One thing I found looking at past SGs is that it’s more important for them to reach certain levels of performance in a number of stats rather than excel in one or two particular areas. Specifically there are four numbers that seem to be important for SG prospects to reach: A FG pct. of at least .420, a P40 of 20, an A/TO of at least 0.8 and a combined rebounds, steals and blocks per 40 minutes of at least 7. While it’s great if the player excels in any one of these four areas, it’s been historically more important that they simply meet these 4 standards.
Scoring seems to be of greatest importance and quantity matters more than quality. This is a hard concept for a stathead like myself to wrap his head around, that the moderately-efficient scoring machine is a better prospect than the smart, efficient scorer who doesn’t score as often, but never takes a bad shot. But that’s the way it’s been. I’m guessing the ability to get open and off a lot of shots, particularly when the entire opposing team is keying on this player, is a sign of NBA-level athleticism and the fact that the player was able to get off the shots is more important than hitting a real high percentage of them. The RSB40 also points to a prospect’s athleticism. SG prospects with a RSB40 below 7.0 simply don’t make it. There are very few exceptions to this. Some of the more prominent SG busts, Shawn Respert, Trajan Langdon, Jarvis Hayes and Reece Gaines were all below 7.0 and J.J. Reddick, who I won’t call a bust yet but seems on track for such, posted a ridiculously low RSB40. There is some leeway given to freshmen and sophomores in this area, but not much.
There aren’t many good SG prospects out there this year. That’s probably a good thing, because all the great forwards would push them to the back of the draft anyway. I felt the best college SG was Chris Douglas-Roberts of Memphis and he went back to school. I ended up going with Rudy Fernandez as the top prospect. He has some star potential and Daequan Cook is the only other SG I can say that about. Cook is a couple of years away, so that makes Fernandez the top pick. As with the other positions, I’m posting tables showing how each major conference NCAA prospect stands up historically in important categories against previous prospects using their average numbers. Like I mentioned with the others, this is a new way of looking at prospects for me and I’m just going post the numbers and see how things work out rather than commenting too much about it. The ratings are subjective and made without regard to team needs.
| NCAA Freshman SG prospect | FG pct. | 3-point pct. | P40 | A/TO | RSB40 |
| All-star |
.443 |
.346 |
19.9 |
0.9 |
9.7 |
| Daequan Cook |
.445 |
.415 |
20.2 |
0.7 |
10.9 |
| Rotation Regular |
.475 |
.361 |
17.7 |
1.2 |
8.9 |
| Journeyman |
.437 |
.344 |
17.9 |
1.0 |
8.1 |
| Never made it |
.426 |
.344 |
16.5 |
1.1 |
7.6 |
| NCAA Junior SG prospect | FG pct. | 3-point pct. | P40 | A/TO | RSB40 |
| All-star |
.466 |
.380 |
23.1 |
1.2 |
9.6 |
| Rotation Regular |
.468 |
.377 |
21.1 |
1.3 |
9.1 |
| Journeyman |
.439 |
.362 |
21.0 |
1.1 |
8.5 |
| Aaron Afflalo |
.461 |
.375 |
21.1 |
1.1 |
4.5 |
| Never made it |
.442 |
.369 |
19.4 |
1.1 |
7.6 |
| NCAA Senior SG prospect | FG pct. | 3-point pct. | P40 | A/TO | RSB40 |
| All-star |
.436 |
.364 |
22.0 |
1.4 |
9.1 |
| Matt Lojeski |
.539 |
.373 |
18.9 |
1.6 |
9.0 |
| Rotation Regular |
.477 |
.396 |
22.9 |
1.3 |
8.4 |
| Derrick Byars |
.457 |
.373 |
21.6 |
1.5 |
8.1 |
| DJ Strawberry |
.477 |
.343 |
17.7 |
1.6 |
8.2 |
| Adam Haluska |
.408 |
.363 |
24.3 |
1.5 |
7.4 |
| Journeyman |
.459 |
.379 |
21.7 |
1.2 |
8.4 |
| Russell Carter |
.431 |
.394 |
21.5 |
0.9 |
8.6 |
| Sammy Mejia |
.481 |
.353 |
17.5 |
1.4 |
8.8 |
| Mike Jones |
.469 |
.440 |
20.1 |
1.0 |
6.3 |
| Colin Falls |
.439 |
.396 |
17.2 |
1.7 |
4.6 |
| Never made it |
.432 |
.371 |
19.5 |
1.2 |
7.6 |
| Lordick Stewart |
.458 |
.440 |
17.7 |
0.7 |
6.3 |
| Lee Humphrey |
.475 |
