On what basis is Rozier better again?
Scoring.
Which didn't help much this game.
I don't dislike Rozier but ya'll gotta respect that he will never replace Smart as an impact guy anytime soon.
I would like to remind you all that Rozier has practically zero NBA experience, and this is pretty much his rookie year. Do you know what numbers Marcus Smart put up in his first two games as a rookie?
Game 1: 10 pts, 2 reb, 2 ast, 4 stl, 0 blk, 0 to, 2 PF, 3-7 FG, 1-4 3PT, 27 minutes
Game 2: 2 pts, 1 reb, 1 ast, 0 stl, 0 blk, 2 TO, 0 PF, 0-7 FG, 0-5 3PT, 11 minutes
Anyhow, last season Marcus Smart averaged Per 36 numbers of:
12.1 points
5.5 rebounds
4 assists
2 steals
0.4 blocks
1.7 turnovers
4 fouls
35% FG
25% 3PT
78% FT
...as a second year pro with 1,808 minutes of experience.
In his first two games this season Terry Rozier has averaged Per 36 numbers of:
9.2 points
4.9 rebounds
4.9 assists
2.8 steals
0.0 blocks
0.7 turnovers
2.1 fouls
42% FG
43% 3PT
80% FT
...as a second year pro with 311 minutes of NBA experience.
Not exactly day and night, is it?
Lets give the kid more then two meaningful NBA games before we start drawing conclusions, shall we?
Let me also remind you that playmaking and court vision doesn't always show on stat sheet. Smart already have those since his rookie campaign.
This was a play during his rookie season. I don't think Rozier could see Zeller with that pass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOlZ6cfimoo
Smart is ahead of Rozier in playing time for a reason. You can't beat Smart on scoring and stat-padding alone.
Smart has played starters minutes in the NBA for 2 seasons now (including the playoffs) and you'd be lucky to find 10 passes he's made over that time which are worthy of putting in a youtube video.
The guy makes one impressive pass every 15-20 games if you're lucky. The rest of the time he looks like a 6'3" Ron Artest trying to play the point.
Is there a reason Smart is above Rozier in playing time? Of course there is - it's because he has approximately 10x the NBA experience Rozier has. Not difficult to work that one out.
Also please, for the love of god, tell me you are not quoting Rozier's +/- stats from a year in which he played a grand total of 311 regular season minutes, all in garbage time. Because trying to use that as an argument would be embarrassingly poor form.
A player's PG skills can be so very easily measured using two very simple statistics - assists and turnovers. An assist
guarantees 2 or 3 points for your team. A turnover
guarantees an extra possession for your opponent, which in turn means an opportunity for your opponent to score anywhere from 1-4 points. An assist is ALWAYS beneficial. A turnover is ALWAYS a liability.
There so far in this preseason and regular season combined, Terry Rozier has averaged less then a turnover per game. That means that:
1) He's generating turnovers as a result of ball handling errors
2) He's generating turnovers as a result of bad passes
In the preseason and regular season so far, Rozier has been tallying assists at a similar rate to what Smart has over his first two seasons.
What does all this tell you?
It tells you that Rozier is making just as many plays for his teammates as Smart does, but he's making less errors in the way of ball handling mistakes and bad passes.
What is the main role of a PG? Handling the ball and making good passes.
You can show all the passing videos of Marcus Smart you like. For all I care you can show me a 3 hours long video of Marcus Smart making no-look passes using pure telepathy. I don't care, because the only thing about those passes that actually matter are:
1) How many of them lead to points scored
2) How many of them lead to turnovers
The answer to those questions tell me that right now, Terry Rozier is looking like a better PG then Marcus Smart - all the YouTube videos in the world cannot change the simple, hard facts.