NBA Draft 2013: Small Forwards

I’ve already done a piece on Otto Porter, who I consider the top SF prospect and one on James Ennis and Maurice Kemp, who I would put at 2^nd and 3^rd behind Porter in the 2013 SF rankings. This is a look at the rest of what is a pretty strong group of SFs. I’ll do the combo forwards in my next piece later this week. Here are the numbers:

Player	2PP	3PP	P40	R40	ASB40	A/TO
Giannis Adetokonbo	622	316	16.9	8.9	5.5	0.9
Reggie Bullock	545	436	17.8	8.2	5.6	2.4
Solomon Hill	508	390	16.2	6.5	5.4	1.2
Shabazz Muhammad	463	377	23.2	6.8	2.2	0.5
Ian Hummer	534	292	19.1	7.5	7.3	1.0
Deshaun Thomas	500	344	22.3	6.7	2.4	0.9
Sergey Karasev	410	490	19.1	3.6	3.7	1.7

Players are listed in order of how I would draft them all other things being equal.

Giannis Adetokonbo, Filathlitikos: Adetokonbo is an 18 year-old playing in a lower league in Greece where these numbers were posted. I have no idea of the level of play in this league, nor do I have any idea of the pace. I can say that the .622 is an impressive number for a young player and the 5.5 ASB40 is good as well. I also like that he’s listed as a point forward, though there’s little in his assist numbers to suggest he’s ready for such a role in the NBA.

Adetokonbo looks like a decent upside pick to me and that makes him the top player in this group. His stats are more impressive than the other foreign players and the option of stashing him overseas for a year or two, if that’s available, is an appealing thing for teams looking to manage the tight cap.

Reggie Bullock, North Carolina: He’s listed as a SG in some places, but is much more of a SF in the way he plays. SGs tend to be gunners who score a lot of points. Bullock has that solid all-around game I look for in SFs, but hasn’t been the type of scorer who typically succeeds at SG.

Breaking down a player’s stats is helpful for me, especially in the case of someone like Bullock who spent his 3 college seasons as a supporting player on a power team, after coming to Carolina as a top 20 prospect.

Reggie Bullock	2PP	3PP	P40	R40	ASB40	A/TO
Freshman	465	296	15.7	7.1	3.5	1.2
Sophomore	510	382	12.6	7.3	3.2	1.3
Nov-Dec	509	475	19.0	8.3	7.3	2.8
January	500	413	17.7	7.0	4.3	1.5
February	594	417	16.9	8.0	5.5	4.6
March	613	426	15.0	8.5	4.4	1.8

Best thing I see here is how the efficiency improved during his career. Bullock improved both inside and outside the arc during his 3 seasons. That he topped .600 and .420 in his final 2 months is very impressive. The biggest negative I see is that he just wasn’t a big time scorer, only hitting 19.0 P40 during the pre-season schedule. The other problem is that a large majority of the ASB40 is Assists. His SB40, not a number I often use for SFs, is 3^rd lowest, behind DeShaun Thomas and Shabazz Muhammad, of any SF in this draft. This tells me his defense is very suspect.

Reggie Bullock has some skills. He can shoot the 3-pointer pretty well and he’s a good enough ballhandler that he might be able to play some point forward. Any team looking for a shooter on the wing would do well to look at Bullock. Because of his shaky defense and the fact that he has never embraced the role of a big time scorer, I doubt his high end is much more than that of a good role player though.

Solomon Hill, Arizona: A good college player. Hill had a tough senior year, possibly because he was dealing with one of the top freshman classes in the nation that turned out to be something of an erratic bunch.  He has put up some nice, well-rounded stats during his 4 years:

Solomon Hill	2PP	3PP	P40	R40	ASB40	A/TO
Freshman	526	222	10.6	6.9	3.8	0.8
Sophomore	524	354	12.7	7.5	4.4	1.0
Junior	552	394	16.0	9.6	5.1	1.1
Senior	508	390	16.2	6.5	5.4	1.2

Hill has some good stuff in his numbers. He’s made himself into a good 3-point shooter and his 2PP has consistently been over .500. His 9.6 R40 as a junior says he’s a better rebounder than his career numbers suggest. His rebounding numbers were probably affected by playing with Derrick Williams his first two seasons and with 3 highly-touted freshman bigs his senior year.

A recent success who Hill reminds me of is Chandler Parsons. Like Parsons, Hill comes into the draft as a senior from a powerhouse program. Both were low-volume scorers whose strengths are passing and 3-point shooting. Parsons was a better rebounder, but Hill did flash solid rebounding skill his junior year.  Parsons was something of a surprise and his success doesn’t mean there will be another Chandler Parsons surprising us in 2013. But it does mean teams will be keeping an eye out for the next Chandler Parsons when round two rolls around. Solomon Hill is the SF most likely to surprise and make a Parsons-like impact of the group in the 2013 draft.

Shabazz Muhammad, UCLA: I’ve written a lot on the importance of college SFs posting an ASB40 over 5.0. I mentioned it in last year’s piece on Harrison Barnes.  A common stat of recent SFs who were drafted in the top 10 and busted as pros is an ASB40 below 5.0. This group includes Marvin Williams, Adam Morrison, Rodney White, Derrick Williams and Harrison Barnes. While Barnes had a rookie year of some promise and could break this trend, the others are a Who’s Who of recent SF busts. The pros seem to have latched on to this trend with Muhammad as he has fallen from one of the top prospects in the draft at the start of the year to a guy who is barely in the lottery in most mocks on the eve of the draft.

Going back farther in history, players like Glen Rice, Chuck Person and Mo Peterson all went on to long NBA careers following a college career that featured a low ASB40. Those three could shoot the lights out, which is an X-factor that could keep any player in the league. Muhammad was well over .400 for most of the year from behind the arc before a late slump left him at .377. That’s his best hope for sticking around.

Another thing to mention with Muhammad is the Ben Howland factor. During the Howland era, perimeter players from UCLA have consistently outplayed their college stats in the NBA. I’m not sure how to factor this in with Muhammad. His numbers are pretty terrible for a prospect, so it’s hard for me to believe a coaching style could suppress them so much. This is something worth mentioning though.

There are a lot of other things to dislike about Muhammad’s numbers. The .463 2PP, the low rebounding rate and the miniscule ASB40 are all flashing red lights that point to a bust. This wouldn’t be a big deal with a player who didn’t come in as the #2 prospect in the nation and still appears likely to be drafted in the top 20, possibly higher.

