NBA Draft 2011: Small Forwards

SF is the most difficult position to assess by far. This is mainly because the position offers a wide range of looks and responsibilities. I’ve zeroed in on some important numbers, though it isn’t like a player needs to hit every benchmark to be considered a strong or weak prospect. As analyst we just need to look at the entire package offered by any prospect and make a decision from there.

  • Scoring: At least 18 P40 is expected and the higher the better. For efficiency the number I look at is Adjusted FG pct. and being over .500 seems to be almost a necessity here, the higher the better. It’s never a bad thing if an ability to score from the outside is included.
  • Rebounding. This gets a little complicated. A SF prospect doesn’t need to be a great rebounder, but it doesn’t hurt.
  • Passing and defense. The number I look at with SFs is combined assists, steals and blocks per 40 minutes or ASB40. This numbers gives a good indication of a player’s versatility, which is a more valuable trait for SFs than any other position. Best that this number be over 5.0 and again, the higher the better. An A/TO that drifts below 0.5 too far is also a very bad thing.

The best SFs out there this year are mostly super role players. They’re prospects who do things like defense or passing very well, but are not very impressive scorers. Like a bunch of Luke Waltons and Renaldo Balkmans. Davis Bertans, a foreign player who looks like he’ll be drafted was not included, because I was unable to find stats on him.

Tyler Honeycutt, UCLA: He’s the prototype of the 2011 SF prospect. A good all-around player who is a long way from showing he has the offensive game necessary to make an impact. He has some very impressive numbers though. He’s probably the best passer in this group. He has averaged over 2.0 S40 and B40 in separate seasons. He has shown some promise offensively, but has a long way to go. As a low volume scorer his freshman year, he hit .536 on 2-pointers. That dropped to .438 as a soph when he took more shots and that isn’t a good sign. I have him at the top of this group based on upside. There isn’t a lot of potential greatness in this group. It is a long shot, but Honeycutt has a chance to be a pretty valuable player if he can add some offense to his game. That could also be said of Saunders, Parsons, Butler and James, but Honeycutt has an edge because he’s a couple of years younger and has no weaknesses other than his poor offensive game. Because he has flashed some potential as a 3-point shooter, he has the potential to become a Bruce Bowen type.

Jan Vesely, KK Partizan: I am not particularly adept in grading the foreign players. It’s a rare case that I’ve watched them play and the only tool I have is whatever stats I can find. Vesely has some pretty impressive numbers. His 2-point pct has been consistently good, often well over 60%. This is very impressive, though it would be more impressive if he scored at a higher rate. As a 3-point shooter he’s a little shaky, but has shown some promise. He seems fairly active defensively, as his blocks and steals numbers have always been decent. He also appears to be a decent passer. Even though he’s 6’11, he’s a poor rebounder even for a SF, so I couldn’t imagine him playing PF. He has some serious offensive potential, but still seems a long way off and at 6’11 240, I wonder about his quickness. 

NBA Draft 2011: Shooting Guards

For shooting guards I look at 6 benchmarks. These have historically been numbers that SGs who made any significant impact on the NBA have hit as college players.

  • Hitting over 50% on 2 pointers or at least very close to it. This higher the better, as usually is the case.
  • Scoring 20.0 points per 40 minutes. This one seems almost set in stone. There have been very few successful SGs who didn’t score 20 P40 regardless of how impressive their other numbers were.
  • A combined rebounds, steals and blocks of at least 7.0.
  • At the very minimum, 1.3 steals per 40 minutes.
  • An assist/turnover ratio of no lower than 0.8. This one isn’t a higher the better situation like the other benchmarks are. I mean I’m sure it’s better to have more assists and fewer TOs, but there’s no correlation to the success of players with higher A/TOs. It just seems to be important that they’re over 0.8.
  • An ability to hit 3-pointers at the NBA level. This hasn’t always been the case, but an outside shot has become so much more important in recent years that I decided to add this.

Like the rest of the draft this is a weak group. What stands out about them most to me is most of the best SGs this year look more like undersized forwards than guards.

Marshon Brooks, Providence: I like Brooks the best of the SGs. He hits all the numbers fairly comfortably. The only issue I can see is that he’s a senior who has been slow to appear on the radar as a prospect. Particularly his scoring, which has been below 20 P40 his first three seasons. That’s never a good thing for a prospect. I can give Brooks some benefit of the doubt because of his situation. He just didn’t get the minutes his first 3 seasons, but still put up impressive numbers in every category other than scoring frequency. When he did finally become the top option as a senior he handled the step up in responsibility with ease. I think it is safe to say he can play in the NBA.