.459 |
13.4 |
1.1 |
2.3 |
1. Rudy Fernandez, Joventut Badalona: Through most of my analysis of the SGs, I had Cook as the top prospect. But the more I looked at Fernandez, the more it became apparent that this guy has a chance to become a pretty darn good NBA player and is definitely the first SG I’d choose. Playing for Joventut he easily surpassed the 4 necessary numbers for NCAA prospects: .521, 21.6 P40, 7.26 RSB40 and 1.35 A/TO. I’m not sure if this standard applies in foreign leagues or not, but it can’t be a negative. Two things I look for in foreign players are that they hit a decent percentage of their shots and they fill up a stat sheet pretty well. I haven’t kept real good records on this, but those two things seem to have the most bearing on pro success, especially for guards. Rudy hit .521 which is pretty sensational for a high-scoring guard in any league and has the 7.26 RSB40, which also seems high for a European guard. He’s not a great 3-point shooter, but hit 34% last season which is good enough that I can’t say it’s a weakness. He’s more of a slasher anyway, so that won’t be a huge deal until later in his career should he slow down some. Fernandez is a fun player to watch and should be a real crowd pleaser. I feel he’ll have an immediate impact in the league as both a scorer and a dunker. He’s a good candidate to earn a spot on the all-rookie team due to the general lack of good guard prospects this year.
2. Daequan Cook, Ohio State: This is a weak field and Cook is probably the best NCAA prospect in the group because of his high ceiling, despite some issues. He’s a good scorer both inside and out. While some of his skill are definitely on the raw side, his being a freshman let’s us ignore that inconvenient fact for the time being. Cook had a strange season. Broken down into 3 sections, he’s a very different player by the end of the season:
| Daequan Cook | FG Pct. | 3-point pct. | P40 | RSB40 | A/TO |
| Non-conference games |
.563 |
.509 |
27.8 |
12.0 |
0.6 |
| 1st 15 conference games |
.402 |
.396 |
17.0 |
11.4 |
1.0 |
| Final 11 games |
.241 |
.240 |
12.8 |
8.2 |
0.6 |
For 13 games he looked like the 2nd coming. It’s not uncommon for a player to dominate the weaker competition of a non-con schedule, but doing it as a freshman is impressive. During the middle 15 he looked like a decent freshman prospect, one that with another year or two and some improvement in shooting could become a pretty good prospect. The final 11 games were a disaster. By the time the Buckeyes reached the Final 4, Cook was barely even playing. As to what happened here, I have little clue. I’m guessing the early non-conference schedule he just was in a zone. I’d also venture a guess that Oden’s arrival changed his role a little. There’s also the possibility that teams were able to stop him after scouting him some and he wasn’t able to adjust. I can’t say what this means for him as a prospect. I have little history on in-season streaks and slumps and what they mean. I think it’s a good thing that he had such an impressive stretch beginning, but obviously it would have been better if he started slow and finished fast.
It’s probably best to look at the season as a whole and assume that’s the player he’s going to be. For a freshman, he put up some strong numbers. He fits right in between the all-stars and the rotation regulars. That’s where I’m guessing he’ll end up. He’s raw, so there will be a season or two of developmental time with him and he could go either way as a player. That’s why I’m a little wary about listing him so high here. But since Byars is the only other prospect I can muster any excitement for, Cook is my top college player. Any team looking for a more sure thing or immediate help would be better off looking at Byars or Fernandez. Cook’s best place next season is on a talented team in no need of immediate help. A team that can afford to let him develop in hopes of a huge payoff in a couple of years.