Despite his poor stats, teams will eventually have to look Muhammad’s way as the draft transpires. He does have enough skill that the experts had him pegged him as the #2 overall prospect in his class. He’s still young and with the Howland factor in play he’s probably at least a tad better than his numbers. I can’t see using a first round pick on him, but I’d start thinking about him in round 2.

DeShaun Thomas, Ohio State: See Shabazz Muhammad comment. Thomas suffers from the same low ASB40 problem. Thomas has posted some impressive scoring numbers over the years.  He hit .599 on 2-pointers while scoring 20.0 P40 as a soph. He’s always been an aggressive scorer who is efficient from 2-point range. Unlike a lot of low ASB40 players he doesn’t have a turnover problem. He doesn’t have the same potential of becoming a gunner as Muhammad, as he’s never topped 35% on 3-pointers. Thomas is semi-intriguing as a prospect because of his 2-point prowess. But the low ASB40 is a tough thing to overcome and any SF with that on his resume without the extenuating factors Muhammad has should only be considered on the UFA market.

Sergey Karasev, Triumph Moscow: Karasev’s numbers are for only 350 minutes. He looks very soft to me, other than his 3-point shooting ability. This is a solid year for SF prospects coming out of college. I see no need to burn a first rounder on a player like Karasev who has only shown an ability to hit the 3-pointer. Gunners are nice to have, but there would seem to be a lot better options out there than this guy.

Ian Hummer, Princeton: A player I’ve watched for a few years now. Hummer has shown some promise but just never broke out. He might be the best passing SF available and he’s a solid rebounder and defender. As a scorer, he’s been OK, but hasn’t developed an outside shot. His stats are less impressive than they look considering they were posted in the Ivy League.

NBA Draft 2013: Sleeper SFs James Ennis and Maurice Kemp

These are a couple of similar SFs who have caught my eye and merit a special look. Both are seniors who haven’t been on the prospect radar for various reasons before this season. Both have had 3 college stops in 4 years. Both bring solid all-around games. Both are slender players with a wingspan near 7’. Both have shown promising ability to score, rebound, pass and defend this past season. Because all-around games are strengths for both I’ll show them with the same players I used as comps for Otto Porter:

Player	2PP	3PP	P40	R40	ASB40	A/TO
Paul Pierce	560	339	26.9	8.8	6.3	0.9
Shawn Marion	573	299	22.8	11.3	6.8	0.9
Robert Horry	519	350	18.7	10.0	8.9	0.9
Danny Granger	563	433	25.1	11.8	8.6	1.0
Danny Manning	593	346	28.2	10.2	6.6	0.7
Donyell Marshall	567	311	29.5	10.4	7.2	0.6
Josh Howard	558	329	20.3	11.3	6.7	1.0
Rodney Rogers	648	380	25.2	10.5	6.2	1.2
Stacey Augmon	619	469	21.8	9.6	8.7	2.0
Lionel Simmons	517	477	27.8	11.7	8.0	1.3
Ryan Bowen	607	533	21.0	12.7	7.9	1.1
Ed O’Bannon	571	433	23.8	9.7	6.1	1.0
Gerald Glass	565	376	31.4	9.5	6.5	0.7
Terence Morris	604	355	20.9	9.7	7.3	0.8
Maurice Kemp	539	276	21.3	9.0	6.0	1.3
James Ennis	585	357	19.6	7.9	6.1	0.7

Kemp does come up short as a 3-point shooter. Ennis is low on rebounds and his A/TO is also weak. Both also come with the stigma of having been invisible before their senior years. This piece isn’t to suggest that either one is a prospect on the level of Otto Porter. Both are good prospects who seem to be undervalued in the mocks, but both are looking at a long road to reach their potential. Here’s a look at the prospects of each:

James Ennis, Long Beach State: Ennis played at a couple of JCs before enrolling in LBSU as a junior for the 2011-12 season. He was a star at the JC level, scoring over 1000 points in his 2 years, winning first team all-conference honors as a freshman at Oxnard College and as a sophomore at Ventura College. He also high jumped 6’11”, which shows he’s a pretty darned good athlete.  I don’t have any comprehensive JC stats, so I’ll just post the numbers for his two seasons at LBSU:

James Ennis	2PP	3PP	P40	R40	ASB40	A/TO
Junior	661	350	13.8	5.7	6.8	1.3
Senior	585	357	19.6	7.9	6.1	0.7

His junior year he came to a 49er team that was dominated by 3 seniors, Casper Ware, Larry Anderson and TJ Robinson. Ennis finished 4^th in scoring as a junior, but was a very efficient scorer and a much better passer. With the core of the team gone, Ennis took over the scoring lead as a senior, keeping his efficiency and defense solid. The passing did decline some.

What I look for when I look at the entire career of a player like Ennis is whether extenuating circumstances kept him from emerging as a prospect until his senior year, or if the senior year was something of an aberration, making it possible it was a little more of a fluke. In Ennis’s case I think it’s clear there were circumstances that kept him hidden. Playing at a junior college, even if a player excels as Ennis did for two seasons, keeps any player out of the spotlight. His first year at LBSU, he played a supporting role to 3 seniors who were entrenched as the core and excelled, hitting 66% of his 2-pointers, while defending and passing well. As a senior he finally stepped into the lead role and was one of the best SFs in the nation. The fact that he excelled in whatever role he was in, be it JC star, super role player, or lead scorer tells me that James Ennis probably could have stood out immediately at any college program and there’s nothing fluky or surprising about his great senior year.

So how good of a prospect is James Ennis? Defense is his strength. In his 2 seasons at LBSU he was over 2.0 S40 and 1.0 B40 both years. His long wingspan just adds to the potential. He’s also something of a sleeper as a scorer, with a couple seasons of incredible 2PP marks and a solid 35% from behind the arc. It would be nice if he were a more aggressive scorer though. He only tied for the team lead in FG attempts, despite leading the team in scoring by a significant margin. I would also like him better if the rebound rate were a little higher. He’s also a smidge older than most seniors, turning 23 a week after the draft.

Using the low end/high end game, at the very least James Ennis looks like a quality NBA defender capable of hitting the 3-pointer at an acceptable rate. That in itself is a player worthy of a round one look. His high end is an all-star SF. That’s a long shot at this point, but considering his defense and the potential he has shown as a scorer it is one well worth taking at some point in the 2^nd half of round one. James Ennis is one of the sleepers of the 2013 draft.

Maurice Kemp, East Carolina: Kemp burst onto the scene his senior year after 3 very uneventful years. He started at Alabama A&M as a freshman, playing only 357 minutes. His next year was spent at Miami Dade CC. He transferred to ECU the following year and was a starter by midway through his junior year. He didn’t take any years off during his journey, so he’s 22, the age of a typical senior.

