

Williams has to be careful that he’s not deferring too much to Shaq. Mo is the team’s second-best player and needs to stay aggressive. It’s nice to dump it into Shaq from time to time, but he’s not going to score 25-30 on a semi-regular basis and be that complementary scorer that LeBron needs. That is Mo’s job.

After an 0-2 start to the season, the Cleveland Cavaliers were riding a three-game winning streak into Thursday night’s home game against the Bulls. Here are the highlights:

The Cleveland faithful might think that LeBron was fouled on his last drive, but after taking a couple of looks at it, I think it was a clean play. The defender is entitled to his space, and he’s allowed to jump in the air as long as he doesn’t jump forward. This is called the “principle of verticality,” which means that a defensive player is entitled to his vertical cylinder. Joakim Noah’s defense on the play wasn’t a perfect example of this (as his body was drifting toward the basket a bit), but it was a good defensive play. LeBron was in a tough spot and obviously jumped into Noah looking for the call and the refs didn’t bail him out.

There are a couple of other things to take from this game:

1. Mo Williams’ ineffectiveness
He was 4-13 from the field (including 1-7 from long range). He did have six assists, but Mo is a scorer and he needs to be more efficient than this.

2. The Bulls’ balance
Chicago had seven players score at least seven points, and Luol Deng led the Bulls with 15. Derrick Rose didn’t shoot the ball well, but still scored 14 points and dropped 11 dimes.

The Cavs drop to 3-3 with the loss, while the Bulls are 3-2.

Orlando rode a strong first half performance to an 18-point halftime lead, and held off the Cavs’ late charge to win Game 6 (103-90) and clinch a date with the Lakers in the Finals.

Dwight Howard had arguably his best game of the series, posting 40 points (14-21 from the field, 12-16 from the free throw line), 14 rebounds and four assists. The Magic overcame substandard shooting from Hedo Turkoglu (3-12, 10 points) with fine play from Rashard Lewis (6-13, 18 points) and Mickael Pietrus (5-10, 14 points).

For the Cavs, Game 6 was more about their failure to have an answer for Howard than it was about getting poor play from LeBron’s sidekicks. Delonte West (9-19, 22 points) and Mo Williams (6-12, 17 points) both played pretty well and shot a combined 5 of 7 from long range. Anderson Varejao (7-12, 14 points) also had a solid game. However, the rest of the Cavs shot a combined 5 for 17 (29%) for 12 points.

James had 25 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, and shot just 40% from the field. Most players would be reasonably happy with a night like that, but the Cavs needed more from LeBron in an elimination game on the road. Still, he averaged 41.2 points (on 50% shooting), 8.6 rebounds and 8.2 assists in the series, so it’s hard to fault his play.

Looking ahead, the Lakers match up pretty well with the Magic in that they have a couple of big men in Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol that will try to slow down Howard. Bynum in particular needs to play well and it’s not clear that his stamina is strong enough to play a ton of minutes. Gasol isn’t strong enough to handle Howard one-on-one, so when Bynum is on the bench, the Lakers will probably have to throw some double-teams at Orlando’s big man. Meanwhile, Courtney Lee and Mickael Pietrus will be asked to watch Kobe. If they can slow him down and the Magic continue to hit their threes, they’ll have a good shot to upset the Lakers.

Check back later in the day for a complete breakdown of the challenges that the Cavs face over the next year or so as they try to pick up the pieces and re-sign LeBron.

Down 2-1 with Game 4 in Orlando tonight, Mo Williams is still confident that the Cavs are going to advance to the Finals. He’s so confident that he’s not afraid to give the Magic some bulletin board material in case they need a little extra motivation.

“Guarantee we’re going to win the series? Yeah, yeah,” he said. “We are down 2-1. But there is nobody on this team and definitely not myself that says we are not going to win this series. Yeah, it is going to be tough. We know that. We get this game tomorrow, go home, still got home-court advantage.

“We don’t see ourselves losing two out of three at home.”

There’s a difference between being guaranteeing a series win and being confident that you can pull it off. Once Williams used the word “guarantee,” he took his confidence to another level — one that might ultimately fire up the Magic and hurt Cleveland’s chances.

Without LeBron’s amazing shot in Game 2, the Cavs would be facing elimination tonight. They have been thoroughly outplayed and simply don’t match up very well with the Magic. Williams’ statement that the Cavs are the “best team in basketball” sounds hollow right now, especially from a guy who is shooting 32% from the field in the series. He really needs to play well tonight to help his team (and to back up these words).

The so-called “shot that saved Cleveland” didn’t seem to affect the Magic in Game 3. The heartbreaking Game 2 loss would have sent most teams into a tailspin, but Orlando has been resilient all season long, and like any championship-caliber team, the Magic look forward not backward.

Game 3 was the most physical of the series thus far. The officials called 58 fouls and the teams shot a combined 86 free throws. Dwight Howard shot 19 of the Magic’s 51 attempts, and made 14. That’s a 74% clip for a guy who shot 59% on the season.

Free throws also had an impact on the Cavs. LeBron James made 18 of 24 attempts (75%), but missed five attempts in a six-minute stretch in the fourth quarter that, had he made them all, would have had his team trailing by one instead of six with two minutes to play. Even the most diehard Cleveland fan would admit that LeBron was getting to the line more than he ought to be in the final quarter. He got just about every call when he went to the hole, drawing a questionable blocking foul on Mickael Pietrus, and drew a foul on the retreating Howard at the rim. Then Howard fouled out after cleanly blocking LeBron’s three-point attempt with 0:36 to play. In short, LeBron is getting Jordan-esque treatment from the refs, even on the road.

He posted 41 points, nine assists, seven rebounds, two steals and an amazing block, but shot just 1 of 8 from three-point range. The Magic’s plan is to encourage LeBron to shoot the long ball. If he happens to get hot, then they’ll just have to live with it. The Cavs didn’t have much else going offensively. Mo Williams scored 15 points on 5 of 16 shooting and Delonte West pitched in with 12 points. The rest of the Cavs combined for 21 of the team’s 89 points.

The Magic had a more balanced attack with five players in double figures, led by Howard’s 24 points.

With the loss, the Cavs find themselves in a hole once again. They do not want to go down 3-1 in the series, so while Game 4 isn’t quite a “must-win,” it’s damn close.