3. Derrick Byars, Vanderbilt: When assigning a prospect a position, I look at two things: The position(s) they played in college and where their size/skill suggests they fit in the pros. If prospect X played SF in college and shows little in the way of SG skills, I’ll consider him as a SF, even if he is only 6’5”. Byars is a player who showed lots of SG skills and played some SG and point forward at Vandy, so I feel this is the best place for him even though he may be more frequently listed as a SF. That’s also the reason Nick Young and Morris Almond were listed in the SFs article and not here. Byars could also play SF, but I feel SG is a better place for him. When I posted my mock draft after the lottery drawing, I mentioned Byars as a potential sleeper for ROY. My opinion of him has gone down a little since then, but I still think he’ll become a pretty decent player.
Byars strength would seem to be his passing. His A/TO of 1.5 is right up there in borderline PG territory. A look at his breakdown of small and major college performances suggests that this number is a little bloated. His A/TO was 3.0 in the 11 games against teams that weren’t from a major conference. He was a more ordinary 1.2 in major conference games. Still pretty good, but also a notch or two below his season total. But a look at other breakdowns suggests Byars might be a better player than his numbers indicate.
| Derick Byars | FG pct. | P40 | A40 | TO40 | RSB40 |
| Vs. small colleges |
.438 |
21.4 |
5.1 |
1.7 |
8.6 |
| Vs. major colleges |
.464 |
23.2 |
4.3 |
3.7 |
8.6 |
He becomes a better prospect when you look only at his numbers against major colleges, and that’s a pretty rare thing. I’m not sure what the story is here. If I were to guess, I’d say that against the small colleges he was working on his passing game more and trying to get teammates involved. In major college tilts, Vandy needed him to score more, so he took on a bigger load. The fact that he was such a strong scorer, both in number of points and efficiency suggests he’s a pretty good prospect as either an SG or SF. Generally prospects who are over 23 P40 with solid numbers elsewhere, as Byars has, will at very least become a rotation regular.
Byars should eventually slide comfortably into an NBA rotation and become a solid player. His lack of a scorer’s mentality and mediocre defensive numbers point to him being something less than a star, but he should be a fairly valuable player. Byars would be a good fit on a team that needs a second ball distributor on the floor. He could probably even start immediately for a team that needed such a player. More likely he’ll back up at both the 2 and 3 for a year or two before working his way into a starting role.
4. Russell Carter, Notre Dame: Remember those breakfast cereal ads that would tout the nutritional value of their sugar infused crunchies, or whatever? They’d always claim to have the minimum daily requirement of all important vitamins, as if you were giving your kids some sort of health food. Russell Carter exceeds the minimum requirements in the 4 important categories or FG pct, P40, A/TO and RSB40 are: .420, 20.0, 0.80 and 7.0 respectively, though not by much. Sugar saturated crunchies weren’t a great nutritional source and Russell Carter isn’t a great SG prospect, simply because he meets the minimum standards. The minimum numbers are more about spotting potential busts. There have been college players who, like Carter, have met all the standards, but never played in the NBA: Lance Hughes, Damon Bailey, Tim Pickett, Katu Davis and Ronald Ross to name a few. Typically the players who have succeeded were the ones who excelled at scoring and Carter has only been ordinary at that.
This doesn’t mean he won’t make it. Carter was a good scorer and he gets a little extra credit for playing on a talented team, which could have hurt his scoring totals some. He’s a solid +40% 3-point shooter for his career and his defense is decent. He seems a little heavy at 220 lbs. and that might hinder him quickness-wise. Like a lot of bubble players, Carter’s ultimate success or failure will depend on finding a team with a need for a player like him and impressing the right people. Every now and then such a player, like Fred Hoiberg, makes it. But in general players like Carter face an uphill struggle. Subjectively I like the next two players better than Carter, but the numbers say Carter is a better prospect.
