The incredible shrinking back court

Editors note:I am writing this top section before any results of my rankings were known by me.

With apologies to Rick Moranis, our back court of the future got a bit more petite last evening. From everything I have read and heard, McCollum seems like a solid pick at #10, and probably the most NBA ready player on the board. he is the slightest bit longer than Lillard, so IMO, McCollum will see a lot of time at the 2. With that in mind, and wanting to feel as good as I can about the pick, I decided to take the western conference 2 guards and rank them by wing span, reach and finally lateral quickness. I have no agenda, the exclusion or inclusion of players is purely based off what I could find. Most all the measurements were from Draft EX accept a couple of the Euros and Kobe. I also included Lillard and Roy for comparison purposes

Sefolosha 7' 2"
Johnson 7' 1"
Evans 6' 11.25"
Bryant 6' 11"
Harden 6' 10.75"
Green 6' 10"
Thompson 6' 9"
Allen 6' 9"
Gordon 6' 9"
Fournier 6' 8.25"
Matthews 6' 8.25"
Roy 6' 8"
Lillard 6' 7.75"
Green 6' 7.25"
Foye 6' 6.25"
McCollum 6' 6.25
Mayo 6' 6"
Shved 6' 4.5"
Bayless 6' 3"


Sefolosha 8' 11.5"
Johnson 8' 10"
Bryant 8' 9"
Evans 8' 8"
Thompson 8' 7.5"
Harden 8' 7.5"
Green 8' 7"
Fournier 8' 6.5"
Allen 8' 6"
Shved 8' 6"
Roy 8' 5"
Green 8' 4"
Mayo 8' 3.5"
Gordon 8' 3"
Bayless 8' 1"
Foye 8' 1"
McCollum 8' 0.5"
Lillard 7' 11.5"
Matthews N/A


Foye 10.53
Allen 10.70
Gordon 10.81
Thompson 10.99
McCollum 11.02
Mayo 11.04
Harden 11.10
Roy 11.13
Lillard 11.15
Bayless 11.26
Green 11.30
Fournier 11.42
Johnson 11.43
Evans 11.81
Green 11.86
Bryant N/A
Shved N/A
Sefolosha N/A
Matthews N/A


Seems to have some solid lateral quickness to stay in front of people, but I think McCollum will be abused on defense unless he plays PG, in Lillard will be abused.

Rim protection just became more important if that is even possible

 

Freakin Pacers. How perfect would Hibbert have been?

 

Let me tell you a little story...

There was once a team that started a 6'1" PG and and 6'3" SG from a small school. They ran a 3-guard lineup, bringing in a 6'2" guy off the bench. Not only did the team not in fact have a rim protector, they started a white guy as their PF who played extensive minutes. They brought a PF off the bench who couldn't shoot a lick.

Sounds like a sucky team, except for a couple of things...
A certain player, let's just call him "MJ", said the 6'3" dude was the most effective player in the league at guarding him.
They won multiple championships.
The 6'1" guy became a HOFer.
The 6'3" guy became a HOFer.
The bench guy who couldn't shoot became a HOFer.

Sometimes we overanalyze things on the internet. We have access to lots of information, but it's not always useful.

 

I'm not familiar with that story because I don't follow football.

 

In the U.S. we call it "soccer".

 

20 years ago the league as a whole was smaller, don't you think?

 

Why focus on Lillard and McCollum when we also have Matthews and Crabbe?

 

MJ is 6'6", Drexler was 6'7", there were plenty of big guys - they couldn't just "dodge them."
Overall average? I don't know.

btw, how tall is the Heat's backcourt?

 

Defense is the #1 issue facing this team right now, we got burned by PG's a ton last season. Can Lillard play less minutes and expend less energy on offense so he can focus more on D? Will McCollum have more success on D as a rookie then Damian? He can't really be any worse, Damian was about as effective as Steve Nash last year on that end of the court.

I don't see a problem with playing two 6'3" guys extended minutes, players are switched so much in todays defensive schemes. If both Damian and CJ were great guard defenders you’d never have a large height mismatch if one was on a SG or have a large quickness mismatch if one got put on the other teams speedy PG.

So the problem is not their raw height defensively but their overall competence defensively. For our 3rd PG spot and 15th man on the roster at the end of free agency I’d like to see us go after a defensive specialist PG.

 

Seems like the league is moving away from big scoring guards on the offensive end. Many of the big guards on that list are either old, ineffective (Evens), or defensive specialists. Harden is the only up-and-comer with size and scoring in the Kobe/Drexler/Jordan mold.

Portland seems to be following the trend of going after waterbug-type shooters in the Lillard/Kyrie/Jrue/Curry/Parker/Paul mold. I'm fine with that. It's going to be a bitch on the nights we go up against Kobe and Harden (assuming Kobe isn't retired by the time McCollom starts). But oh well.

Since we're making comparisons, here's a really interesting chart I found on Reddit about draft pick success, fwiw:



Link to see it full size: http://i.imgur.com/t1IvUD0.png

 

Wade
6' 10 7.5"
8' 6"
10.56

Chalmers
6' 6.5"
7' 10"

 

perhaps Tony Allen?

 

Lillard
Matthews
McCollum
Barton
Crabbe

Do we another guard? Maybe we should focus ALL OF OUR ATTENTION on the fact we have no NBA caliber starting center on the roster

 

On the bright side, there really aren't very many SGs we have to worry about guarding.

 

Or an NBA caliber defensive system.

 

We definitely need to focus on getting a center now. Dalembert is the answer. He'll give us a couple of years during which time Leonard will develop into a quality replacement.

 

LOL

 

Trade/sign FAs for need. Draft for talent.

 

I agree with many here that our defense, not the size of our "shrinking backcourt" is the problem. I am optimistic that Lillard/McCollum will have the drive to become good defenders. As for the rest of our team defense, yes it's a big problem, but hopefully only a temporary one. Let's see how the rest of the offseason plays out.