or 1 half of basketball and a minute? How is that possible you must up put the tempo to the max

trade off becomes less meaningful once you’re not dealing with star players anymore. There are guys with a 13 PER that are positive contributers as a role players, and there are gusy who are just killing their team. I prefer to look at ORtg and the individual stats at that end of the spectrum and at APM, especially when dealing with both role players and point guards. But, let’s take a look at the 6 guys you listed.

There’s only two I would be willing to call solid and a success, and they’re two very similar players in Rondo and Lowry. Why were they successful? This is what I believe.

1. They’re both much more athletic than the vast majority of point guards in the league. That’s an important asset when the vast majority of NBA point guards are going to be more knowledge and more skilled than a rookie..
2. That athleticism combined with a defensive mentality allowed them to be a defensive asset already in their rookie year, which is a very rare thing for a rookie PG.
3. Neither one had a consistent jumper. This meant they weren’t scorers in college, and also meant that they didn’t have to deal with shot selection issues on the NBA level. At the same time they had the athleticism and ball skills to get to the rim and finish effectively even without a jumper. That 2nd part is very important, and it’s something I wrote about with Derrick before last year’s draft.

So neither Rondo or Lowry had to deal with role or shot selection changes in making the transition from college to the NBA. Lowry took 40% of his FGA in the paint in Memphis and that bumped up to 45% on a better team in Houston. Rondo took 45% of his FGA in the paint his 1st two seasons, and actually managed to increase his % to 55% this season. None of the other four players took more than 30% of their FGA in the paint. So they were able to be positive defensively from day 1, and they’re penetration had to be respected on offense.

I’m going to group Farmar and Brown together because they’re relatively similar players and now play on the same team in the same system. In Farmar and Brown you have

1. Two players with the athleticism to be NBA defenders, but also two players that lack the ball skills to get to and finish at the rim the way Lowry and Rondo do.
2. Two players who were in the middle ground as scorers in college (19 pts per 40 for both v. 15 pts per 40 for Rondo and Lowry), and based on their 3PA likely took a lot more jumpers to score. So they were used to being counted on to score, but lacked NBA shot creation skills.

So Farmer goes to the perfect team. He’s not skilled enough to be very successful at point on a normal team, but he’s fine for the triangle. He’s been able to be a defensive asset at times. He had a solid ORtg of 109 in his 2nd season, but was at 99 and 95 the other two seasons. So you have a player in a near perfect situation and the result is play too inconsistent for me to describe as solid. A career PER of 12.5 and 102 Ortg after three seasons.

Brown goes to what should be a good situation. A 50 win team with Lebron James drawing double teams, and stinks up the NBA for nearly three years until being traded to the Lakers where for the 1st time he stops trying to create his own shot when he lacks NBA shot creation skills. But, he’s still likely a bust on any of 25 to 28 NBA teams. He’s playing in a perfect offensive system, and has the athleticism to be a defensive positive as a role player. But, all of this is largely moot because he almsot zero ability to play point guard in the NBA.

Rodriguez and Marcus Williams are also similar.

1. Neither one has the athleticism to either finish at the rim or play effective NBA defensive in their early years in league of ever.
2. Neither one is a consistent shooter, but both have 3-point range and aren’t shy about taking that shot.
3. Both are traditional point guards whose biggest skill is passing, but both are too turnover prone and too inefficent at scoring to leave the ball in their hands a lot.

There’s just not a lot that either one can do to make a consistent positive contribution. And I correlate solid play with consistency. Rodriguez may still have a chance at NBA success because he’s still only 22, but I don’t even think Portland fans would describe Sergio’s play over the last three years as solid. I have huge doubts that Rodriguez will ever shoot consistently enough to be a solid NBA player. Nash was at least making 40+% of his 3PA in his rookie year.

In my opinion when it comes to non-elite talents it’s hardest for shortest players on the court and the players that handle the ball the most at the lower levels to make the transition to the NBA because of what it takes get to the rim and to finish in the lane and what it takes to defend in the NBA. Some guys obviously can do it. Duhon was perfect as a 2nd round pick because he was a plus defender from day 1, he made open 3-pointers at a decent %, and he was perfectly content making the safe play and was basically uninterested in creating his own shot. I haven’t looked at the point guards much in this draft. Maybe there’s a guy who I would think fits the criteria for playing solid ball in his 1st few seasons. But based on what I remember from history there’s not a lot of guys who are solid early in their careers at point guard period, let alone later in the draft. But, maybe my perception if off. It’s not like I have a statistical study to support my opinion on this.

Rec’d

in a better way than i could.

for the first time ever, i agree with lex (mostly). and am entirely unconvinced by scotter.

with an ast/to around 1, it’s (obviously) true dat shannon brown is not an nba pg.

he got all of 420 nba garbage time (mostly) minutes in two seasons before the bulls, where he was granted about another 20. at least larry brown gave him (a whopping) 300 minutes, but it couldn’t have been pleasant in charlotte under him, before raja and boris’ arrival. that’s “stinking up the nba”, according to your longer post above (the one re: rondo, lowry, and sergio). but phil didn’t play him appreciably more, so it’s the triangle offense? i say it’s the coach, giving the role, the instruction, the direction. the triangle is a bit of a myth. it’s just more of a factor in la now maybe with odom and gasol. brown gets a lot on the break, or spotting up. don’t see why he couldn’t do that anywhere.

everyone knew jr smith’s talent. that was before my b-a-b time, but i have to imagine plenty of folks miffed about it going down that way back then. i could envision skiles, after burning out milwaukee, finding his nba career dangling in the wind. while smith may find himself playing a major role in a finals. talent will out, i say.

oh yeah, and skiles (in his own way) is a knuckle head too.