Because he had his first outstanding season as a senior, I wanted to look at Kemp’s career to see what sort of a player he was while developing:

Maurice Kemp	2PP	3PP	P40	R40	ASB40	A/TO
Freshman	511	348	16.6	8.5	4.4	0.5
Junior	515	238	18.0	10.8	5.4	0.6
Senior	539	276	21.3	9.0	6.0	1.3

I have no stats for his sophomore year at JC other than his .522 3PP. That from the college website and does help his prospect case. The numbers for his freshman year are for only 357 minutes. What improved most as a senior was his passing and ball handling. He improved his assist rate and cut his turnovers by a lot. It’s very impressive that his turnovers declined by 40% while his usage increased.

Improvement is a tough thing to factor. It is always a good thing, but some improvement is more impressive than other. If it’s just a case of an already efficient player getting an opportunity and more usage, like appears to be the case with James Ennis, I don’t take that away from a prospect too much. With Kemp his transformation went from a low-minute freshman to one of the best SFs in the nation as a senior. He was semi-productive as a scorer, but there was little about him that suggested he was an NBA prospect until his senior year. I always prefer a prospect to look the part from the start and that hasn’t been the case with Kemp.

The good thing is the improvement he showed as a senior was across the board and included him becoming more efficient and more productive. Because it was across the board, my feeling is that Kemp’s improvement is a good measure of his ability and NBA potential. Kemp strikes me as a late-bloomer. He came in as a great athlete, but had to go through some growing pains to get to where he is as a basketball player now.

Kemp is a player who has shown solid ability as a scorer, passer, rebounder and defender. Such players are rare and should be drafted at some point. The big issue is he hasn’t been a consistent 3-point shooter. That will have to come around. He has had some success from behind the arc in the past, hitting .348 on 23 attempts as a freshman and .522 on 44 attempts as a soph in junior college.  Whether he can develop a more consistent shot will probably tell the story of his NBA career. My feeling is that because a 3-point shot seems to be the easiest skill to develop, taking a chance on such a player isn’t a huge risk.

The negatives with Kemp are something of a checklist of non-statistical red flags I look for. He’s had 3 college stops in 4 years. He didn’t emerge as a prospect until his senior season. He’s very slight at 6’7” and 176 lbs. There’s also his shaky 3-point ability. That all being out there I still can’t let this guy slip out of round one if I’m drafting. He clearly has NBA-level ability. There are some serious red flags out there, but his high end is as good as any SF available and such a player can’t be left on the board too long. Maurice Kemp should be drafted in round one.

Draft 2013: Otto Porter

I can tackle the rest of the SFs in the next article, but I felt Otto Porter deserved his own piece. He’s clearly the best SF in the 2013 draft. The mocks have had him in the top 5 for most of the year.  He led an otherwise unimpressive bunch of Hoyas through a tough Big East to a #2 seed, before bowing out of the tournament early, upset by Florida Gulf Coast. Porter is an all-around SF and those types generally fare pretty well as pros. This seems to be the position more than any other where flashing multiple skills at the college level translates best to NBA success and Otto Porter displayed every skill necessary.

Here is a quick look at Otto Porter’s numbers. First is his freshman year, followed by a month-by-month breakdown of his sophomore year:

Otto Porter	2PP	3PP	P40	R40	ASB40	A/TO
Freshman	611	226	13.2	9.3	4.7	1.3
Nov-Dec	532	435	16.8	9.8	8.8	2.7
January	540	462	20.5	9.1	4.6	0.6
February	509	500	22.9	8.8	5.5	3.4
March	412	261	17.2	7.5	6.5	2.8

These are pretty solid prospect numbers. Porter was always an efficient scorer, at least until a bad slump in his 6 March games. He’s also a solid rebounder, a good passer and defender. He was one of only a handful of college SFs with a S40 over 2.0. The only question I would have is whether his poor shooting in March is something more than a cold streak.

Here’s a look at other players in Porter’s class. I looked for players who topped .500 2PP, 18.5 P40, 8.0 R40, 6.0 ASB40 and showed some ability to hit a 3-pointer. I used a .300 percentage for the last one, but let Marion in with his .299.

Player	2PP	3PP	P40	R40	ASB40	A/TO
Paul Pierce	560	339	26.9	8.8	6.3	0.9
Shawn Marion	573	299	22.8	11.3	6.8	0.9
Robert Horry	519	350	18.7	10.0	8.9	0.9
Danny Granger	563	433	25.1	11.8	8.6	1.0
Danny Manning	593	346	28.2	10.2	6.6	0.7
Donyell Marshall	567	311	29.5	10.4	7.2	0.6
Josh Howard	558	329	20.3	11.3	6.7	1.0
Rodney Rogers	648	380	25.2	10.5	6.2	1.2
Stacey Augmon	619	469	21.8	9.6	8.7	2.0
Lionel Simmons	517	477	27.8	11.7	8.0	1.3
Ryan Bowen	607	533	21.0	12.7	7.9	1.1
Ed O’Bannon	571	433	23.8	9.7	6.1	1.0
Gerald Glass	565	376	31.4	9.5	6.5	0.7
Terence Morris	604	355	20.9	9.7	7.3	0.8
Otto Porter	504	422	19.2	8.9	6.5	1.8

This is a pretty nice list to be on. There’s a nice mix of all-stars, solid journeymen and never-weres. What makes Porter’s year less impressive is that most of this group scored more often and efficiently than him. Now might be a good time for a quick tangent to point out that the pace of college ball has slowed in the last 20 years. The numbers of all these players other than Morris and Granger were posted in the 90s. The per40 numbers I used, other than Porter’s, are all raw numbers with no pace adjustment. My guess would be that most or of the comps on the list are somewhat bloated compared to today’s numbers because of pace. I doubt an adjustment for era would push Porter’s P40 into the 22-23 range, but I feel this trend is worth pointing out. Perhaps my project this summer will be to clean my files up a little to better reflect modern times. But this is what I have to go with now.

Back to the table, with the exception of Morris and Rogers, who were both sophomores, all the players on this list were juniors or seniors. This was Porter’s first season as the lead scorer on his team and he was in that role only starting in January. His P40 steadily improved as the year went on until the slump in March. For that reason I feel the low P40 number isn’t a huge concern.  There are a couple of other factors that could have suppressed Porter’s numbers some.

