Telfair is a closer comparison that Erick Barkley for sure. The difference is, Telfair got plenty of minutes before being dealt. I thought he had more potential, but he had been disappointing to that point. He was a much more known quantity than Bayless is. As far as I'm concerned, the better recent comparison to Telfair is Sergio Rodriguez...a very young point guard with flashy passing and ball-handling skills who proved unable to shoot or defend. Rodriguez also got enough time to show those traits before he was traded. So far, Bayless is still closest to Jermaine O'Neal in terms of potential and chances to show his ability. O'Neal was younger, so had more potential but Bayless was considered one of the best talents in his high school class and was considered a blue-chip talent through his one college season. He was/is a big-time prospect and hasn't had much chance at all to show what he can do in the NBA. That's a pretty good basis for comparison to O'Neal. That doesn't mean he'll pan out like O'Neal did, but I think it would be a big mistake to draft a pretty high-level talent, bury him on the bench and then trade him for pennies on the dollar after all the bench time has dulled his luster.
We needed to utilize bayless for a ball punch on mello last week, his fouls are his biggest asset at this point. Seriously though, we should put him in late in the third to get some fouls on the opponent's bigs to set us up for the fourth quarter.
I think it would take several miracles for Mills to end up our #2 point guard. There's a reason why he was drafted at the end of the second-round. Even the Blazers, the team that selected him, clearly didn't rate him higher because they could have taken him with an earlier second-round pick and would have if they considered him an exciting point guard prospect...you don't risk the possibility of someone else stealing an impact prospect from you just to try and maximize your second-round picks. The Blazers thought he was an intriguing flier at the end of the draft process. That means that they don't think he'll become anything, but he, at least, has a tiny chance whereas most late second-round picks really have no chance. Mills is not a high-caliber prospect, or even a good prospect. Maybe he'll surprise and overperform that prospect status. Obviously, the odds are (massively) against it.
Why not? Because he went to a small school? (Like Courtney Lee, Kevin Martin, Chris Kaman, et al., et al.) Because he's small? (although bigger than DJ Augustin, Aaron Brooks and TJ Ford, and by some measures, Mike Conley and Jameer Nelson)? Because he's more of a shooter than a distributor (like Aaron Brooks, Jameer Nelson, et al.)? Or just because he was taken in the second round? Let me guess: all of the above. Remember also, he was projected higher, and that was in a draft THICK with PGs, where which was better was largely a matter of taste (he was projected by many people ahead of Darren Collison and/or Rodrigue Beaubois) but only so many teams were targeting PGs, so if you fell past one of them, you could fall a looooooooong way. I just don't see why you can know that he's "not a high calibre prospect", let alone "or even a good" one, particularly if you think Bayless is.
Ya know, I like everything about Bayless. I really do. I'm just concerned he won't be able to learn the PG position.
Which is a perfectly valid concern, but then you come on here and start talking up Mills ... who is basically just a 3 inch shorter version of Jerryd without as much strength and athleticism. Patty's one bankable skill when he was at St. Marys was his quickness, his pull up jumper and occasionally his shot. admittedly I maybe only watched him play five or six times between the Olympics the year before and last year at St. Marys, but everything I saw was pretty much confirmed by the general scouting report on him that he's got more AI in him than CP3. http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Patrick-Mills-1362/
And here's why I like Mills at this point in time. I just cannot recall who said this, but very recently an ex NBA player stated that PG's are born and not made. Mills is a born PG. All he has to do is to learn the offense and his role in it- if he will accept it. Bayless has to be first made into a PG. The, he has to learn the rest with respect to what we expect of him. For Mills, it's really a downhill process. For Bayless, it's uphill. As for why we took Mills... this was one of the most PG heavy drafts I can recall. Teams usually are not in the market to use a 1st round pick on a PG, but this year there were many. Mills slipped as most teams looking for a PG found theirs. So he sank while people scooped up other position players that had even a remote prayer of making the NBA. I think if this draft was a PG weak one, Mills may have risen to the very late first round to top of the second- in other words, he may not be a world beater, but I think he's much better than where he was taken.
That doesn't really sound like strong support for Mills, though. Usually teams do not owant to draft a PG in the first round? Ok. Fine. This year, 10 teams did. 10 teams found a PG better than him in the first round. 5 more in the second round. 15 PGs better than him in the draft? Strong or not, this wasn't just people filling holes elsewhere. And if it was a weak PG draft, he would be first round, again, just not high praise. If there were no other 7 footers in the draft, the only 7 footer would be a lottery pick. Doesn't make him good. Just means teams might reach stupidly. Also, more than one team took two PGs over him. So not only was he not valuable enough for them to draft, he wasn't valuable enough to take a long flyer on, when they already grabbed a better PG prospect. Look, i hope for the best from Mills, now that he is a Blazer. I don't see what makes him a natural PG anymore than Bayless does. He had more 1 assist games last year than he did games with over 7 assists. Really, put up similar numbers to Bayless in college. Where are you seeing the natural PG play out of him?
And that's a very astute point you make. But I loved his game in college (for all of the 5 or 6 games I saw him play) and think that as a natural PG he may just make it. At least if he doesn't we're not losing much money on him. If Bayless doesn't pan out, we wasted a high draft pick and plenty of time & money.
His game in college was the same as Bayless' game in college. 18.4 PPG. 15.6 FGA per game. 3.9 assists per game. 2.9 TOs per game. 40% from the field, 34% from 3. 2.4 RPG. 3.8 FTA per game. Bayless was 19.7 PPG, 12.6 FGA per game. 4.0 assiste per game. 3.0 TOs per game. 46% from the field. 41% from 3. 2.7 RPG. 7.4 FTA per game. Where are you seeing this vast difference in their game/ Other than Bayless being a lot better at drawing contact. Mills was a shoot first PG, with an identical A/TO ratio as Bayless. Where do these differences lie?
I don't think so. Last year's Bayless, sure. This year though it appears he has been counseled and has gained the maturity to understand the process and where he is developmentally. Bayless is just a Rudy Fernandez injury away from getting some SG minutes. Or a Blake injury from some PG minutes. Even if neither of those happen, the writing is on the wall. By next season the Blazers will either have a new PG or Bayless will be taking minutes from Blake or Miller, if they are even here. Or maybe he won't be here either. Either way he can't control it so he needs to just focus on his game, improve, and be ready to step in when he gets the opportunity. I think he understands that. Which is giving him a lot of credit I know for someone his age, especially someone so competitive.
The Blazer organization has taken so many shots at finding a long term PG, I've lost count. The fact the Blazers signed Mills doesn't mean that much given their history with PGs over the last three years. I swear the Blazers keep swinging for the fences on these PGs. One is bound to work out . . .
Based on what? Their identical college games? What has Mills done to be considered a PG? I think the only thing separating him from the tweener label is that he's 6', instead of 6'3" At 6'3", you can be considered a short SG, at 6', you just get to be called a point, regardless. What part of his identical a/to numbers makes him more of a point?
I have to ask too, what is it about Mills that makes you think he's a "natural" point guard? Take Bayless out of the equation for a second as a point of comparison, what did Mills do at St. Marys to make you so sure he's "born" to play the position?
