For the PGs the important standards seem to be as follows: A FG pct. of .450, 18.0 P40, 5.0 A40 and 6.5 RSB40. Unlike SGs, it seems that the better a PG does in each one of these categories, the better he plays as a pro. Of particular importance seems to be a high number of assists. The 5.0 A40 number I tossed up there is more of a minimum. The best pro PGs racked up at least 7 assists per 40 minutes in college. Scoring isn’t as important as it is for the other positions, but scoring efficiently is. Put simply, a good PG has to be able to knock down a shot often enough to keep the defense honest. A low FG pct. in a college PG coupled with a high P40 is the sign of a mad bomber. Two other things that are important are an ability to get to the line and an ability to hit 3-pointers. Getting to the line goes with efficient scoring. As far as 3-point shooting, it seems more important to have a minimal ability, at least .333, moreso than hitting a real high pct. This is important, as noted in the Rajon Rondo comment last year.

 

Like the SGs, the RSB is somewhat important. I lowered their level to 6.5 per 40. That isn’t a hard and fast thing though, like the 7.0 seems to be for SGs. Steve Nash was over 6.5 only once in college, but he might be a special case as a late bloomer. Deron Williams was also an exception to this rule. Williams’ success this past year has me wondering if I need to tie team success into the PG ratings somehow. I’m not quite sure how I’d do something like that, but it’s something to be looked at for PGs in the future.

 

This is a weak class overall. Conley looks pretty good and some of the others have potential, but it’s not up to the level of recent classes and the depth is pretty poor. There’s very little in the way of prospects I would call mildly intriguing after the 11 listed here. For that reason, and because of some time constraints, I decided not to waste time ranking the likes of Mike Nardi, Vernon Hamilton and Will Franklin. One reason this group is thin is some of pretty good PGs, Ty Lawson and Darren Collison to name the two most prominent, stayed in college another year. Both should be hot items at this time next year.

 

Freshmen PG Prospects	FG Pct.	3 Pct.	P40	A40	A/TO	RSB40	FTA40
Mike Conley	.518	.304	14.6	7.9	2.8	7.7	4.8
All-Stars	.459	.353	17.8	6.1	1.5	7.8	5.5
Javaris Crittenton	.450	.356	17.8	7.1	1.5	7.2	5.3
Rotation Regulars	.412	.338	13.4	6.0	1.6	6.8	4.2
Journeymen	.418	.328	15.6	6.1	1.6	6.3	4.4
Never Played	.410	.358	14.0	5.3	1.5	5.9	4.5

           

Junior PG Prospects	FG Pct.	3 Pct.	P40	A40	A/TO	RSB40	FTA40
All-Stars	.485	.399	19.4	7.0	1.9	8.1	4.9
Ramon Sessions	.452	.380	16.2	6.2	1.9	7.7	5.6
Rotation Regulars	.440	.379	18.2	6.1	1.7	6.9	5.1
Journeymen	.429	.358	17.3	5.8	1.7	6.6	4.7
Gabe Pruitt	.416	.350	15.1	5.3	2.4	5.9	4.0
Never Played	.428	.376	16.8	5.3	1.6	6.8	4.5

 

Senior PG Prospects	FG Pct.	3 Pct.	P40	A40	A/TO	RSB40	FTA40
All-Stars	.460	.370	20.7	5.9	1.6	7.5	5.2
Acie Law IV	.500	.458	21.3	5.9	1.9	5.3	6.4
Rotation Regulars	.452	.375	19.1	6.0	1.7	7.3	5.5
Jamon Gordon	.461	.268	14.4	5.7	2.0	9.9	3.9
Mustafa Shakur	.455	.325	13.2	7.7	1.9	6.4	4.9
Aaron Brooks	.460	.404	19.5	4.7	1.7	6.4	4.3
Bobby Brown	.468	.388	22.0	5.6	1.4	4.4	4.6
Journeymen	.435	.375	18.9	5.9	1.8	6.7	5.2
Never Played	.426	.370	17.3	5.4	1.7	6.6	4.8

 

 

1. Mike Conley Jr, Ohio State: Conley does just about everything a PG should. He can pass without turning the ball over too often, score and defend. His non-scoring numbers far exceed the average frosh PGs of the past who reached any level of success in the NBA. He led his team to the national title game and was probably their best player for most of the tournament.  The only issue I might have with Conley as a pro would be his scoring ability. It’s not uncommon for freshmen PGs not to score much, but his 14.6 P40 is on the low side for a prospect. There’s also the outside shooting to think about. Conley hit only .304 on treys. That might be enough, but it’s pretty low. NBA PGs have to be able to hit the outside shot often enough to keep the defense honest. They don’t necessarily need to be deadly, just good enough. Conley’s .304 is right on that line. I’ll throw a couple of tables up that might better illustrate where Conley stands and whether the scoring is going to be a problem.

 

Mike Conley Jr.	Games	Minutes	3-point pct.	P40
Non-Conference Games	13	362	.211	13.9
Conference Games	20	651	.368	13.9
Tournament Games	6	218	.250	18.0

 

The conference games include a matchup with Tennessee that occurred in the middle of the Big 10 schedule. The good thing for Conley is he became a better 3-point shooter as the year progressed. I wouldn’t say we can declare him OK here, because he attempted only 69 treys over the course of the season, but this is encouraging. More important is the fact he became a strong scorer when his team needed him to be, in the tournament. The 18.0 includes the opening game against Central Connecticut, where he scored only 4 points in 28 minutes of a rout. So the 18.0 is probably a little low. This is impressive for two reasons. First it proves he can score when called upon. He did it against the best of the best in at the NCAA level. Next it shows he’s perfectly willing to be a pass-first PG, because during the season he was more concerned with running the offense and setting up teammates than he was with scoring.

