The best rookie point guards in recent vintage? Count in Portland's PG A double-double in his NBA debut. A game-winning shot to beat the New Orleans Hornets. A dagger at Madison Square Garden to put away the New York Knicks. A career-high 37 points in his first trip back to his native Oakland. Portland Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard, the favorite to be the NBA's Rookie of the Year, already has packed a good year's worth of highlights into his first three months in the league. Lillard has played well enough to force himself into a larger discussion, one that also includes several of his contemporaries, such as first-time All-Star Kyrie Irving and All-Star snub Stephen Curry: Who are the best rookie point guards in recent NBA history? Just past the season's midpoint, Lillard is on pace for slightly better than seven wins above replacement player (WARP), a mark reached by only 14 first-year point guards in the 3-point era (dating back to 1979-80). The best player in that span, whether you go by WARP or PER -- as John Hollinger did at the time -- is Los Angeles Clippers star Chris Paul, who put up 15.7 WARP in 2005-06 to edge out Magic Johnson's debut season (14.6). Irving, who had 8.0 WARP despite missing 15 games because of injury, checks in eighth on the list (see table below). Then there are a group of six players, including Lillard and Curry, between seven and eight WARP. Top Rookie Point Guard Seasons Player Season Team WARP Chris Paul 05-06 NOH 15.7 Magic Johnson 79-80 LAL 14.6 Mark Jackson 87-88 NYK 11.8 Penny Hardaway 93-94 ORL 11.3 Steve Francis 99-00 HOU 11.0 Brevin Knight 97-98 CLE 9.9 Allen Iverson 96-97 PHI 9.3 Kyrie Irving 11-12 CLE 8.0 Stephen Curry 09-10 GSW 7.9 Damon Stoudamire 95-96 TOR 7.6 Tim Hardaway 89-90 GSW 7.6 Jason Kidd 94-95 DAL 7.5 Sherman Douglas 89-90 MIA 7.3 Damian Lillard 12-13 POR 7.1 Andre Miller 99-00 CLE 7.1 If a lot of those names feel dated -- despite Allen Iverson's possible return to the D-League -- they should. Big rookie performances by players at any position were more common two decades ago, when most draftees spent at least three years in college, if not all four. Entering this season, 48 rookies had topped the seven-WARP mark dating back to 1979-80. Of them, 35 played in either the '80s or '90s. Adjusting for expansion, such performances were about twice as common in those decades as they have been since the turn of the century. In the 2000s, an average of one rookie per season has contributed at least seven WARP. And even that group tilts towards the early part of the last decade. Four players, including point guards Steve Francis and Andre Miller, reached the mark in 1999-00 alone. Lately, it has been point guards leading the way among newcomers. Starting with Paul, three of the past four rookies to better seven WARP have been lead ball handlers. Blake Griffin in 2010-11 is the only player at another position to rate as valuable, though he might have company this season -- Detroit's Andre Drummond is on pace to top seven WARP during his remarkable rookie season recently chronicled by Tom Haberstroh in this space, while No. 1 overall pick Anthony Davis could get there if he is able to stay healthy during the second half of the schedule. The shift toward point guards being the quickest studies in the NBA is more than just a product of some statistical bias. If Lillard wins Rookie of the Year, four of the past five honorees -- and five out of eight dating back to Paul -- will have been point guards, with Tyreke Evans and Derrick Rose joining Irving and Lillard. The trend can rather clearly be traced to the NBA's rules reinterpretations limiting contact on the perimeter before the 2004-05 season. Less aggressive hand checking and well-spaced floors have opened things up for point guards to get to the basket -- usually the strongest part of rookies' games. So why aren't Evans (6.3 WARP) and Rose (3.1) on the list, let alone other young stars at the position such as Russell Westbrook (3.2)? None of them came into the league as polished from the perimeter, which is what separates them from Curry, Irving and Lillard. As much as the modern game now favors quick point guards, the players who have been most able to take advantage of the new rules are those who also come into the league with a polished jump shot. It took a couple of seasons for Rose and Westbrook to learn to draw contact and add enough of a perimeter game to become efficient scorers in terms of true shooting percentage (TS%); Evans still has yet to make that leap. A look at point guards on the All-Rookie First Team since 2008-09 (see table below) illustrates the advantage good outside shooters have when it comes to efficiency as rookies. Recent Rookie Efficiency Leaders Player 3P% 3A/G TS% Stephen Curry .437 4.8 .568 Kyrie Irving .399 3.6 .566 Darren Collison .400 1.5 .546 Damian Lillard .358 6.3 .540 Tyreke Evans .255 2.0 .529 Derrick Rose .222 0.9 .516 John Wall .296 1.7 .494 Russell Westbrook .271 1.6 .490 Ricky Rubio .340 2.3 .476 Brandon Jennings .374 4.7 .475 While Lillard's 35.8 percent 3-point shooting is not as accurate as Irving's or Curry's, he has made up some of the ground with sheer volume. Lillard has attempted 279 3s, which puts him fifth in the NBA. Curry is the only point guard in the league more prolific from downtown than Lillard, which works because the extra point makes his 3-point shots (effective field-goal percentage of 53.8 percent) as valuable as his average scoring play in terms of true shooting percentage. Beyond that, Lillard's shooting ability opens up the rest of his game. Teams can't go under the screen for fear of Lillard pulling up for a 3 -- per Basketball-Reference.com, he leads the NBA with 51 unassisted 3-pointers, just ahead of Curry (46); Irving is tied for fourth with 35. That helps create opportunities for Lillard or the roll man when the Blazers run pick-and-roll. There's one last place where Lillard's shooting is dangerous, and that's with the clock running down. Portland coach Terry Stotts has felt comfortable putting the ball in Lillard's hands to make a decision, and when opponents have played him for the drive, he beat both the Hornets and the Knicks with step-back 3-pointers. Moments such as those will stand out when voters make their selections for Rookie of the Year, and they're representative of how effective Lillard has been throughout his rookie season.
It's pretty amazing that Curry has 46 unassisted 3 pointers and he's shooting 45% on the year. When you think about it, an unassisted three point attempt is probably the second worst shot in basketball (after the long 2 pointer). Creating off the dribble from that far out is almost always a contested or rushed shot (unless the defender has blown by you in panic). And Curry takes more than 1 of these every game. And still shoots 45%. Dang. Anyway, yeah, I love me some Lillard. But it's interesting to see him compared to the All-Timers, the Andre Millers, and the Tyrekes. Lillard will never be All NBA First Team, but he's going to be pretty good.
If someone told me that we would draft a "young Andre Miller with a 3-point shot" I'd be fucking ecstatic, because that's exactly what a good basketball team needs. I'm fucking ecstatic, by the way.
More athletic than Miller, too. But yeah, until I stopped picking on Dre's weakness in shooting and started to appreciate his strenghths, I envisioned someone like Damian Lillard. All that Dre has needed his career is a decent outside shot. Had he had it, he'd have been a perennial All-Star. Yet, he didn't, so that's why he has never been at that level.