The first and most important factor about Porter’s season is his Georgetown team lost Greg Whittington to academic ineligibility after a loss to Pitt on 1/8. Whittington was the Hoya’s 2^nd-leading scorer behind Porter at the time. Here is a look at Porter’s numbers pre- and post-Whiittington’s departure:

Otto Porter	2PP	3PP	P40	R40	ASB40	A/TO
With Whittington	516	393	15.9	8.9	7.7	2.3
W/O Whittington	497	432	21.1	8.9	5.7	1.6

The Hoyas actually played better after Whittington departed, going 10-3 in games with him and 15-4 after he left. The 15-4 mark was posted entirely in Big East play, so it really is much more impressive. Most impressive is that Porter adjusted his game and took on a larger scoring load and the team actually benefitted as a result. The improvement Porter made on the offensive end is even more impressive, considering they were put up during the Big East conference regular season. The bulk of the numbers posted with Whittington were posted during the pre-season against inferior competition. What’s impressive here is that when an important player left the team, Porter was able to step up, change his game and lead the Hoyas on a 15-2 run from that point. That run included 5 wins over top 20 opponents.

The other factor to consider with Porter and his stats is that a couple of recent Georgetown players have outperformed their stats as NBA players. Roy Hibbert and Greg Monroe have both become NBA standouts, playing beyond what their college numbers and draft positions projected. Both players were low-volume scorers while at Georgetown with some nice numbers. While I’m not quite ready to call John Thompson III the Ben Howland of the Big East, the fact is Georgetown plays a balanced offense that probably suppresses the stats of some of the better NBA prospects. This is what was happening before Whittington’s departure. Once Whittington left, the team needed for Porter to take on a larger load offensively and he handled it great.

Otto Porter is the type of player I like as a SF prospect. As college SFs go he’s a good rebounder and defender. He’s a great passer. His scoring has been up-and-down, but there is evidence that his offensive numbers were suppressed. During the non-conference schedule where prospects often fatten up their numbers against weaker competition, Porter was playing Georgetown’s shareball with Whittington. Unlike other prospect he never got the chance to fatten up his numbers against inferior competition.

The only thing that concerns me about Otto Porter as a prospect is how well he’ll score in the NBA. This can be a tough call with a prospect like Porter who has only a couple of months of scoring at a level SF prospects need to. There are extenuating circumstances that suggest he’s better than his offensive stats. But how well he’ll be able to score is still something of a guessing game. I’d certainly like him more as a prospect if he played as well for a full season as he did in January and February.

At the very least I feel he’ll be a smart, team-first player like Shane Battier. He fits that profile well. As a college player he was a good defender, rebounder and 3-point shooter who commits few turnovers and did whatever was necessary to help the team win. That in itself is a player worthy of a top 5 pick. The question is whether he can also score at a high enough level to become one of the best SFs in the game. I feel there’s at least a decent chance he’ll get there and for that reason I would make Porter the #2 prospect in the 2013 draft behind Nerlens Noel.

Draft 2013: A Look at the Shooting Guards

Last week I looked at the top SGs. This piece looks at the rest of the SG field. This is actually a pretty strong SG group when we include Oladipo, McLemore and Caldwell-Pope. This group of SGs has every type. There are the 2^nd and 3^rd tier prospects that some team may foolishly talk themselves into as early as the late lottery in Jamaal Franklin, Allen Crabbe and Tim Hardaway Jr. There are 5^th-year seniors who finally clicked in DJ Seeley and Charles Carmouche. There are a couple of young phenoms coming off disappointing seasons in BJ Young and Archie Goodwin.  And a few other who are worth a mention, if not a draft pick. Here are the numbers:

Player	2PP	3PP	P40	S40	A/TO
Jamaal Franklin	490	280	20.3	1.9	1.0
BJ Young	533	227	20.8	0.9	1.6
Archie Goodwin	478	266	17.4	1.4	0.9
Erick Green	509	389	26.1	1.4	1.8
Alex Abrines	524	288	12.9	1.2	0.4
Allen Crabbe	532	348	20.5	1.3	1.1
Tim Hardaway Jr	483	374	17.2	0.8	1.3
DJ Seeley	518	412	21.6	2.4	1.4
Charles Carmouche	529	371	15.6	2.8	2.0
Ian Clark	646	459	21.8	1.9	0.9
Tony Snell	452	390	16.0	1.1	1.4
Ramon Galloway	425	412	20.9	2.3	1.2
Nemanja Nedovic	381	343	16.6	1.4	0.6
Michael Snaer	458	384	18.7	1.3	0.9
Brandon Paul	484	325	19.9	1.5	1.0
James Kinney	475	327	23.9	2.8	0.9

I didn’t include Ricky Ledo who is projected to be drafted early in round 2. Ledo didn’t play college ball and posted no stats, so I can’t form an opinion on him. Players are listed in order of how I would draft them all other things being equal.

Jamaal Franklin, San Diego State: Franklin is one of those players who has the stats of a forward, but the body of a guard. He rebounds better than a lot of bigs. While rebounding in itself doesn’t turn a college guard into an NBA player, it is a sign of NBA level athleticism and that’s what I look for. College guards who topped 10.0 rebounds generally have done pretty well at the next level. Here are major college players who posted a R40 over 10.0 as Franklin has for each of the past two seasons.

Player	2PP	3PP	P40	R40
Clyde Drexler	536	na	18.3	10.1
Andre Iguodala	493	315	16.1	10.5
Jason Richardson	546	296	13.0	10.5
James Posey	624	322	21.3	11.7
Quentin Richardson	471	376	19.5	11.3
Adrian Griffin	477	333	13.0	10.4
Jeff Grayer	545	328	27.4	10.1
Sam Jacobson	517	321	16.2	10.1
Chris Clack	534	359	16.0	11.2
JR Giddens	557	333	20.2	10.9
Jamaal Franklin	490	280	20.3	11.3

Jason Richardson, Jacobson and Clack all were freshmen who played less than 800 minutes. Other than Drexler, who is a HOFer, the success and longevity of the players on this list is related to 3-point ability. The two Richardsons and Posey all stuck in the league for a long time aided by solid 3-point shooting. Grayer and Griffin never developed an effective outside shot and had journeyman careers of less than 10,000 minutes. Franklin and Jason Richardson are the only players on the list with a 3-point percentage below .300. Richardson’s .296 was done as a freshman on only 27 attempts. He boosted that to .402 the next year and has been a stellar gunner as a pro. Franklin was at .325 last year as a sophomore and .502 on 2 pointers, which gives him more hope than his weak numbers from this past year. The biggest thing Franklin could do for his long range prospects is improve his shooting efficiency.

I have him at the top because his great rebounding and defensive numbers suggest he has NBA athleticism. His high end is pretty high, but to get there he needs to score a lot more efficiently than he has.

