While watching the DAL game I had the thought that Lillard truly is only a middle-of-the-pack starting PG - until the 4th quarter, when he becomes Top 3. His defense is just atrocious. And too many times he hail-mary drives to the hoop and ends up on the floor without making the shot. If there isn't an opportunity for him to be clutch I'm not overly impressed with him. But whenever there's a chance for him to make a big shot, or take over in the closing minutes of a close game, he comes through.
Watching him get abused by Calderon, yes. Jose can do everything as well as, or better than Dame - except take a game over in the 4th. And I don't think Jose is anything more than a mid-pack PG. I guess it's more of a commentary on just how deep the PG position is today. Lillard's shooting is special, but nothing else about his game (aside from the aforementioned clutchness) is all that special...except his defense, which is especially bad.
I disagree completely. Jose was getting torched by Dame to the tune of 32 points. So obviously he's not a better defender. In fact, he was so bad, Carlisle had to switch Marion onto Lillard, which allowed Batum to torch Calderon. Right now Jose might be a better distributor, but Lillard isn't really playing that role on the Blazers. Batum is the facilitator in our offense right now.
They're both terrible defensively. So, wash. But Jose is way better at running an offense, and is a better shooter. Other than shoot REALLY well in clutch situations, what does Lillard do exceptionally well? I remember people were irate about his ranking on a Top 15 list this summer, but I think it was actually quite accurate. He's an absolute killer in the clutch, but aside from that he doesn't have skills that are superior to other PGs. This isn't to say I think Lillard is a problem, but I'm not going to get carried away and call him a Top 5 PG when his skills don't warrant it. He's a very good player with the attitude to be great - but he's not there yet.
He's an elite three point shooter, and his shooting percentage is down a bit right now, but I think it will bounce back. I agree that he's not as good at distributing as Calderon, but he's definitely a far superior scorer. I think his assists would be much higher if Stotts was using him as the primary ball handler, but the starters share the ball and Batum ends up with many of the assists.
Okay, but my statement isn't just about him vs Jose. There are a lot of PGs who can score like Lillard. Yes - he shoots well from 3 (not as well as Jose!), particularly in clutch situations. I've already said that he excels in this one area. But aside from that, he isn't head of the class in any other facet of the game. Hence my assertion that he's a mid-pack PG until the 4th quarter.
Middle of the pack? He's certainly in the middle of this pack: http://bkref.com/tiny/sfROC Seriously, is this conversation really fucking happening?
Calderon is shooting a better percentage from three, but Dame has attempted about 40 more threes than Jose. I doubt Calderon shoots near 47% from deep for the year. That will most definitely come down. He might not be head of the class, but he's only just starting his second year. Guys like Curry weren't head of their class at this point either. I'd put him in the same group as John Wall, Ty Lawson, Irving, Holiday, etc. There are a lot of young stud point guards in the league right now, and I'm just happy that we have one of them.
Well, you said that Calderon could do everything as good or better than Dame, so I had to prove you wrong
Oh. Okay. There may have been SOME hyperbole in the statement regarding Lillard/Calderon (though not much!). But after typing the names Wall, Lawson, Irving, Holiday, you can see how it's not a far-fetched idea to suggest that Lillard is mid-pack for a starting PG.
There are definitely a lot of talented point guards right now, so being middle of the pack isn't necessarily a bad thing. What I look at is that we currently have two players in the top 20 in scoring, and when Dame gets his shooting percentage up, that should really help separate him from the pack. I do admit, I was hoping he'd increase his assists this year. We have more scorers, so I thought he'd average around 8 assists per game, but his assists have gone down. I think part of this can be attributed to Nic handling the ball so much, but I was still hoping to see Dame pass a bit more.
Well, there's no doubt that there are a lot of good to great young PGs in the league right now. Frankly, I think the fascination that some people seem to have with having to rank them is pretty silly. Damian Lillard is more than good enough to be the franchise cornerstone at the PG position for years to come. He's good enough to be an All Star this season, regardless of whether he makes that list because of the number of other good PGs in the West or not. He's good enough to be one of the top 3 players on a team that can contend for a title. In short, he's a damn good player and the Blazers are lucky to have him.
Agreed. And his numbers are coming up. 20.8 ppg 19.9 PER 40.7% FG He had fallen under 40% on his FG for a while, but now he's almost at 41%. That's good. His PER is almost at 20, which is good. He's almost averaging 21 PPG. That's impressive. He's still only around 5.7 assists though. I'd really like to see that come up a bit. At least to what he averaged last year.
http://bkref.com/tiny/3tRSa They are different kinds of point guard, but I'm impressed with Lillard's overall efficiency this year.
First off, I don't disagree that Lillard can be a cornerstone on a contender. I'm not disparaging him. But I am a little disappointed with him so far this season - I expected more. I haven't really noticed any appreciable improvement. He's getting to the line more, so there's improved effort in that area but I don't see improved skills. If he never improves he's still QUITE good. While it's nice to have two guys in the Top 20 of PPG, it shouldn't be that surprising since (after tonight) they're both in the Top 10 for FGA - LMA at #1 and Lillard sitting at #11, but only 1 shot behind Rudy Gay. But they both fall 7 spots from where they rank on the FGA list to the PPG list. And while it's true that Nic is initiating more offense than in the past, there are still more than enough opportunities for Lillard to increase his APG average. But I never thought passing was his strong suit - he's adequate, but not great. I hope as the season - and his career - progresses, we see dramatic improvement in his passing and defense. If both of those occur THEN he'll be great.