5. DJ Strawberry, Maryland: Strawberry is one of those player who I find it baffling that he isn’t more of a prospect. He doesn’t score a lot, but is an efficient enough scorer and did lead the Terps in scoring. He averaged over 2 SPG and is considered one of the best defensive guards in the nation. He’s the best passing SG in the draft. He has good size, played in a major program for 4 years and has no obvious flaws. It seems to me that a player with such a diverse collection of skills would be a slam dunk for a first round selection in such a weak year for SGs, but that just isn’t the case.
The problem with Strawberry is he doesn’t score enough points and historically that’s been a fatal flaw for prospects. Not necessarily prospects who turn out to be busts, but in terms of getting drafted and getting an opportunity. They just haven’t been there for players who post a P40 much below 20.0. Strawberry’s 17.7 P40 is significantly lower than any senior prospect who made it past journeyman status. Because of that, he’s really up against it. Most prospects who never even made the league were better than 17.7 P40. Very few of them were the player Strawberry is now, but this just illustrates how valuable scoring and having a scorer’s mentality in college is to playing SG in the NBA.
I still look at his numbers and consider his situation and I believe DJ Styrawberry can be a pretty decent NBA player. He’s got good size and is the best defensive big guard in the nation and I’m sure some team could find a use for someone like that. He could probably even play PG in a pinch. He’s not an aggressive offensive player, but he did hit a respectable .477 and .343 as a senior and led a balanced Terps offense in scoring. Drafting him in the 2nd round for his defense and hoping the offense develops seems like a great move to me.
6. Matt Lojeski, Hawaii: He’s in the same boat as Strawberry. All the numbers look strong, but he only scored 18.9 P40, and historically that’s been trouble for a prospect. He’s in a slightly better place than Strawberry, with his 17.7, but it’s still not good. He’s already signed with a Belgium team, but might come back to the NBA if he likes his draft position. As I mentioned above, it’s hard for my brain to reconcile that Strawberry and Lojeski aren’t good prospects. Logic says if they just got a little more aggressive and took 3-4 more FGs per game, they’d have their 20+ P40 and look like great prospects. But perhaps the problem is players like Strawberry and Lojeski aren’t athletic enough to get free for the extra 3-4 FGAs per game and that’s what keeps them from becoming the prospect that much less efficient college scorers like Richard Hamilton, Cuttino Mobley and Michael Finley were. Another thing I don’t get is why pro scouts have little problem with young European players who rarely score, but that’s another issue.
As is the case with Strawberry, I think Lojeski can play in the NBA. All the numbers look good and the fact that he played on a team with a balanced offense should count for something. On the negative side the fact that the Rainbow Warriors weren’t a particularly good team should count against him some. But here’s a guy with good size who can shoot, pass and play some defense. There has to be a role for him somewhere.
7. Renaldas Seibutis, Maroussi Athens: He’s not at the level of Fernandez, but he’s a better shooter and his other numbers are decent enough. He doesn’t score that often and he’s not a great passer, but neither of those things seem to be a huge issue for young Euros. I would guess that he has a decent shot at making it. He might be the player who is stashed overseas for a year or two while the team drafting him monitors his progress.
8. Marco Bellinelli, Climamio Bologna: I have him this high, because his athleticism is supposed to be pretty amazing and he’s only 20. But he doesn’t look like much of a prospect at all. He’s a low percentage shooter and the only player here he rebounds better than is Lee Humphrey. This past season he hit .422 overall and .329 on treys. That’s weak, but good enough since he was over 20 P40. The problem is his other numbers are pathetically low. That he scores a lot of points is the most important thing and keeps him in the mix as a prospect, but until the other numbers improve, I can’t see him having a huge impact. That he’s dropping like a rock in the mocks isn’t a surprise at all to me.