 

This next table compares Conley to a collect of past freshmen PGs, all of whom averaged at least 7.5 A40.

 

Player	A40	FG pct.	3-point pct.	P40	RSB40
Jason Kidd	9.6	.463	.286	16.4	11.3
TJ Ford	10.1	.416	.152	13.7	7.5
Ray Felton	7.6	.398	.358	14.5	6.7
Jacque Vaughn	8.1	.467	.400	12.2	5.7
Mateen Cleaves	7.8	.401	.237	15.8	5.0
Aaron Miles	9.8	.413	.317	10.2	6.4
Ken Satterfield	7.5	.430	.298	13.0	6.7
Omar Cook	9.1	.360	.309	16.1	5.8
Chris Thomas	7.9	.389	.360	16.5	6.3
Mike Conley Jr.	7.9	.518	.304	14.6	7.7

 

What this shows is that piling up a bunch of assists as a college freshman brings no guarantee of NBA success. But it also shows that Mike Conley stacks up pretty well against the frosh passing wizards. He’s no Jason Kidd, but he has the best FG pct. and is second only to Kidd in RSB40. His scoring is middling, but we’ve already established that this isn’t a huge concern and is more likely a hidden strength.

 

Conley looks like a good one. His numbers look great and he has NBA-level athleticism. The weak outside shot is the only thing I can see sabotaging what should be a great pro career. But I don’t even know if that’s even a problem any longer. With freshmen you usually want to go a little more slowly, but this isn’t a typical freshman. Conley has amazing poise and court presence for a player this young. I feel he’ll be able to step right in and perform well fairly quickly.

 

2. Javaris Crittenton, Georgia Tech: Crittenton put up some strong numbers for a freshman. He was much better against weaker competition though. This table shows his performance in 7 games the Yellow Jackets played against smaller colleges in the non-conference part of the schedule against the 25 games he played against major conference competition:

 

Javaris Crittenton	FG pct.	3-point pct.	P40	A40	TO40	A/TO
Against small college opponents	.547	.526	21.4	12.6	4.7	2.7
Against major college opponents	.429	.317	17.0	6.0	4.8	1.2

 

Obviously he feasted on the weaker competition. I’m not sure how big a deal this is though. Just about every college basketball prospect will fatten his numbers up against the weak sisters of the NCAA. The same dynamic is probably at work in the pros also. Crittenton’s splits seem pretty extreme though. The positive would be that he’s just a freshman and it’s not a bad thing that he destroyed some weaker foes. The negative spin would be that if he couldn’t get it done against the best of the ACC, how the heck is he going to manage to in the NBA? With younger players, I think it’s best to be positive, while keeping an eye on the negative. It’s worth noting that he not only improved his play against major competition as the season wore on, but stepped up with 4 dominant performances down the stretch in wins over NC State, Florida State, Wake Forest and BC. That tells me there’s a good player in here who needs a little more time to find some consistency.

 

Taking the season as a whole, his numbers are very solid. He scores often and efficiently. He’s a good passer, a great ballhawk and he can hit the jumper. His turnovers are on the high side, but this isn’t a huge issue for freshmen PGs. Several good ones including Kidd, Billups, Terry and Iverson all turned the ball over more frequently than Crittenton did as a freshman. He’ll probably take a season or two to develop, but Javaris Crittenton is on track to become a good NBA PG. He needs to work on consistency and he’ll probably experience some growing pains adjusting to NBA play. He seemed lackadaisical at times when I watched him play and he won’t be able to get away with that at the next level. The best situation for him would be to go to a team that can afford to be patient with him. If too much is expected of him too soon, he could have an early career similar to that of Chauncey Billups. Billups was passed around to a few teams as a cap-balancer for a few seasons before finding a spot. Crittenton’s career could unfold the same way.

 

3. Acie Law IV, Texas A&M: Law hit 50% of his shots and this isn’t an easy thing for a college PG to do. Here’s a list of recent college PGs who have hit over half their shots while logging significant minutes. The list has some impressive names on it:

 

Player	FG Pct.	3-point pct.	P40	RSB40
Baron Davis	.529	.308	14.9	8.7
Andre Miller	.549	.333	18.0	10.2
Steve Francis	.523	.388	22.2	9.8
Kirk Hinrich	.542	.478	19.3	8.8
Jarrett Jack	.514	.442	18.2	7.9
Marcus Banks	.514	.336	22.5	7.0
Drew Barry	.513	.427	15.0	7.9
Melvin Booker	.504	.405	20.8	5.9
Travis Ford	.527	.529	16.8	4.7
Acie Law IV	.500	.458	21.3	5.3

 

The good news for Law is half the players listed here have gone on to play at or near an all-star level in the NBA. The bad news is Law doesn’t have the high RSB40 number that seems to separate the all-stars from the rest of the group. In fact, Law’s RSB40 is extremely low and this could be a bad sign. Here’s a group of PGs who posted an RSB40 lower than 5.5 in the past 10 or so years:

 

Player	RSB40	FG pct.	P40	A40
Deron Williams	5.4	.408	16.5	7.3
Jacque Vaughn	5.5	.427	12.9	7.9
Chucky Atkins	4.8	.432	20.3	4.2
Shammond Williams	5.3