Last year’s crop of SGs was one of the weakest I’ve seen. This year it looks like one of the deeper groups. Most of the depth is of the lower round variety though. There’s very little star power in this group. OJ Mayo and Eric Gordon would seem to be potential stars, but both players have a ways to go before they’re at that level. Below them are a group of juniors and seniors who have developed into pretty decent prospects. They’re not on the level of a Mayo, but they’re certainly good enough that if I were a team drafting in the top 10, I wouldn’t feel bad about passing on Mayo or Gordon for a talented big man with the idea of drafting a SG in round 2. 

 

I haven’t had any new revelations with SGs in the past year, other than the fact that I’m not considering the A/TO ratio to be a huge deal unless it’s below 0.8. The statistics that I will look at as most important here will continue to be scoring at least 20.0 points per 40 minutes, regular and 2-point FG pct. of .425 and .500 respectively and a RSB40 of at least 7.0. If there are any other glaring negatives or positives involved, I’ll take those into account also, but I won’t get too serious about it.

 

Here are the pace adjusted stats:

 

 

Player	fgpct	3pct	2 pct	P40	A40	S40	TO40	A/TO	RSB40	pps
Douglas-Roberts, C	0.541	0.413	0.578	23.99	2.35	1.62	2.75	0.86	7.69	1.51
Foster, Shan	0.523	0.469	0.610	23.37	1.89	1.22	1.96	0.97	7.14	1.49
Giddens, JR	0.516	0.333	0.557	20.21	3.88	1.77	2.75	1.41	14.15	1.32
Kemp, Marcelus	0.449	0.380	0.490	24.67	4.08	0.86	3.03	1.35	7.93	1.33
Mayo, OJ	0.442	0.409	0.464	22.95	3.66	1.71	3.93	0.93	7.18	1.28
Roby, Richard	0.477	0.382	0.520	20.82	2.52	1.26	4.09	0.62	10.58	1.38
Lee, Courtney	0.477	0.397	0.515	26.70	2.72	2.36	3.05	0.89	9.74	1.35
Tyndale, Mark	0.488	0.368	0.525	17.32	4.65	1.73	3.75	1.24	10.26	1.48
Nelson, DeMarcus	0.490	0.388	0.532	17.67	3.58	1.90	3.01	1.19	9.34	1.41
Weaver, Kyle	0.463	0.364	0.491	15.73	5.58	2.22	3.58	1.56	9.93	1.43
Gordon, Eric	0.433	0.337	0.525	23.87	2.78	1.50	4.10	0.68	5.92	1.57
Rush, Brandon	0.435	0.419	0.448	17.81	2.85	1.12	2.42	1.17	9.10	1.22
Crawfod, Joe	0.469	0.364	0.548	21.75	2.59	0.69	3.36	0.77	5.30	1.34
Riley, Mykal	0.448	0.433	0.474	18.60	2.19	2.04	2.19	1.00	9.17	1.31
Lofton, Chris	0.399	0.384	0.437	19.83	2.27	1.70	1.74	1.31	5.89	1.31

 

The prospect numbers compared to prospects of the past:

  

NCAA Freshman SG prospect	FG pct.	2 Pct.	3 Pct.	P40	A/TO	RSB40
All-star	.443	.506	.346	19.9	0.9	9.7
Rotation Regular	.475	.501	.361	17.7	1.2	8.9
OJ Mayo	.442	.464	.409	23.0	0.9	7.2
Journeyman	.437	.504	.344	17.9	1.0	8.1
Eric Gordon	.433	.525	.337	23.9	0.7	5.9
Never made it	.426	.482	.344	16.5	1.1	7.6

  

NCAA Junior SG prospect	FG pct.	2 Pct.	3 Pct.	P40	A/TO	RSB40
All-star	.466	.524	.380	23.1	1.2	9.6
Chris Douglas-Roberts	.541	.578	.413	24.0	0.9	7.7
Rotation Regular	.468	.517	.377	21.1	1.3	9.1
Journeyman	.439	.497	.362	21.0	1.1	8.5
Brandon Rush	.435	.448	.419	17.8	1.2	9.1
Never made it	.442	.499	.369	19.4	1.1	7.6

  

NCAA Senior SG prospect	FG pct.	2 Pct.	3 Pct.	P40	A/TO	RSB40
All-star	.436	.523	.364	22.0	1.4	9.1
JR Giddens	.516	.557	.333	20.2	1.4	14.2
Courtney Lee	.477	.515	.397	26.7	0.9	9.7
Mark Tyndale	.488	.525	.368	17.3	1.2	10.3
DeMarcus Nelson	.490	.532	.388	17.7	1.2	9.3
Rotation Regular	.477	.533	.396	22.9	1.3	8.4
Shan Foster	.523	.610	.469	23.4	1.0	7.1
Marcellus Kemp	.449	.490	.380	24.7	1.4	7.9
Richard Roby	.477	.520	.382	20.8	0.6	10.6
Kyle Weaver	.463	.491	.364	15.7	1.6	9.9
Journeyman	.459	.525	.379	21.7	1.2	8.4
Joe Crawford	.469	.548	.364	21.8	0.8	5.3
Mykal Riley	.448	.474	.433	18.6	1.0	9.2
Never made it	.432	.496	.371	19.5	1.2	7.6
Chris Lofton	.399	.437	.384	19.8	1.3	5.9

 

Subjective rankings in order of which player I would take all other things being equal:

 

1. OJ Mayo, USC: When a player achieves rock star status in high school he’s bound to inspire strong feelings about his game both ways. There are many who resent anyone so young and so famous and will rip into someone like Mayo every chance they get. One of the causes of this resentment will often be another group of fans rallying around the player. I’ve seen this happen with Mayo. He came under some heat during the season for not quite living up to the hype. Now there are many singing his praises as possibly being in the same class as Rose and Beasley. The ironic thing is right now OJ Mayo projects as neither a star nor a bust, but nothing more than an above-average NBA SG. As the chart above shows OJ Mayo’s numbers show him to be a fairly ordinary prospect at this point in his career. He scores a lot of points, which is great, but the other numbers don’t suggest he’s anything special and if anything paint him as a player who’s weak defensively and doesn’t score efficiently enough. The biggest concern for me is his 2-point shooting pct. of .464. That’s a pretty low number, as is the 7.2 RSB40. Neither one is enough to make me think he’ll be anything resembling a bust, but both are on the soft side. I think it best here to compare him with past freshmen who did have some success after posting a weak 2-point pct.

 

Player	FG Pct.	2 Pt. Pct.	P40	A/TO	RSB40
Richard Hamilton	.386	.392	20.8	0.9	7.7