The return of the 2-guard

The development of young guns like Klay Thompson and improvements by Monta Ellis and other vets have the SG position on the rise.

In 2011, just three shooting guards (Kobe Bryant, Monta Ellis, Joe Johnson) finished in the top 20 of scoring. The rise of ball-handling “point” forwards and emergence of scoring point guards diminished the role of shooting guards. Why draw up plays for your 2 when your point guard and small forward could both score and create more efficiently?  It seemed the decline in production and talent at the position would continue as the league struggled to find young 2-guards. Kobe was (and is) at the end of his career, Dwyane Wade struggled with injuries and age, James Harden had yet to emerge, and the rest of the pack lacked star potential. Shortly after the lockout ended, Bill Simmons wrote “since Jordan’s heyday, there were always enough quality 2-guards to go around; that’s not the case anymore.” He broke down the position like this:

FRANCHISE GUYS	ALL-STARS	POTENTIAL ALL-STAR	SCORERS ONLY	SURE-THING STARTERS	EFFICIENT VETERANS	UP-AND-COMERS	POSSIBLE UPSIDE GUYS
Dwyane Wade	Joe Johnson	Eric Gordon	Monta Ellis	James Harden	Ray Allen	Demar DeRozan	Evan Turner
Kobe Bryant	Manu Ginobili		Kevin Martin	Wesley Matthews	Jason Richardson	Nick Young	Marcus Thorton
				Arron Affalo	Jason Terry	OJ Mayo	JR Smith
							Gordon Heyward
							Klay Thompson

Not a very pretty picture for the spot that housed Jordan, Clyde Drexler, and Reggie Miller. But in the last two years, the off guard position has seen a revival. Last season, six of the top 25 NBA scorers played at the 2. This year has brought even more production from shooting guards. 7 of the top 20 scorers are off guards, despite the fact that Kobe has yet to play and Dwyane Wade has seen his minutes go down. So what happened in the last two years to create this spike in production? Let’s use Simmons’s chart to explain it.

FRANCHISE GUYS	ALL-STARS	POTENTIAL ALL-STARS	SCORERS ONLY	SURE-THING STARTERS	EFFICIENT VETERANS	UP-AND-COMERS	UPSIDE GUYS
Dwyane Wade	Arron Affalo	Bradley Beal	JR Smith	Wesley Matthews	Ray Allen	Gordon Hayward	Victor Oladipo
Kobe Bryant	Monta Ellis	Klay Thompson	Kevin Martin		Manu Ginobili	Lance Stephenson	Ben McLemore
James Harden			Nick Young		Joe Johnson	Jimmy Butler
			Demar DeRozan		OJ Mayo
					Jamal Crawford

Players who switch roles are italicized and players who were added to the chart are in bold. The most important change in the chart comes in the first column. James Harden’s leap from potential star to budding superstar has given Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant a heir.

James Harden is the heir apparent to Kobe and Wade.

Wade is playing efficiently thus far in 2013. He’s posted the best shooting percentage of his career, while scoring 20+ points in seven of his last eight games. But, Wade has already sat out three games (probably just resting, but still) and is playing the second lowest minutes per game of his career. Kobe isn’t Kobe anymore and his Achilles injury makes me worried he’ll be a shell of what he was last season. But if anyone can come back from that injury, it’s Kobe and I think he will. When he comes back, expect him to put up a lot of shots and points as he gets closer to the all-time scoring record. Neither player will play much longer so Harden’s arrival is a massive boost to the position. Harden still needs to work on his defense (a lot) to sustain the title, but his offensive play and leadership last season make him the franchise player that the position desperately needed.

Last season saw four other off-guards step up in addition to Harden. JR Smith took home the NBA’s Sixth man of the year last season. He still took a lot of shots, ranging amazing to atrocities against the game, but he made plays for a Knicks team that needed them. Smith showed that he could live his wild life off the court while remaining competent on the court. Then this happened:  He failed to shoot 40% from the field the rest of the playoffs. Smith missed the first five games this year due a suspension and has struggled mightily after knee surgery. So he may fall off the list as the year progresses, but for now JR is a competent scorer. Jamal Crawford could’ve won the sixth man award from his performance last year. He scored almost 15 points a game in 26 minutes and shot the 4th highest shooting percentage of his career. Unlike JR Smith, Crawford has played better this season. He’s shooting better(45.5%, up from 43.8%), making threes more often(2.2 a game, 39.8%), and ranks 6th in the NBA on pull-up shot efficiency. He’ll play less minutes this year because JJ Redick has contributed this year for the Clips. This may make him less valuable during the regular season, but the rest might help the 33-year old stay fresh and healthy for the playoffs. Jimmy Butler and Lance Stephenson both announced themselves during the playoffs last year. Both showed flashes of their potential during the regular season and contributed mainly in small, defensive roles. Butler’s Game 1 performance against the Heat (21 points, 14 rebounds, played entire game) solidified his status as an up-and-comer. Stephenson also had 20 point games in last year’s playoffs series against the Knicks and the Heat. Both have seen more time this season and have each improved.

