So now that we've had a few games to look at

Lillard - seeing him in Summer League, pre-season and the 3 games so far; predictions on Lillard at season's end....

My prediction is 16.8 ppg, 44% FG, 9 assist and 3 rebounds a game.

 

Part of me says he cant keep up the assists per game but part of me has seen in every game so far where teammates having not been ready for passes and/or have blown wide open shots. Im hoping it may be a wash when its all said and done.

 

The team shot for shit the past two games and he's still getting 9 assists.

 

See I actually think I'm being very cautious with the numbers. He could have had at least another 4-5 assists if his teammates actually could shoot. And there were a few passes that had his man in perfect position to score and they turned it over. Once timing gets down; we could be seeing a +10 dime per game player.

 

I predicted before the season that he would get 18 and 8. Sly called me nuts. I still think those numbers are realistic. I would be psyched if he averaged 16 and 9. The kid is amazing.

 

I have plenty of Laker friends in my area and we talked all throughout the Laker game. They kept telling me "That Lillard kid is for real man!" They had no idea how good he was. Said that this guy could be even better than a CP3. Funny thing was one friend said he could be a rebounding PG like Kidd and I was like "WTF you talking about willis?!" He replied that the dude just seems to be in the best position to rebound the ball. Looking at the numbers; the dude is averaging 4 a game so far. I would be loving it if he's producing this all season.

 

He'll try to average what we need to get wins, like a Tim Duncan (yes, this is a repeat).

Lillard only cares about winning, I only care about Lillard!

 

Welcome back Mags...... how are your girl's Dirty Mommy Pillows?

 

So we have two factors that could lower Lillard's averages:

1 - Scouting. Word's out now. He might not get a double-team because of passing concerns (open guy and all that) but he'll get every team's Wesley Matthew up against him (BTW, I hope they put Matthews and Lillard on opposite teams so he has to play against that all the time in practice). Gameplans will focus on him a little more. No more open three pointers, no more easy bounce passes, or wide open lanes.

2 - Fatigue. He's playing bigtime minutes (38+) and will hit the rookie wall halfway through the season. Shooting percentags go down, passes get sloppy... he won't turn into Nolan Smith, but he could drop significantly in output.

At the same time, there are two factors countering these:

1 - Lillard's used to it. He's been the focus of every team's best two players in a constant double team for YEARS now. Portland's starters are good enough that teams can't leave any one player open (even Hickson) for more than a second or two, preventing Lillard from being constantly doubled.

2 - Lillard's mentally tough. He plays the game one possession at a time. He has been the leader of a small-college team, and knows what it means to be relied upon even when tired after playing a ton of minutes. The rookie wall will hit, but he'll power through it.

So, that said, I think Lillard *can* maintain the bulk of his performance as it stands today (21pts/9ast/4reb): I predict 20.0 PPG / 8.0 APG / 3.0 RPG in 37 minutes per game (Ronnie Price will let Lillard play a little less). Also, ROY.

 

Well if he gets doubled; then that gives other teams huge problems against Aldridge. Which poison will they try and stop? And to top it off, Batum and Matthews are both capable of scoring 20 as well. Looking at the entire starting 5; there are 4 players that are capable of scoring 20+ at any given night. I think our coach is savy enough to ride the hot hand until the other players get back into the game.

 

Only 2 rookies have ever averaged 16/9 for a full season.

Oscar Robertson, and...

click here to find out the other.

 

Yep. With Batum and Matthews aching to launch three pointers and Aldridge underneath, there's only so much you can commit to getting the ball out of Lillard's hands. Meanwhile, on the other end you give Matthews and Batum the hard defensive assignments and let Lillard look for rebounds and steals, which only enables his open court game.

Matthews, Batum and Lillard have really nice complimentary roles on this team.

 

Lillards assists go way down when he has to play with the second unit for the couple of minutes or so. Because they can't score for shit. :MARIS61:

 

Solution: never play him with fewer than two other starters, preferably LA and Matthews/Batum.

 

That season would put Lillard in elite territory.

Only Oscar Robertson has had a 20ppg/8apg rookie season.

http://www.basketball-reference.com...gt&c6mult=1.0&c6stat=&order_by=ws#stats::none

I'll be a bit more cautious and say something like 15/7, which still has only been done by 10 rookies in NBA history.

 

If he manages to do that (and really, who knows? He might score 10 and have 4 dimes tonight and every other night from here on out, but if he performs well and within himself, I'll be happy), he'll be an instant legend.

Stotts's offense does help matters though, as well as years of training our guys to catch and shoot by Nate. It's like the perfect storm.

 

I hope it happens. I myself wasn't aware how rare even a 15/7 rookie season is for any NBA player. It doesn't seem to impressive, but it must be for a rookie.

 

15/6 has only happened 14 times.

15/5 only 26 times in 50-some years.

Unreal. I never would have guessed those numbers were so rare for a rookie to reach.

 

Yeah, let's check back in January and see how Damian's doing... maybe 15/7 is just really really difficult and even Damian will level out around there.

 

I think I know why it's so rare, actually... think about it this way: assists require your teammates to be pretty good, right? They can't make shots, you don't get the dime. And the better a team is, the worse their draft pick is (in general), so that means the talent available is less. Bad teams can have good point guards, but their assist levels won't get so good (their points might be though, from taking charge of situations). Good teams draft worse PG's who can't distribute well at the NBA level.

So, it's rare to have a mostly good team (or a team held back by a tyrannical coach that just lost their marquee guard) be in a position (through trading for picks) to draft top flight talent (that happened to be underrated by being at a small school). But that's the confluence of circumstances we have: 4 good starters in a new offense that makes them all better, being led by an underrated rookie guard who probably would have gone #2 if he'd gone to UNC.