BJ Young, Arkansas: I’m not sure what happened to him this year. Young was projected as a late lottery pick as recently as the first of this year, a projection I concurred with based on his great freshman season. Now he’s barely hanging on in round two. Here’s a look at what happened in his two seasons:

BJ Young	2PP	3PP	P40	S40	RSB40	A40	T40
Freshman	552	413	23.7	1.8	7.0	3.6	3.6
Sophomore	533	227	20.8	0.9	6.2	4.7	2.8

Arkansas brought in a new coach, Mike Anderson, for the 2013 season. They also lost starting PG Julysses Nobles as a transfer. BJ Young took over at the point as a sophomore and that could have led to some of his struggles. It’s pretty clear he was a better playing SG as a freshman than PG as a soph.

My opinion regarding BJ Young is that he was a pretty impressive prospect as a freshman. His .552 2PP and 23.7 P40 are the numbers of a lottery-bound prospect. The majority of players who will be drafted in round one have not had any seasons as impressive as Young’s freshman season of 2012. His sophomore year was very disappointing, but he still hit an impressive .533 on 2-pointers. There were also some extenuating circumstances his sophomore year, what with the new coach and the position switch that probably affected his numbers.

My theory is that teams should draft mostly on upside. Based on that, I feel BJ Young should be drafted somewhere in the 20-30 range of round 1. His sophomore year is obviously troubling, as is the fact that his defensive numbers were barely good enough even in his strong freshman year. But a player only one season removed from such dazzling offensive numbers has got to be worth more than a late 2^nd rounder. This is a player who is still very young, having just turned 20. Any team that can get him back to where he was will be getting one of the bargains of the draft.

Archie Goodwin, Kentucky: Goodwin had a brutal freshman season after some early hype and promise. While his numbers were hardly the type that light up my spreadsheet, I feel Goodwin would be a good round 2 gamble. The first and most important reason is in his final 7 games he showed some nice improvement on offense. Goodwin posted a 2PP of .540 and a P40 of 19.3 during that time. It’s possible he was starting to figure things out offensively just as the season ended and this improvement got lost in Kentucky’s disappointing finish. The other reason I feel Goodwin is worth a gamble is the success Lance Stephenson has had in Indiana this year after being drafted in round 2 in 2010. Goodwin’s status in 2013 is similar to where Stephenson was in 2010. That’s a highly-touted freshman coming off a disappointing first college season. Indiana drafted Stephenson in round two, was patient in letting him develop and now have a solid NBA player who just helped his team extend the mighty Heat to 7 games. While I can’t say Goodwin will follow a similar path, there are worse ideas than giving such him a chance.

Erick Green, Virginia Tech: The ACC player-of-the-year stepped things up nicely as a senior, leading the nation in scoring while posting career high in both percentages at .509 and .389. Also impressive was that he more than doubled his FTA per game, using his .800+ FT shooting ability to get easy points. In addition to an impressive offensive year, Green has shown some PG ability and has posted a S40 as high as 2.3 in the past. His overall defensive numbers have been substandard for 4 seasons and that makes him a less impressive prospect.

I’m always wary of players who emerge as seniors. It’s better than not arriving at all, but it also has been better for a player to arrive as a prospect earlier. Green had 3 seasons of very erratic offense before his senior year. That and his weak overall defensive numbers make him no more than a middle of round 2 pick in my book.

Alex Abrines, Barcelona: The numbers I have for Abrines were posted in the Spanish League. In 170 minutes in the Euroleague he posted a .636 2PP. That’s the type of number I love from a young (19 in Abrines’ case) player in a foreign league. It shows an ability to dominate and that’s what translates best to the NBA.

I don’t want to get too carried away with this guy though based on something he did in only 170 minutes of play. His defensive numbers are weak and he has yet to show consistent 3-point ability. He rates ahead of a lot of the college guys on nothing more than youth and the upside it brings.

Allen Crabbe, California: Might be a poor man’s (or in this case a good team with a later draft pick’s) Ben McLemore. He has the same type of skill set, though he’s nowhere near as good. Like McLemore his strengths are 3-point shooting and rebounding. Don’t be fooled by the .348 this year. He was at .400 for his two previous seasons. Also like McLemore his steals are low.

My problem with Crabbe is ha has struggled to get his P40 above 20.0, finally getting there in this, his junior year. The same could be said about his 2PP, which jumped past .500 for the first time this year. I like the fact that he got past both benchmarks. I don’t like that it took him until his junior year and the fact that the P40 is only marginally acceptable. The type of player I project McLemore’s high end to be is a SG in the mold of Michael Finley or Allan Houston. Crabbe has some similarities to these players, but doesn’t score with anywhere near the frequency. While his skill set is similar to such players, he’s a notch below them in the frequency he scores at. Because of this I have trouble seeing him as more than a marginal prospect.

Tim Hardaway Jr, Michigan: His appeal must have something to do with his NBA bloodlines or Wolverines just being something of a hot item lately with draft geeks. In his 3 seasons he hasn’t scored or defended well enough to think he’ll make any impact in the NBA. With some players I can find a stat or two that makes them promising. I can’t do that with Hardaway, other than to say he’s a decent 3-point shooter. He has never scored over 20 P40 or posted an RSB40 over 7.0. His S40 has been below 1.0 for two seasons in a row. He was over .500 in 2PP only once, in his sophomore year. I read recently where he had a stellar combine and is now a first round lock. That would be a big mistake.

DJ Seeley, Cal State-Fullerton: Seeley is a 5^th-year senior who will be 24 a month into the 2013-14 NBA season. He transferred to Fullerton after playing little for a couple of seasons at Cal. He’s an all-Big West player who is roughly the same age as NBA all-stars James Harden and Jrue Holiday. I preface this analysis with this perspective in the event I go a little overboard on a player who has become something of a favorite.

Seeley is a potential NBA sniper/defender, possibly the top one likely to be available in round 2 or as a UFA. In his two seasons at Fullerton he has easily topped .400 from behind the arc on 305 total attempts. He also topped 7.0 in RSB40 both seasons and led the Big West in steals this past year. This past season he was flashed some PG ability for the first time in his career, leading the Titans in assists with an A40 of 4.7. The rest of his offense is shaky. He only topped .500 in 2PP this past season for the first time and that was mainly due to a hot start and possibly missing the season’s final 4 games with a foot injury. That and the usual 5^th-year senior and transfer reservations apply here. Seeley has shown enough in his final year that he’s a good late round two gamble.

Charles Carmouche, LSU: Something of an NCAA vagabond for the last 5 years. He started at New Orleans, playing starter minutes by his sophomore season. He moved on to Memphis for 1 full season and 7 games of another. Last year he ended up at LSU for his final season. All that and he’s still younger than DJ Seeley.

