long term he'll be the at most the 3rd best player from this class... clearly Anthony Davis #1.
Pretty bold claim after one year in which Davis missed games upon games.
If you are talking who has the highest potential that's one thing other ways kinda ridicumous to speculate either way now
I'm not even talking about wonky defensive impact stats or sketchy +/- data... just simple everyday stats. Basically efficiency...
Points + rebounds + assists + steals + blocks ... subtract missed shots and turnovers.
Anthony Davis actually was #1 amongst rookies = 18.2
#2 was Lillard with 17.3
Then a huge gap... #3 Drummond (13.9) and #4 Jonas V. (12.4) and #5 Beal (12.1) ... Minutes has a
massive impact there, though.
The interesting thing is that Davis averaged 28.9 minutes and Lillard averaged an insane 38.9 minutes.
If you average out their minutes, it's not even close. not even close. Still, it's fair to give it to Lillard, because he scored a lot of points and played a full season (Davis missed 18 games). That said, there isn't a single GM in the league who would trade Anthony Davis for Damian Lillard. No chance. Davis turned 20 a couple months ago... and is showing all the signs of being the second coming of Kevin Garnett. Lillard will be 23 in a couple months... and is an undersized guard who shot 43%.
FWIW, if you take all rookies who averaged 15+ minutes this season and average them all out to Per-36 minute efficiency, here's how they rank:
#1 - Drummond - 31.9
#2 - Davis - 30.35
#3 - Valanciunas - 25
#4 - Sully - 24.4
#5 - Andew Nicholson - 23.7
#6 - Patrick Beaverly - 23.6
#7 - Chris Copeland - 21.8
#8 - MKG - 21.8
#9 - Lillard - 21.4
#10 - Meyers Leonard - 20.7
#11 - Thomas Robinson - 19.9
#12 - Pablo Prigioni - 19.6
#13 - Brian Roberts - 19.4
#14 - Tyler Zeller - 18.9
#15 - Bradley Beal - 18.6
Here's Bill SImmons' thoughts on why he believes Bradley Beal will leapfrog Lillard next year (and why he ranked Beal ahead of Lillard in his trade-value column:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9203345/nba-trade-value-part-2Beal is three years younger than Lillard and plays a much weaker position. Who are your best 2-guards in three years? Let's see … James Harden, Dwyane Wade, Klay Thompson, maybe Earl Smith III if he's still acting sanely, maybe Jimmy Butler or Gordon Hayward if they break through, maybe Eric Gordon if he ever has a basketball exorcism, maybe Jabari Parker if he's as good as advertised, maybe Kobe Bryant if he snaps and goes 1998 Bonds on us. You like anyone else? Because I sure don't.
In general, the 2-guard position has turned into a closer-by-committee of specialty guys.5 And that's what makes Beal such a commodity: 19 years old, sweet stroke, underrated rebounder, excellent 3-point shooter (48 percent since New Year's Day), hard worker. What am I missing? Other than the Brow, he's my favorite guy from the 2012 draft; only the residual stink of the Washington Professional Basketball Team could derail him. Meanwhile, Lillard is three years older and plays the league's deepest position; he's a below-average defender (and that's kind); and he leads a team that just lost 34 of its last 47 games (Good Stats/Bad Team alert!!!!). The good stuff: He heated up after the All-Star break (20.4 PPG, 45-40-83 splits) despite being saddled with an abysmal supporting cast; he somehow led the league in minutes (?!?!?!?!?!?); and Portland was a near-impossible 10.2 points worse per 100 possessions with him sitting. If Mike D'Antoni coached Portland, he would have played Lillard 57 minutes a game until his ACL's turned into fusilli.
So Lillard wasn't a horrendous Rookie of the Year choice, even if I attended last week's Clips-Blazers game and was shocked by how easily Chris Paul abused him on both ends. There's some mild Damon Stoudamire potential here: In 1996, Stoudamire, 22 at the time, won ROY on the 21-win Raptors by going 19 and nine and making 40 percent of his 3s. He never got better. (Poor Damon — we picked on him in both parts of this column.)6 But I'd bet anything that Beal leapfrogs Lillard on next year's list. Especially because I'm picking next year's list.
Have to agree. It's easy to forget that Beal is still only 19 years old. He struggled early, but here's his post-allstar numbers: 16.5 points, 5.7 rebounds, 47%/45%/76% in 31.9 minutes
So yeah... especially considering Drummond's ceiling (he's not going to be 20 until August)... I say the absolute best-case scenario for Lillard is the 3rd best player from this draft class... probably 4th.
For those curious:
Per-36 minutes Lillard: 17.8 points, 6 assists, 2.4 rebounds, 0.8 steals, 0.2 blocks 43%/37%/84%
Per-36 Minutes Davis: 17 points, 10 rebounds, 1.2 assists, 1.5 steals, 2.2 blocks 51%/X/75%
19-year-old Davis compared favorably to Kevin Garnett at the same age.
19-year-old KG per 36 minutes: 13.1 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.4 steals, 2.1 blocks 49%/X/70%
20-year-old KG per 36 minutes: 15.7 points, 7.4 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.3 steals, 2 blocks 49%/X/75%
Topic: Damian Lillard named ROY (Read 2795 times)