Tag: Chris Paul (Page 9 of 13)

      15 GMs rank the top 13 point guards

      June 1, 2009 /

      I don’t know how he did it, but Chad Ford convinced 15 NBA GMs/executives to rank the top 13 point guards in the draft. If I were running a team and he asked me to do this, I would have told him to go jump off a cliff. (Or I’d have my secretary rank the players by how cute she thinks they are and pass that off as my list.)

      Anyway, here are the rankings, along with an average ranking. Ford’s column has a lot more detail on each player.

      1. Ricky Rubio (avg 1.9)
      2. Stephen Curry (2.4)
      3. Jonny Flynn (3.0)
      4. Jrue Holiday (3.8)
      5. Tyreke Evans (4.5)
      6. Jeff Teague (6.5)
      7. Brandon Jennings (6.8)
      8. Eric Maynor (8.0)
      9. Ty Lawson (9.5)
      10. Patrick Mills (10.0)
      11. Darren Collison (11.0)
      12. Nick Calathes (12.0)
      13. Toney Douglas (12.5)

      I’m surprised that Stephen Curry moved up so much. Prior to the combine, there were still some who questioned whether or not he was even a first round talent. But apparently he put those concerns to rest. Besides, if you can shoot the ball like he can (and aren’t a complete stiff in other areas of the game), there’s a place for you in the NBA.

      Brandon Jennings is hurting himself by skipping the combine and the Reebok Eurocamp. He’s going to need to go head to head with some of these players if he wants to stick in the lottery. Conversely, Jonny Flynn is impressing in his interviews and teams are happy to see that he measures over six-foot in shoes. He’s basically the same size as Chris Paul. So is Ty Lawson, but he continues to fall. I still think whoever gets him in the mid- or late-first round is going to have a starter-caliber point guard in a couple of seasons.

      Florida’s Nick Calathes raised a few eyebrows when he decided to sign a three-year deal with Greek team Panathinaikos, but since he already has dual citizenship and a closer look at the contract reveals that he’d need to go in the lottery to match the financial windfall he’s going to enjoy overseas, it’s probably a good decision for the young man.

      NBA, NBA Draft, Rumors & Gossip

      How good of a prospect is Ricky Rubio?

      May 26, 2009 /

      In the mock drafts that I’ve seen, Spaniard Ricky Rubio is the consensus #2 or #3 pick in this year’s NBA Draft. I saw him play a couple of times in last summer’s Olympics and I thought that he would make a solid NBA point guard, but I didn’t see the same things that the scouts are apparently seeing. TrueHoop’s Henry Abbott wrote a nice piece about how much potential Rubio has, and how it needs to be cultivated, not rushed to market.

      At the lottery, everybody said the same admiring things about his feel for the game, handle, vision, leadership … but sometimes these ideas leap from mind to mind without ever touching ground. I found myself looking around the room and wondering: How much have you even seen Rubio play? What kind of vetting has he had?

      Ricky Rubio will turn 19 in October. He has missed all kinds of games with injuries. He has played his entire early career in Spain. Almost everyone who makes the big decisions for NBA teams lives in the U.S. He has not done draft workouts.

      That pretty much sums up my concerns about the kid.

      Continue reading »

      NBA, NBA Draft

      What goes through my brain…

      May 22, 2009 /

      …when I read a Bill Simmons mailbag.

      Anyway, there was a really funny moment Thursday that could have only happened at a Lakers game. Near the end of a third-quarter timeout, the camera caught Val Kilmer and three of his chins on the JumboTron, punctuating the moment by playing “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins. You know, a “Top Gun” homage. He took a second or two to get the joke, then unleashed one of those “Very funny, you got me, just know that I’m on a lot of meds right now” smiles. And this would have been enjoyable on its own, but they cut to someone else in the stands. …

      That’s right. …

      Tom Cruise!

      He caught on a little quicker and did the Tom Cruise Over-Laugh. And this would have been great on its own, but the Lakers pushed it to another level: They went split-screen with Kilmer and Cruise with “Danger Zone” still blasting. As far as I was concerned, this was the most emotional reunion in Lakers history. Cruise kept laughing; Kilmer looked mildly perturbed. (After all, he’s an actor, dammit! That was 23 years ago! He’s made a lot of movies since then!) At this point, I was praying they’d cut to Anthony Edwards in Section 312 but he wasn’t there.

      Ha! Great one about Anthony Edwards sitting in the upper level.

      Continue reading »

      Humor, NBA, Video

      What kind of point guard is he?

      May 7, 2009 /

      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”?

      Taking an analytical approach to these questions, I decided to bust out an Excel spreadsheet and try to come up with some answers. Below you’ll see a graph that attempts to classify the top point guards in the league. But first, a little background…

      I chose to categorize each player based on two stats. First, to determine if he’s “shoot-first” or “pass-first,” I calculated the shot-to-assist ratio for each player. The bigger the number, the more of a “shoot-first” mentality the player has. Second, to determine whether or not a player is “turnover-prone,” I calculated each player’s assist-to-turnover ratio. I thought about using turnovers per 48 minutes, but I like the idea of including assists so that playmakers are rewarded for the positive as well as the negative. Next, I calculated each player’s Efficiency Per Minute (EPM) to see if there is any correlation between these other statistics and the overall efficiency of the player in question.

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      NBA

      Where do the Hornets go from here?

      April 30, 2009 /

      It was a disappointing season for Chris Paul and Co. as they were unceremoniously eliminated from the playoffs last night in Denver. After last season’s near-miss against the Spurs in the Western Conference semis, along with the addition of do-it-all forward James Posey, many pundits (including myself) thought that they might be the team best positioned to threaten the Lakers’ chances of a return trip to the Finals. But it was not to be.

      According to John Hollinger’s PER, Chris Paul had an even better statistical season than last year, when he was in serious contention to become the league’s MVP. David West played his usual 21/9 ball as well.

      So what happened?

      1. Tyson Chandler wasn’t himself. He battled injuries all year and was even traded to Oklahoma City (and subsequently untraded due to the Thunder’s concerns about his foot). Here are his stats for the last three seasons:

      ’06-’07: 9.5 ppg, 12.4 rpg, 1.8 bpg, 62% FG%
      ’07-’08: 11.8 ppg, 11.8 rpg, 1.1 bpg, 62% FG%
      ’08-’09: 8.8 ppg, 8.7 rpg, 1.2 bpg, 57% FG%

      That may not seem like much of a fall off, but three points, three rebounds and a 5% decrease in field goal shooting certainly has an effect. It’s not Chandler’s fault that he had some nagging injuries, but that was part of the reason for the Hornets’ decline.

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      NBA

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