I look at Carmouche as being the same type of prospect as Seeley. He has shown enough that he might become a decent sniper/defender in the NBA. He has hit .375 on 323 three-point attempts in his last 4 years. He posted an S40 of 2.9 this year and has been consistently well over 7.0 in RSB40. For his 7 games in Memphis and this past year he has displayed some nice PG skills as well. Particularly impressive are his low turnovers. He’s definitely a long shot being a 5^th-year senior who has never been a high-volume scorer and has 2 transfers in his past. But he has shown enough different talents at different times that he’s well worth a look.

Ian Clark, Belmont: A good prospect as a gunner. Clark has hit over .400 in all four seasons as a Bruin with a career mark of .425. This type of consistency says he’s a pure shooter. He’s also been over .500 from inside the arc all 4 years, topping out at an Oladipian .649 mark this past year. One thing I noticed when analyzing Victor Oladipo is crazy high 2PPs posted by SGs are often fluky and shouldn’t be taken too seriously when they happen for just one season and are way outside the career norms, as it is in Clark’s case. There isn’t much else other than scoring ability that excites here. The defense is weak and there’s little in his passing numbers that suggest PG skills. But he can shoot as well as any player in the draft.

Tony Snell, New Mexico: I can understand why Snell has some fans. He looks the part, being extremely long with a wingspan near 7’. But going down the statistical checklist, the only thing I find to like other than size is a decent ability to hit the 3-pointer. The defensive numbers are weak, he doesn’t score at anywhere near the frequency an NBA SG needs to and his 2PP was .452, suggesting he has no idea how to utilize all that length.

Players with low defensive numbers and 2PPin college, like Snell, who have gone on to play big minutes in the NBA have been able to do one thing, hit a 3-pointer. That ability has kept players like Hubert Davis, Steve Kerr, Brandon Rush and Jodie Meeks in a rotation over the years. While Snell has never been over 40% from behind the arc, he has seasons of .387 and .390. It’s a long shot, but Snell is a candidate to become such a player.

Ramon Galloway, LaSalle: NCAA hero who shot down K State and Ole’ Miss while leading the Explorers to a surprise Elite 8 appearance. Galloway transferred to LaSalle from South Carolina following his sophomore year. I don’t like transfers much and transfers who can’t get their 2PP over .500 are even worse. Galloway does have some potential as a sniper/defender type, though I’d prefer both Seeley and Carmouche .

Nemanja Nedovic, Lietuvos Rytas: A 21 year-old combo playing in Greece. His appeal would be that he can play either guard position. His 5 seasons in the Adriatic and Euro league don’t feature many impressive numbers. The best being S40 numbers of 2.9 and 2.4 in 2010 and ’11, though the former number was in only 123 minutes. His other defensive numbers aren’t as impressive and overall he doesn’t look like much of a prospect to me.

Michael Snaer, Florida State: Snaer was highly-touted 5 years back as one of the top prep SGs in the nation. He played OK at FSU for 4 seasons, but never became the player he was expected to be. The fact that he was once a pretty strong prospect probably keeps him in the draft picture, the solid outside shot he has developed helps his case too.

Brandon Paul, Illinois: Same thing I wrote about Snaer applies here also. Paul wasn’t as highly-touted coming in, but he has been a solid 4-year starter for a major college program. He played well for the Illini, but as a prospect he comes up short.

James Kinney, San Jose State: Kinney left the Spartans on January 8^th following a suspension for a violation of team rules. I feel he’s worth a mention, even though his college career didn’t go as planned. He attempted almost nine 3-pointers per game in his two seasons at San Jose State, hitting .398 in 2012 and .327 in 2013. This past season he posted an RSB40 of 7.8 with a 2.6 S40 in the 14 games he played. The rest of his profile is mostly negative. His efficiency inside is terrible and he’s small for a shooter/defender at 6’2”.

One thing to note about Kinney is that his team was much better with him in the lineup. The Spartans were 9-6 with Kinney and 0-14 when he was out. I realize that there are probably some other factors for the disparity. But this suggests there might be some intangibles that he brings. I know it’s hard to pair intangibles with a player who missed half the season for a violation of team rules, but the with/without  record is pretty impressive. That and the fact that he has shown some promise as a sniper/defender makes Kinney a player worth a mention here.

Draft 2013: Top Shooting Guards

The NBA has gone through a dry spell when it comes to young SGs.  Since Dwyane Wade came into the league in 2003, Brandon Roy and James Harden have been the only SGs to make a major impact and Roy’s career ended prematurely. That could change this year. The 2013 draft features 3 of the better SG prospects I’ve seen in a few years. Victor Oladipo, Ben McLemore and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope all enter the draft with solid prospect numbers, but also some bust potential. McLemore has been at the top of the mocks since early in the process. Oladipo has been on the rise since January and is now considered a likely top 5 pick. Caldwell-Pope had an equally impressive year and has been getting some lottery buzz as the draft approaches. All 3 are pure SGs, rather than a James Harden type who will run the point on occasion. How much that works against them in a league that has been becoming more dominated by PGs remains to be seen.

A quick recap on what I look for in SG prospects. The P40 should be over 20.0, but some leeway is there for freshmen and sophomores. The 2-point percentage should be at least .500 and the player should show nominal ability to hit a 3-pointer. The S40 should be above 1.3 and the RSB40 above 7.0. Finally a turnover problem is a huge red flag. The number that seems to matter here is an A/TO below 0.8. In each case the higher the statistic the better the prospect.

Here is a list of the best pure SGs to come into the league from the NCAA in the last 30 years or so and the numbers from their best college season, along with the 3 players I’m looking at in this piece. To make the list a player had to have been named to an all-league team once or play in 3 or more all-star games. Combos like Iverson and Arenas weren’t included, because the players in this piece are all pure SGs.

