Juany8:
Wall is not pass first? Does anyone actually watch the guy play? (I realize watching Wizards games is torture so it’s ok if you haven’t) He gets a lot of turnovers since he’s the team’s primary scorer, but he puts up assists at an elite rate on a team of gunners who never pass the ball. There’s no continuity to anything Washington does, I admit that Wall’s jumper is seriously flawed right now but that could become passable with time (go look at Rose’s 3 FG% in his first 2 years) I admit that he’s probably not going to be a super star unless he makes a significant leap, but he can be a pretty damn effective point guard who can defend, pass, and run the break at an elite level. A lot of talented point guards in recent years have improved their play in their 3rd-4th years, and John Wall was stuck on the worst team in the NBA and had to deal with a lockout that Screwed up every second year player (even Griffin didn’t improve much from last year, and Evan Turner is pretty mediocre)

I watched a lot of Wash. earlier in the year because for some reason I thought they would by a fun team to watch. I saw a lot of Wall running really fast towards the basket with his head down and turning the ball over. And I saw the worst jump shooting guard I’ve ever seen. I came away with the impression that he should be a RB or WR. And this is from someone who really thought the guy was a stud.

I guess I will take a look at it myself at some point….

Owen:
“Tony Parker has only really had one season where he missed meaningful games and is game is attacking the basket and I don’t think he ever hurt his knee”

It’s a hard thing to evaluate just by thinking about players off the top of your head. i could fire Dwyane Wade right back at you. I think you need a big data set.

And it definitely might not be true. This is total speculation. But I think the inability to make an outside jumper and a high contact rate (someone needs to invent that stat) probably leads to more injury over time. And as you age, I would bet it’s harder to sustain.

There may be other things in the data too. For instance, do ft attempts and drives to the rim rise in a contract year and decline thereafter? Hard to know without some data crunching but I bet front offices have looked at this kind of thing, they definitely do in baseball…

It’s a hard thing to evaluate just by thinking about players off the top of your head. i could fire Dwyane Wade right back at you. I think you need a big data set.

And it definitely might not be true. This is total speculation. But I think the inability to make an outside jumper and a high contact rate (someone needs to invent that stat) probably leads to more injury over time. And as you age, I would bet it’s harder to sustain.

There may be other things in the data too. For instance, do ft attempts and drives to the rim rise in a contract year and decline thereafter? Hard to know without some data crunching but I bet front offices have looked at this kind of thing, they definitely do in baseball…

That’s true, and in those 11 games he posted the best paws40 of any player in college at 13.6. (edit: and yeah, bad competition probably etc etc)

John Wall was actually stronger by that measure than I realized. I was a bit harsh in saying his college numbers were bad. But he wasn’t anywhere near the top.

And, let me throw in the required caveat that college statistics don’t mean anything. But I would rather my #1 overall pick have the best stats of any college player than not. And Paws40 looks pretty right on Irving.

Whoever picks Anthony Davis will be able to say they got the guy with the best stats in college, not that it isn’t obvious he is the best player in the draft just from watching him.

TelegraphedPass: And Lin’s assist percentage sits at 41.2%, above Wall’s 36.1%.

If you dominate the ball you’ll have a high assist % so it means less to me than assist rate when you’re trying to assess someone’s playmaking ability. The fact that Wall has a decent assist rate despite his crappy teammates and all the pressure of being “the man” that comes with being the #1 pick shows me his mindset really is pass first. I still think he could turn out to pretty good- not a great player (unless his jump shot radically improves) but not a bust.

nicos: Wall himself has 8 games with 12+ assists this year with his crappy teammates so I don’t think passing is really his problem. He does turn it over a lot but less than a number of point guards- Rondo and Lin among them. His assist rate was 40 last year, 38 this year- not Nash/Rondo level numbers but again better than Lin’s (and Dwill) so I think that his playmaking skills are there.Also, I didn’t check the numbers but I’d be much more interested in the number of attempts in fast breaks rather than ppp- everybody shoots a pretty good percentage in fast break situations- what matters is your ability to create those situations by pushing the ball.

And Lin’s assist percentage sits at 41.2%, above Wall’s 36.1%.