9. Adam Haluska, Iowa: Haluska’s numbers look solid, except for the FG pct. part. Historically his .408 is just too low for a player to expect to make it. A couple of fairly recent similar players were Donny Boyce and Shea Seals. Both were good college scorers who met he other minimum standards for a prospect, but both had that FG pct. that hovered around .400. Neither made an impact. There’s also Michael Finley, who shot a miserable .379 as a senior and became a pretty good player. But Finley’s season was clearly a slump. He had been a 48% shooter the two previous seasons. The fact that Haluska hit .478 as a sophomore offers a glimmer of hope. Hawkeye fortunes have soured under Alford and the low FG pct. could be a reflection of playing in a bad situation. But the other numbers aren’t so wildly good that Haluska would become a much more desirable player if he could only hit 44% of his shots. He’s a long shot who needs to improve his game if he’s going to make it. As a 5th year senior, chances of improvement are slim.
10. Aaron Afflalo, UCLA: Not a great prospect. Afflalo can score with the best of them, but he just doesn’t do the other stuff well enough that I can make him into anything other than a longshot. His RSB40 is just too low at 4.5. That’s JJ Redick territory and Afflalo was nowhere near the scorer Redick was in college.
I had liked watching Afflalo this year. He really hustled on defense and that led me to believe he could become a Bruce Bowen/Raja Bell type with a combination of 3-pointers and defense. But Bowen and Bell were both pretty good rebounders in college. Afflalo grabbed less than 3 boards per game this past season. If you think this isn’t a big deal for an SG, because rebounding isn’t in their job description, you’d be wrong. Rebounding is a reflection of a players’ strength, athleticism and ability to dominate at the college level. All these things are necessary for a prospect to have if he wants to make it in the NBA. Afflalo hasn’t shown he can do this and he’s not a good prospect because of that.
Afflalo is probably a better player than he showed this past season. His numbers were down across the board and I suspect he would have rebounded some as a senior. It’s hard to see him getting to where he needs to be though. His scoring ability and exposure from a successful program should land him somewhere, but I don’t see him ever getting a lot of PT. At best he’s a player who comes on the court when a team loads up with 3-point shooters late in a game.
11. Lordick Stewart, USC: During the season I keep unofficial rough lists of the top prospects at each position. There was a time during the season, I’m guessing around mid-January, when Lordick Stewart topped my unofficial running list of top SG prospects. The list didn’t include Cook or Douglas-Roberts, because I wasn’t sure what their draft status would be at the time and the ranking was definitely a case of the lesser of several evils. But it’s a good thing that there was a brief moment when he was that good.
His biggest problem was he was prone to shooting slumps. He went through a 7-31 4-game stretch and a 2-13 for 2 games. He also finished the season a weak 21-54, .389. In other games he was actually a strong offensive player. The only impressive thing about his numbers once the season wrapped was his .440 on 3-pointers.
While an inconsistent player can be maddening, I prefer such a player as a prospect to one with the same numbers who has been consistently mediocre. The logic being that an inconsistent player might be able to develop some consistency eventually. With a consistent player, what you see is usually what you get. So Stewart has that going for him. He’s also an excellent shooter, hitting 44% on treys last year. That makes him worth a second round gamble, but he’s still a long shot.
12. Sammy Mejia, DePaul: Mejia is sort of in the mold of Lojeski and Strawberry in that he does many things well, but doesn’t score nearly enough to be considered much of a prospect. Mejia isn’t as good as either Strawberry or Lojeski, but is the same type of good all-around college player. His strength is passing. His A/TO has always been well above 1.0 and he even played some PG as a freshman and sophomore. He’s been an erratic outside shooter over his career, twice finishing below .300 from behind the arc. Most recently he was .353 as a senior, so I’m going to say that’s not a huge deal. Prospects don’t necessarily need to be great shooters in college to make it as a pro SG. Most eventually do need to figure out how to hit at least an occasional trey though. It will be an uphill battle for Mejia. His best hope might be that he proves he can run an offense like he did his first couple of seasons and backup at PG. I doubt he’ll score enough to be an effective combo. So all things considered, he has a chance. Not a good one, but a chance.
13. Blake Schilb, Loyola Chicago: Schilb is a good passer and scorer who has decent numbers and good size. Generally smaller college players who have made the NBA have put up better numbers than Schilb. For that reason he’s a long shot. But he’s also a versatile player who is similar to Byars in that he can probably play both the 2 and the 3, and even play some point in a pinch. There’s always a need for players who can fill a few roles and that’s what Schilb has going for him. He’s a long shot, but has a chance.