Player	2PP	3PP	P40	S40	RSB40
Michael Jordan	551	na	26.5	2.2	10.8
Clyde Drexler	536	na	18.3	3.8	14.5
Reggie Miller	597	439	24.4	2.2	8.3
Mitch Richmond	525	469	25.6	0.8	8.3
Latrell Sprewell	550	398	19.7	2.0	8.5
Ray Allen	515	445	25.7	2.3	11.2
Michael Redd	506	341	23.8	1.7	8.7
Richard Hamilton	496	347	26.8	1.5	7.8
Dwyane Wade	519	318	26.8	2.7	12.2
Joe Johnson	496	368	20.1	2.5	10.3
Brandon Roy	537	402	25.5	1.8	9.9
James Harden	564	356	23.8	2.0	9.0
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope	498	373	22.9	2.5	11.9
Ben McLemore	553	420	19.4	1.2	8.4
Victor Oladipo	644	441	19.6	3.1	13.3

Players are listed with Jordan at the top and the rest in order of the year they were drafted. I’m honestly frightened to place anyone but MJ at the top. What stands out is that with a few exceptions all players scored often and efficiently with defensive numbers that range from solid to great. The only numbers that don’t measure up to my benchmarks are Drexler’s P40, Richmond’s S40 and the efficiency of Hamilton and Johnson. The numbers of Drexler and Jordan were posted before the shot clock came to college ball, so they might be suppressed some. The 3 potential draftees don’t completely measure up to this list. Oladipo and McLemore didn’t score frequently enough. Caldwell-Pope was too inefficient. But all 3 are pretty close and worth exploring as potential top 5 picks.  Also worth noting is both McLemore and Caldwell-Pope are younger and less experienced than most of these players were when these numbers were posted.

I had a tough time putting these 3 in order of preference. I eventually went with Oladipo at the top, because his high end of a super role player fits better with the direction the NBA is headed.  One thing I worry about with both Caldwell-Pope and McLemore as prospects is both look something like relics from the 90s. The best SGs to come into the league in the past decade, Wade, Roy and Harden have all possessed some PG skills and did a lot of playmaking. Neither Caldwell-Pope nor McLemore has shown the type of playmaking ability that suggests they can become such a player. That’s something I wanted to toss out there. Oladipo hasn’t shown anything in the way of PG skills either, but he has the potential to become the type of superstar sniper/defender that fits the direction the league is going.

Victor Oladipo, Indiana: My system for analyzing prospects is really pretty simple. I look at a player’s stats and find similar players of past years. If the similar players were successful, I deem that player a good prospect. If not, I deem them otherwise. The problem I’m having with Oladipo is there are so few players that have been similar to him. Not too many SGs ever have topped a .600 2-point percentage, let alone the ridiculous .664 Oladipo was at this year. He was dominant in two very important statistics, scoring efficiency and defense, but came up a little short as a scorer.  Here are previous major college players who were also over or near .600 in 2PP and posted strong defensive numbers:

Player	2PP	3PP	P40	S40	RSB40
Kerry Kittles	603	411	23.2	2.3	9.4
James Posey	624	322	21.3	2.9	15.4
Brent Barry	586	394	22.4	2.9	9.6
Corey Benjamin	639	293	29.5	2.9	11.3
Johnny Rhodes	599	375	17.1	3.1	10.1
Victor Oladipo	644	441	19.6	3.1	13.3

This isn’t a terribly impressive group. Kittles’ career was off to a very promising start before injuries limited him. Posey, who was more of a SF, had a nice, long career. He shone mostly as one of the league’s best reserves. Barry got a late start and didn’t really get his career going until he landed in Seattle at age 28. After that he stuck around the league another 10 years playing very efficient ball. Benjamin’s incredible college numbers were for low, 673, minutes. He never made an impact. Rhodes never played in the NBA.

Where Oladipo comes up short is in P40. Historically a P40 of 20.0 has been an important benchmark for SG prospects, especially those in their junior and senior seasons. The top SGs were all closer to 25. The list of players who have made it with a sub-20.0 P40 coming into the league as juniors or seniors, Scott Burrell, Luther Head, Vinnie Del Negro, Corey Brewer, Shannon Brown and Danny Green is hardly the type of player a team would be hoping to get with a top 5 pick. Sprewell is another one, but his 19.7 from the above table was posted in his sophomore year. The history working against Oladipo is that the best NBA SGs coming out of college were all high volume scorers first and foremost. Oladipo comes in as a great defender who scored at a very efficient rate, but has never been the go-to scorer that most great NBA SGs were in college.

The counter argument in Oladipo’s case is none of the players in the above group posted the amazing defensive and efficiency numbers he has, so he might be a special case. The question that should be asked is whether team dynamics suppressed his points. Coming into the 2013 season Oladipo was 4^th among returning Hoosiers in scoring and 3^rd in FG attempts. His teammate Cody Zeller was the preseason player-of-the-year favorite and SI coverboy. It’s safe to say that coming into the season Victor Oladipo was not going to be counted on as the main man in the Hoosier offense. This table shows Oladipo’s scoring and defensive numbers from his first two seasons along with his breakdown from this past year.

Victor Oladipo	2PP	3PP	P40	S40	RSB40	FGA40
Freshman	593	308	16.4	2.4	11.2	11.5
Sophomore	523	208	16.2	2.0	10.9	11.9
Nov-Dec	727	455	20.8	3.7	14.0	12.0
January	609	667	20.6	3.6	12.9	11.5
February	644	375	20.3	2.4	11.9	12.3
March	544	333	16.2	2.4	13.8	12.8

His FG attempts did improve some, but it’s not like he became a high volume scorer or even the go-to player.  What concerns me about this table is that in March Oladipo basically went back to being the scorer he was his first couple of seasons. The only reason he scored above 20.0 for the first 4 months of the season is he was scoring at a level of efficiency that probably wasn’t sustainable. His 3-point ability has to be considered questionable, because the only time he was efficient from behind the arc was his 18-34 stretch that went from November through January.

The guards from the best of the era list at the top all shot a lot more frequently as college players than Oladipo. Typically they attempted 17-20 FG per 40 minutes. The only two below 15.0 were Sprewell at 14.5 and Drexler at 14.8. Oladipo had only one game this season where he took more than 12 shots. It was a one-point win over Wisconsin late in the season where he was 7-18. What this says is he may not have the shooter’s mentality or the ability to take over a game offensively that all great SGs had displayed during their college days.

Victor Oladipo is a tough call as a prospect. Other than his incredible defensive numbers there’s not much in his stats that says he’s a future NBA star. He looks like an NBA role player at best, but could become a very valuable one in the right situation. His offense was efficient on a level rarely seen in college ball and that can’t be dismissed. But the fact that he did fade back to his previous levels of offense in March suggests that his percentages of .644 and .441 are an aberration that was driven by a hot streak or possibly something in the Indiana offense that opponents finally adjusted to. A 2PP above .600 is an impressive accomplishment, but it’s never been a stat that led to NBA success.  It’s always been more important for SG prospects to score often than efficiently.

