Z-man:
I agree with THCJ in this case that pace is not really the issue for Felton. And looking at his cumulative stats, he does not measure up well in some important areas.But the questions for me are: 1) Is Felton as good as we could have gotten for $4mill a year and what we gave up to get him? 2) Is Felton a good fit for this team, all things including salary cap considered? and 3) Does he have upside (i.e. can he play as well as he did during his first stint with the Knicks until D’Antoni burned him out), considering that this team presents probably the opportunity for success than he has ever had?

It is certainly “reasonable” and “defensible” to say that he is not a good PG, but 1) he may not have to be anything more than “adequate” vs. “good,” 2) the main thing keeping him from being “good” is his shooting too many bad shots and not being a strong rebounder for his position; the first is correctable, the second is irrelevant. He is a top-10 passer, which really isn’t debatable. He can run the P&R and has two of the premier P&R weapons in the league on his team. He is an above average on-the-ball defender.

This. He fits. Reduce his proportion of off-dribble shots because of less pressure to score, increase his opportunities in catch-and-shoot where he’s adequate, and the stats will turn his way.

But all of that is less important than the congruency of his skills with this team.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: You really belong in PR if you’re not there already. I just showed you that his teams were NOT, in fact, slow. Two of them were, but the rest were average pace or better, with three of them being high paced. Note that I was not the one to say that he played on “slow” teams; that was you. I showed you hard evidence that you were wrong, but you consider “five of his seven years he played on teams that were 13th or lower in pace” as if 13th is “slow.” You’re a spin artist, man. Raymond Felton is not a good PG.

Is Raymond Felton a good passer or not?

It sounds like we essentially agree that the things that Felton needs to “learn” from Kidd are about decision-making rather than very fundamental PG skills (as with, say, TD). However, he can also learn little things from the master, like how to run the break more efficiently, how to position himself on D, etc.

Interestingly, looking at their career stats through their first 7 years, they played nearly the same amount and Felton had slightly better shooting stats by all metrics (TS%, eFG%, FG%, FT% and 3PT%). The differences that jumped out were that Kidd was a much better rebounder and averaged nearly 2 assists per 36 than Felton. It seems that Kidd became a much more consistent (but not great) 3-pt shooter after age 30. In that sense, he could be a really good role model for Felton.

In all seriousness, there was a glitch. I had edited my comment because when I thought about it, I did agree that he could likely learn how to shoot less from Kidd so I took that part out but I got a server error when I posted my edit. I’ve had it happen before and it still made the edit (it just didn’t show up right away) so I just assumed that it had been edited, so when I logged in today and saw my original post still there I was like, “D’oh!” because, yes, we are in agreement.

It is certainly “reasonable” and “defensible” to say that he is not a good PG, but 1) he may not have to be anything more than “adequate” vs. “good,” 2) the main thing keeping him from being “good” is his shooting too many bad shots and not being a strong rebounder for his position; the first is correctable, the second is irrelevant. He is a top-10 passer, which really isn’t debatable. He can run the P&R and has two of the premier P&R weapons in the league on his team. He is an above average on-the-ball defender.

ruruland: Charlotte was a slow team. Portland was middle of the pack. Only two years of his career did he play on teams that were in the top ten in pace.

Two of the four teams he played on played fast, but in five of his seven years he played on teams that were 13th or lower in pace.

You really belong in PR if you’re not there already. I just showed you that his teams were NOT, in fact, slow. Two of them were, but the rest were average pace or better, with three of them being high paced. Note that I was not the one to say that he played on “slow” teams; that was you. I showed you hard evidence that you were wrong, but you consider “five of his seven years he played on teams that were 13th or lower in pace” as if 13th is “slow.” You’re a spin artist, man. Raymond Felton is not a good PG.

Brian Cronin: I disagree on the young enough to learn from Kidd part (I am not saying that no point guard changed his stripes in his 8th year, but it is pretty damn rare), but I do believe that his biggest flaws should be the easiest thing in the world to minimize – just don’t let him shoot as much as he wants to. If Felton can keep his game to mostly passing and taking kick out threes, he should be a fine point guard this year. And I have to believe he knows that that has to be his role on the team, but you never know with some of these guys. At the end of the game, there are two players and two players only that I want taking the outside shot – Melo and Novak, and I fear that Felton thinks he should be on that short list, as well. But if he looks off Melo to take a big shot at the end of the game, I presume Melo will explain to him the folly of that action. So I really do have faith that Felton can learn to shoot less.

It sounds like we essentially agree that the things that Felton needs to “learn” from Kidd are about decision-making rather than very fundamental PG skills (as with, say, TD). However, he can also learn little things from the master, like how to run the break more efficiently, how to position himself on D, etc.

Interestingly, looking at their career stats through their first 7 years, they played nearly the same amount and Felton had slightly better shooting stats by all metrics (TS%, eFG%, FG%, FT% and 3PT%). The differences that jumped out were that Kidd was a much better rebounder and averaged nearly 2 assists per 36 than Felton. It seems that Kidd became a much more consistent (but not great) 3-pt shooter after age 30. In that sense, he could be a really good role model for Felton.

Z-man:
Felton has two serious flaws: he is a mediocre shooter and finisher, and he shoots too much. He is competent to very good at every other aspect of the game. He is also young enough to learn from Kidd and even Prigioni. Maybe he gets exposed in the playoffs, but I think he is going to have a very good regular season.

Felton will be lucky to score more than 12ppg. If Melo & Amare are playing 36 minutes a night on a consistent basis Ray isn’t going to scoring a lot & Melo/Woodson will make sure he gets it. He will be a 3rd offensive option, kind of how Lin was in that 7 game stretch under Woodson.

Felton has two serious flaws: he is a mediocre shooter and finisher, and he shoots too much. He is competent to very good at every other aspect of the game. He is also young enough to learn from Kidd and even Prigioni. Maybe he gets exposed in the playoffs, but I think he is going to have a very good regular season.

I disagree on the young enough to learn from Kidd part (I am not saying that no point guard changed his stripes in his 8th year, but it is pretty damn rare), but I do believe that his biggest flaws should be the easiest thing in the world to minimize – just don’t let him shoot as much as he wants to.

If Felton can keep his game to mostly passing and taking kick out threes, he should be a fine point guard this year. And I have to believe he knows that that has to be his role on the team, but you never know with some of these guys. At the end of the game, there are two players and two players only that I want taking the outside shot – Melo and Novak, and I fear that Felton thinks he should be on that short list, as well. But if he looks off Melo to take a big shot at the end of the game, I presume Melo will explain to him the folly of that action. So I really do have faith that Felton can learn to shoot less.