As far as how good he’ll be, that’s a tough one. Even adjusting for Providence’s fast pace, he still boasts 25 P40, .559 2-point pct and 9.8 RSB40. Numbers like that usually label a SG prospect as a future all-star. Had he put these numbers up as a frosh or soph, that’s exactly where I would put his prospects. Since players who emerge later in their careers rarely have the same success as players who are stars from the start, I’m hesitant to place him that high. Because he didn’t really get the opportunity to shine until his senior year and put up strong per minute numbers leading up to then, I have to think that there is all-star potential here. I can’t say that about any other SG, so that makes Marshon Brooks an easy choice as the top SG available.

NBA Draft 2011: Point Guards

From what I can tell this is considered the top position in this draft. I have to say that I find this group to be well below stellar and pretty much the weakest PG class in years. Once we get past Kyrie Irving this group is a group of prospects who will be remembered as good college players and another group, mainly freshmen, who never lived up to the hype. What I will say about this class is there are a lot of PGs who are worthy of at least a look, hence a rather long list.

Here are the statistical benchmarks I look for in college PGs:

  • 18.0 P40, This is one case where higher isn’t necessarily better or worse. The thing is, unlike other positions, a PG’s main role isn’t to score, it is to distribute. But some ability to score is necessary.
  • A 2-point FG pct. of at least .500 and some ability to hit a 3-pointer.
  • The assists are dependent on the class a player is in. With freshmen, I tend to give a little leeway here, because they don’t always step right in and take over. Though the best ones usually do. I set the benchmark at 6.0 A40 for junior and seniors, 5.0 for sophs and for freshmen I just look for some PG ability.
  • The defensive numbers are at least 1.3 steals per 40 minutes and 6.5 combined rebounds, steals and blocks.

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

Kyrie Irving, Duke: Looking at the numbers, Irving has all the goods. He can score, pass and defend at an NBA level. He’s the only player whose stats give him a “can’t miss” label, making him the obvious top pick. So he’s a lock to join the parade of great PGs that have entered the league in the last few years, right?

Maybe he will, but maybe not. His numbers look stellar, but he played only 303 minutes. None of those minutes came during the ACC regular season, which is often a brutal stretch for freshmen where players and their statistics are frequently worn down from stellar to normal. The fact that Irving didn’t go through such a grinder, like the rest of the prospects, takes some of the sparkle off his numbers. Because of this, I can’t put him in a class with Rose, Wall and some of the other top PGs to come out in recent years. But I’m not going to say he can’t get there either. I’m saying I’d be much more impressed with these numbers if they had included an ACC regular season. That concern aside, Irving has to be the top pick this year. There is no other player available who has a ceiling even close to what his is. 

NBA Draft 2011: Combo Forwards

These are players who don’t easily fit into either the SF or PF groups. They have skills and weaknesses of both. I rank them separately, because the position they eventually end up playing in the NBA will be determined by what team drafts them, which skills they work on and other factors that are too difficult to predict right now.

This year we also have two of the best forwards and players available who fit into this category in Derrick Williams and Marcus Morris, making it one of the few intriguing groups in what is certainly going to go down as one of the weakest drafts ever.

Williams and Morris both finished with a statistical trifecta of over .600 on 2-point FGs, over 20 P40 and over 10 R40. Here’s a list of players who were also considered tweener forwards coming out of college who also topped .600, 20 and 10.

Player 2 Pt. Pct P40 R40 A/TO ASB40
Danny Manning .619 27.5 11.0 0.6 4.9
Keith Van Horn .628 27.9 11.3 0.6 3.8
Rodney Rogers .648 25.2 10.5 1.2 6.2
Ryan Bowen .607 21.0 12.7 1.1 7.9
Stanley Brundy .649 24.4 12.8 0.6 5.8
Spencer Nelson .609 22.3 11.0 1.9 8.9
Jess Settles .609 22.5 11.0 0.7 5.7
Derrick Williams .601 26.0 11.0 0.4 3.7
Marcus Morris .620 23.2 10.3 0.9 4.2

NBA Finals Recap

Well, the NBA Finals have come and gone.  In between, we were left with a lot of fun and lots to examine.  I thought we could conduct a Finals post-mortem to pick up on some of the issues that were discussed and give our two cents and to identify some things that no one else has really discussed.  So, here’s goes:

-2010-11 Miami Heat, Most Hated Team Ever?: Unlike any team in recent memory, the Heat really were fun to root against.  They didn’t embrace the traditional gritty villain role.  They didn’t kicks foes when they were down as much as they seemed to embody the cocky, elitist, as though they were basketball version of the villain from some 1980s movie who assaulted you with snide comments.  Very few teams/players have occupied this exact sphere in any sports, let alone the NBA.  There were plenty who hated the 1980s Celtics and/or Lakers (depending upon where you lived).  The late 1980s Pistons were hated because of their chippy play.  In addition, all these teams were multi-title winners and had , in the eyes of all fans, earned their status.  The only other NBA situation that was remotely similar to the negative feeling evoked by this Heat team was the legitimate dislike most people/players had for Rick Barry in the 1970s for his tendency to complain and be unapologetically obnoxious.

