Draft Comparisons: 2015 PGs

Numbers alone rarely tell the story about a player, especially a college kid entering the NBA draft. In general, numbers will back up what you’ve gathered already about a player, though certainly not the context and circumstances that actually let you get a better handle on a player’s abilities.

Still, there can be some value in seeing how players stack up against each other at the same position, as well as seeing how they compare to more recent players who were drafted. It’s not going to tell you everything you need to know, and in some cases, it may tell you very little. But there will be times where numbers, similar or dissimilar, jump out at you, and those are areas where as a team you may want to do further investigating.

I’ll be looking at players who are potential first round players at each position, their numbers in some areas that are relevant to their position, as well as first round picks from 2013 and 2014 at the same positions. Though you won’t be able to come to any clear conclusions based on this, it is an interesting way to look at this year’s class, and there may end up being some useful information to examine further.

This year’s group of point guards is a deep class, at least compared to the past couple of drafts. I’m going to break this group’s look down into scoring/shooting and passing/ball control.

One note, the only players I’m looking at are NCAA players, to keep the comparisons at a similar level. So, Emmanuel Mudiay from this year’s class, and Dante Exum from last year’s class are not included.

Scoring/Shooting

* Clarkson was a 2nd round pick, but started 38 games for the Lakers this year.

** McCollum was limited to 12 games as a senior due to foot injury.

Looking at point guard scoring in the past few drafts, there is a wide range of abilities and styles. Though CJ McCollum was limited to just 12 games as a senior, he averaged an outrageous 31 points per 40 minutes, with only three other previous draftees scoring more than 20 points per 40 minutes, and the second-highest on the list, Marcus Smart, coming in at “just” 22 points per 40. McCollum was in a unique situation being the only real scoring threat on a small-conference team. In this year’s group of potential first-round point guards, Murray State’s Cameron Payne and Ohio State’s D’Angelo Russell are the only two players to score over 20 points per 40 minutes. Payne’s situation is closest to McCollum’s as a primary scorer on a non-high major team, though Russell was also the main scoring threat for his Ohio State team. Like McCollum, both are primary jump shooters, with a high volume coming from three-point range.

As a whole, the three classes of point guards were not the most effective group of shooters, with only four previous draftees hitting 46 percent shooting from the field, and three with 40 percent or higher from three-point range. This year’s group features just two players, Jerian Grant and Delon Wright, who hit at least 46 percent from the field, and just one, Russell, with a three-point shooting percentage higher than 40. There is one common thread in these three players; all are 6’5, though they are different kinds of scorers. The worst shooters in this year’s class are also the shortest. Tyus Jones and Terry Rozier, both 6’1, both shot less than 42 percent from the floor, though Rozier was a worse all-around shooter, while Jones hit a respectable 38 percent from behind the arc. From the previous draftees, two players shot less than 42 percent from the floor, Tyler Ennis and Michael Carter-Williams, both Syracuse products. While Ennis is a similar size to Jones and Rozier, Carter-Williams, at 6’6, is the tallest player on this list.

The last scoring area I want to look at is free throw rate, which is the number of free throws per 100 field goal attempts. A high free throw rate is usually indicative of a player’s strong ability to attack the basket, and that was certainly true of the two players with the highest rates. Marcus Smart and Elfrid Payton both posted free throw rates around 65. Only two other previous draftees, Carter-Williams and Shabazz Napier, had a free throw rate of at least 45. This year’s class features three players who had a rate of at least 50, Jones, Grant, and Wright. Like Smart and Payton, Grant and Wright are not the best long-range shooters, so they rely on their ability to get to the basket to score more points. Jones is a bit of an oddity, as he didn’t look to get to the basket nearly as often as the other players in this group. As you’d expect, the players who rely more on shooting jumpers have lower free throw rates, and the players in this year’s class are no different. Russell, Payne, and Rozier all posted rates lower than 35, and all three are guys who had trouble getting to the rim in halfcourt situations. At 6’1 and 6’2, it’s understandable while Rozier and Payne may have trouble, but with Russell’s size, he should be able to do a better job.

Passing/Ball Control

Since we’re talking about point guards, it’s a good idea to see how these players stack up as distributors and limiting mistakes. What jumps out is the group of players who fall on the low end of the scale in both assists per 40 minutes and assist percentage. Of the previous draftees, two averaged fewer than five assists per 40 minutes, McCollum and Jordan Clarkson. Like McCollum, Clarkson is more of a scorer than distributor, and the numbers fall in line with that. In this year’s class, only Rozier falls in this range, but like the guys who came before him, he was also primarily a scorer for Louisville. It wasn’t until Chris Jones was dismissed from the Cardinals in February that Rozier took over as the team’s primary point guard. Russell’s assist numbers come off as very impressive considering he was also his team’s primary scorer and shared a lot of the point guard duties with Shannon Scott. Payne’s assist numbers are also very impressive because of his scoring role.

The turnover rates are fairly equal among this year’s class, though it is somewhat surprising that Jones has the highest number in this group with his reputation for ball control. Still, no one comes close to Carter-Williams’s 22.2 turnover rate in 2013. Often point guard draft prospects with have high turnover rates are also main scorers for their team, and many of the turnovers come from trying to force their own scoring opportunities, like Payton. This wasn’t the case with Carter-Williams, who just tried to force too many bad passes.

As I mentioned in the beginning, the numbers alone don’t tell a player’s story, but they are useful data for teams to collect as they get ready to make their picks in June. Even players with similar numbers, good or bad, are not necessarily similar players, especially if they had different roles, but it can give teams reasons to look closer at some of a player’s tendencies. The same caveats apply when you start comparing across different draft classes, but you can find some valuable clues when a lot of the other information gathered also matches up.