In defense of Victor Oladipo as a top 5 pick are his stellar defense, a good size/length/athleticism mix, a great work ethic and enough promise on offense to think he can develop. At the minimum, Oladipo should be one of the better perimeter defenders in the league who may not score often, but won’t hurt a team with poor shot selection. At best he’ll be an all-league defender who can effectively guard 3 positions and eventually develops enough of an offensive game to become a perennial all-star. Because Oladipo is a hard worker and offense has historically been an easier skill to develop as a pro than defense, I feel he has a decent chance to beat history and make the jump from role player to NBA star.  Hard work brought him from a non-prospect as a freshman to a possible 2^nd-rounder as a sophomore, to a potential top 5 selection as the draft approaches. While he’s not a traditional SG prospect I feel he has shown enough that I feel he’s worthy of a top 5 pick.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Georgia: Caldwell-Pope’s prospect case suffers from bad timing as much as anything. One of the big stories of this draft season has been McLemore and Oladipo. McLemore has been at or near the top of the mocks all year and Oladipo joined him there in May. Caldwell-Pope, despite having numbers that would have made him the top SG prospect in any of the 3 previous drafts, has been eclipsed by those two and has had trouble getting on the radar because if it.

His numbers have been stellar though. He’s a good scorer with great defensive numbers. That’s the starting point for star NBA SGs. Here are the comps. These are former sophs from major colleges who topped 22.0 P40 and 11.0 RSB40 as Caldwell-Pope did this past season.

Player	2PP	3PP	P40	S40	RSB40
Dwyane Wade	505	346	24.4	3.4	13.9
Ray Allen	515	445	25.7	2.3	11.2
Jerry Stackhouse	546	411	22.3	1.7	13.3
Corey Benjamin	639	293	29.5	2.9	11.3
Kim Lewis	520	293	24.1	3.3	11.2
Richard Roby	472	356	22.5	2.7	11.2
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope	498	373	22.9	2.5	11.9

Wade and Allen are future HOFers. Stackhouse had a long, productive career. Our friend Corey Benjamin makes another appearance. Like Benjamin, Lewis’ numbers were posted in lower minutes. Lewis came of the bench as a sophomore, then missed the next season due to injury and was never the same when he returned. Roby never got his efficiency right and also developed a turnover problem during his final two seasons. Caldwell-Pope’s only issue is the sub-.500 2PP. That’s an obvious problem, but he’s close enough.

In fact a look at his freshman year and splits from this year shows a player who has been pretty safely over.500 for most of his career:

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope	2PP	3PP	P40	S40	RSB40	FGA40
Freshman	512	304	17.5	2.4	9.2	16.0
Nov-Dec	506	337	22.0	2.9	12.7	17.3
January	574	404	21.8	3.0	10.5	14.7
February	500	400	22.4	1.7	11.7	15.1
March	371	378	28.3	2.1	12.8	21.5

It was a cold streak in March when his FGAs took a sudden jump that dropped Caldwell-Pope’s 2PP under the .500 mark. The March numbers are for only 4 games, so small sample rules apply. The only concern I would have is that the efficiency dramatically declined when the FG attempts increased. But for 4 games I don’t think it’s enough to make a big deal about, other than to note it. Also a concern is the fact that he’s only been an adequate 3-point shooter starting in January. The positives from this table outweigh the negatives by quite a bit. Caldwell-Pope is a player who improved his already-solid defense and his previously substandard 3-point shooting from his freshman to sophomore seasons. He took on a larger scoring load without a drop in efficiency. A stat that doesn’t appear here is that he got to the line twice as often during his sophomore year and improved his foul shooting from .654 to .799. That’s a lot of improvement, which of course is a good thing.

Caldwell-Pope’s numbers fit the profile of successful SGs of the past as well as McLemore’s or Oladipo’s. He’s the youngest player of the trio, though by only a week over McLemore. His improvement from his freshman year shows he’s a player who will work on his game. He has NBA size. It’s unfortunate timing that his stellar season was overshadowed by the hype surrounding McLemore and Oladipo. It also didn’t help his visibility as a prospect that his Georgia team had a down year, finishing 15-17.

Caldwell-Pope is a player with a very high upside. SGs with a defensive/scoring combination like this are rare. The biggest concern I have is that he’ll never develop the scoring efficiency necessary to become a solid NBA SG. His lottery case is based on just 2 months of great play and that concerns me. I like that he improved so much, but I would like him better if he did it for another season. But that’s where the guess work comes in. Because he has an all-star upside, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope shouldn’t last past the top 10 on draft day.

Ben McLemore, Kansas: McLemore has been something of a darling in the mocks throughout the year. I have not been as much of a fan and expected his star to fade, but as I write this he’s listed #1 overall by NBAdraft.net and #2 by Draftexpress. It has been my feeling that, while he has some impressive numbers, his low numbers of steals say he’s something less than a star at the NBA level. Here are major college players from the past who went on to long careers, despite having at least one season of low steals:

Player	Year	2PP	3PP	P40	S40	RSB40
Reggie Miller	Jr	556	n/a	27.0	1.3	7.0
Mitch Richmond	Sr	525	469	25.6	0.8	8.3
Michael Finley	Fr	484	361	16.6	1.2	8.8
Allan Houston	Sr	504	414	24.9	1.1	6.7
Steve Smith	Jr	545	459	23.2	0.9	9.5
Arron Afflalo	So	566	366	19.0	0.7	5.9
Eric Piatkowski	So	480	346	19.0	1.0	10.2
Wesley Person	So	607	464	21.2	0.9	9.6
Quentin Richardson	Fr	534	346	22.5	0.9	13.8
JJ Redick	So	470	395	20.5	0.9	5.0
Fred Hoiberg	Sr	459	412	21.6	1.3	7.5
Ben McLemore	Fr	553	420	19.4	1.2	8.4

Miller, Finley and Piatkowski all improved their S40 in subsequent years. McLemore may have done the same had he stayed at Kansas a few more seasons. Afflalo probably had his numbers suppressed like all guards playing for Ben Howland seem to.  McLemore fits in well with this group. Despite the low steals, most were good rebounders for guards. Most of them stuck in the league because they could score, especially from behind the arc. That’s McLemore’s strength.  I could easily see McLemore having a career similar to that of Finley, Houston or even Miller.

I’m not too concerned about his relatively low P40. This was his first college season and he was playing on a loaded roster. His scoring efficiency was excellent from both inside and outside the arc. My guess is his P40 would have improved substantially had he returned for another year at Kansas. But he’d be a better prospect in my view if he had scored more frequently.

I see McLemore as the safest pick of the three, but also as the player with the lowest upside.  I don’t feel it’s out of line to project him as an NBA player who will be in the Allan Houston or Michael Finley mold. That could be a few years down the road, because he’s young and needs to become a more aggressive scorer. That’s his upside and should he reach that he’ll be a nice player. It’s just that this type of player has never been my favorite. They’re usually over rated and often overpaid. This certainly isn’t a player I would want with a top 5 pick.

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