Miami (mostly LeBron), on the other hand, seem care deeply about their reputations and winning but have senses of entitlement and self-worth that are instantly repellent when you hear them talk.  You wanted to see Bill Laimbeer get clocked in the face or to see Isiah bawling in disappointment (as opposed to bawling with happiness, which he also did on occasion).  You don’t want to see LeBron or Wade get nailed, you just want to see them lose and slink off the court.

I understand the antipathy to the Heat but I, personally, am a little more sympathetic.  Sure, the Heat’s lack of perspective is annoying but they probably deserve something of a break.  Catching LeBron and Wade making fun of Dirk Nowitzki in private is exactly the type of thing anyone might do and doesn’t make them big douches everyone perceives them to be.  LeBron’s post-game comments about the “haters” was a much more in the douchey category but it only shows that he totally egotistical but is hardly hateful.  I didn’t feel any satisfaction in their losing this tough series (though I could understand why so many did).  The bottom line is Miami will be around to watch and root against for years to come.  LeBron and Dwyane Wade seemed blissfully unaware of the fact that someone might dislike them for their decisions over the last year but they are sure to make peace with this and watching this team will only get even more interesting for all of us to watch in the future and that is something for all fans to be happy about. 

NBA Finals Preview

1.    Finals Preview: It’s been a long road this year to the Finals and there have been quite a few twists and turns that were unexpected (notably the fact that the Lakers aren’t here).  Still, after all the happenings, the Heat are in the Finals and are prohibitive favorites (as most expected last FAll) and we have a very fun Finals match up with the Mavs, who are far from pushovers.  Aside from the actual games, there are tons of questions being raised.  Let’s take a look at the major issues/questions FAQ-style and see what we learn…

-Who is going to win?

I guess we should start with the most important question.  At first glance, the Heat seem to be serious favorites.  Maim has so much star power that it is hard to imagine how Dallas can keep up.  Forgetting this superficial analysis, a deeper look doesn’t change much.  We all understand the Heat: an excellent, albeit slow paced team (20th in pace), that needs the three stars to score.  If a secondary player gets hot, the opposition is probably can’t win.

Even without the stars, Dallas plays at a fairly similar pace to Miami but are just a little worse offensively and defensively.  Dallas still gets its point from the three-point line and accurate shooting overall.  They were able to score despite being only 27th in free throws.  Defensively, the Mavs only have two legit shot blockers (Brendan Haywood and Tyson Chandler).  What you have then is a slow team that plays tough man defense and avoids giving up free throws but can’t really stop shot blockers and relies on jump shots offensively.  This has worked very well in the playoffs, since Dirk, Jason Terry, and Peja Stojakovic are shooting great from three and most of the team has outperformed their regular season numbers.

In contrast, Miami lives at the line offensively (Miami’s Big Three all had more free throw attempts than anyone on Dallas) and the Heat don’t have any superlative shot blocking big men but are effective (Dwyane Wade actually has more blocks than anyone on the Mavs).  On paper, this looks like a mismatch in the Heat’s favor.  But the Mavs have been a different team in the playoffs and no one has been able to stop Dirk.  Miami will have to do something different than OKC and Los Angeles tried.  I suspect this means, that we’ll get to see some fun match ups where LeBron is guarding Dirk.  Most of the time, though, we’ll see a lot of Chris Bosh and Udonis Haslem on Nowitzki.  Not sure that Bosh/Haslem can stop Dirk but you would have to figure that Dirk will slowdown a little from his torrid series against the Thunder (who were more loose defensively than Miami).

For Dallas to win this they have to hope Dirk can continue his amazing run (which is definitely possible) and that the secondary players who killed L.A. and OKC (Terry and J.J. Barea) continue to play well.  Miami will probably avoid doubling Dirk to leave Terry free since Pat Riley teams usually hate to double and Terry has been really effective in that role.  As for Barea, he is a key player, who brings a scoring ability to the floor that Jason Kidd doesn’t have.  J.J. turned around both of the previous playoff series with huge scoring off the bench and Mike Bibby clearly can’t guard him either.  As for defense, Dallas has some issues.  They will put Shawn Marion on LBJ and hope that that this works and Kidd will have to guard Wade.  J-Kidd is still an effective defender (he did good work on Kobe last month) but that is a tough cover for a 38-year old after a long season. Dallas will probably put Tyson Chandler on Chris Bosh to let Dirk rest defensively against whomever is playing center for Miami (Joel Anthony doesn’t really make much sense against Dallas, so Haslem may play more center in the Finals).

I see LBJ and Wade running all over the Mavs and Miami doing enough to slow down Dirk defensively to pull this series out.  Prediction:  Miami wins 4-2.