14. Marko Tomas, Real Madrid: Tomas was a decent prospect when he was younger and playing in the lower levels, but he just hasn’t gotten it done at higher levels. He barely gets on the court and isn’t aggressive at all offensively when he does. I guess my feeling about him would be that if he can’t make an impact in Europe, he sure as heck isn’t going to make one in the NBA. He might be worth a look, because of his size, 6’8”. He’s also a good candidate to be drafted, stashed and monitored for a few years just to see if something positive develops. But right now he doesn’t look like he’s anywhere near being ready to play.
15. DeAndre Rice, Florida Atlantic: Rice was a ridiculously efficient scorer as a senior. Good enough that I can ignore the fact that the rest of his game was pretty weak even though it was played in the slightly-less-than-mid-major Sun Belt conference. Here are the numbers: 20.5 PPG, .502 FG pct, .479 3-point pct, 1.55 PPS. What I can’t ignore is the fact that the rest of his game was weak for a prospect. His A/TO was 0.8, which is probably too low for a Big South player and his RSB40 was 5.9, which is low for a major college player, let alone someone from the Sun Belt. Plus, he was a very streaky player all season, suggesting these numbers are at least a tad above his real ability since this was such a huge upgrade over his previous seasons. But he really lit things up and did so in a wildly efficient fashion. That makes him worth a look in the role of a gunner.
16. Mike Jones, Maryland: The players who are real prospects pretty much end with Rice. The remaining players have caught my eye as potential gunners, snipers and zone-busters who might catch on due to their deadly shooting abilities. Jones is the best player of this ilk. He hit 44% of his treys this year as a senior, which was a career high. His 6.3 RSB40 is much better than Falls’ pathetic 4.6 and Humphrey’s ridiculous 2.3. It still falls short of the 7.0 minimum standard, but is close enough that he could slip in for a few journeyman years. For Falls, Humphrey and Jones the key will be ending up in the right place and impressing the right people.
17. Colin Falls, Notre Dame: Falls comes up short athletically, as his low RSB40 number shows. I give him an outside shot to make it though, because he is such a good shooter. More than 75% of his FG attempts came from past the arc during his career and he’s hit 40% of them. Another thing I like about Falls is his low number of TOs. This shows he’s a smart player who doesn’t try to do too much outside his role as a sniper. He also gets to the line a lot for a player who generates most of his offense from the perimeter, another sign that he’s one of the cagier cagers available this year. This is well and good, but it doesn’t make Falls much more than a good college player. He will need to improve his athleticism at the next level, because a player has to be able to keep up with his teammates on offense and the opponent on defense at least reasonably well. So he’s got a long road to the NBA, but teams can always use a gunner to bust up a zone, and Falls fits that profile.
18. Lee Humphrey, Florida: Speaking of snipers, here’s a guy who has already played one in college on a team of future NBA stars. The problem is that’s all he did and he didn’t do it all that often. I’ve mentioned in comments on the other Gators that this Florida team is a different situation than most college teams of the past and some of the traditional rules go out the window. Humphrey’s role with the Gators was to stand outside the arc and hit the trey at a decent percentage when asked to. That and to stay out of the way and not screw things up. He did both those things exceptionally well. That doesn’t make him an NBA player though. His .459 for consecutive seasons makes him interesting as a gunner, but I doubt he has the athleticism to pull it off.
19. Trey Johnson, Jackson State: The nation’s leading scorer. That, in itself, should make him a prospect on some level, but it’s hard to see where Johnson would fit. While he scored a ton of points, he did so playing in the weakest conference in division 1. He didn’t score very efficiently either, hitting .414 and .333. He was better as a junior, going .455 and .441 while scoring 23.5 PPG, and his real ability is probably somewhere in between. It still isn’t enough to make him look like a prospect though. A prospect at levels this low in the NCAA pecking order really needs to hit at least close to 50% of his shots and put up dominating type of numbers in steals and rebounds to be considered a good prospect. Johnson did none of that.