A slew of shooting guards outside of Butler and Stephenson have progressed this year. Monta Ellis’s improvement is probably the most surprising. Mr. Have it all has gotten better in every aspect of his game and eliminated shots that made his game inefficient. Monta leads the league in drives and points off drives and he’s doing much of it on pick-and-rolls. He also moved closer to the basket this season, taking 62.4% of his shots from within 16 ft as opposed to 53.7% last season. Ellis is just scoring, he’s dishing out 6 assists a game. He’s leading the Mavs’ resurgence this season and it looks like Monta has finally found the perfect team (check out this article by Tom Ley for more on Monta).

Arron Afflalo has been playing at a all-star level this year.

Another veteran 2-guard is reaching new heights this year.  Arron Afflalo saw his role increased by the Magic this year and has responded with the best season of his career so far. The 28-year old currently has career highs in minutes(36.8), field goal attempts(15.3), 3pt attempts(5.2), 3pt percentage (50%!!) rebounds(4.7), and finally points(21.7). He’s been at an all-star level this season for Orlando, but he still might get traded this year. The Magic might see an opportunity to snag draft picks by trading Afflalo.

Around the league, shooting guards are contributing in a big way so far. Bradley Beal is maturing into a bright, young star. Demar DeRozan has scored almost at will and shows signs of growth in every facet of his game. The two off guards taken in the top 5, Victor Oladipo and Ben McLemore, have impressed many thus far. Both have fantastic dunks this season that you should really watch if you haven’t yet (Oladipo over the Hawks and McLemore from the free throw line). Wesley Matthews stepped his game this season, Gordon Hayward will improve his shooting in search of a big contract, and Ray Allen is excelling in his role this season. Specialists like JJ Redick and Kyle Korver impact their teams so much that they’ve earned extra time. So top to bottom, the shooting guard position has added another superstar, potential stars, and plenty of depth. The great drought of 2 guards might finally be coming to an end and one of the NBA’s premier positions is back.

Random Thoughts on Game 7

Tonight’s game means everything to the Heat and their future.

So tonight is one of the most important nights in recent NBA history. The Heat, at the center of so many of these nights the past 3 seasons, will take on the suddenly validated Pacers in Game 7 of the Eastern Finals. The game no doubt will be amazingly tense, hard fought, and well played. LeBron James may go off for 50 or Paul George could shut him down and hit a game winner. Dwyane Wade could return to 2008 Dwyane Wade and win his way back into the hearts of Heat fans or Lance Stephenson could prove his status as a “Rucker Park Legend”. My point is enjoy the game as a fan and don’t let the announcers, blown calls, pouting, flopping or the rest of the ridiculous stuff take away from the beautiful basketball we seen in this series. Since 2000, only eight of the 36 conference finals and finals have featured a game 7 and most of them were instant classics (somehow the Heat have been in the last three game 7s in the conference finals). So sit down in front of your tv or at a bar, grab a beer (and heart medication for Heat and Pacers), and enjoy the game.

All that being said, I’m terrified as a Heat fan. I know I will not enjoy the game because I’ll be shouting and throwing things. I believe the Heat will win, but the mere prospect of not getting back to the finals frightens me more than almost anything for various reasons. The game should be great and I figured I’d collect some of my thoughts pregame before I collapse into a heap of emotions:

>>This game means more to the Heat than it does for the Pacers. That’s not to say the Pacers won’t play as hard as they possibly can, but rather there’s more consequences for the Heat should they lose. The Pacers have a golden future ahead of them should they stay healthy. They might come in as the favorites next season even if they lose. On the other hand, the Heat have so much riding on this game. Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh have not effected this series in any positive way for Miami, the supporting cast outside of Udonis Haslem and Chris Andersen has disappeared, and, for the first time since the Decision, it feels like Lebron is angry with his teammates. Should they lose tonight, Pat Riley (assuming he doesn’t retire) will have a decision on whether to hope this group is enough for one more championship or if he needs to make moves to ensure not only success but also Lebron stays in Miami after 2013. This series has made Wade seem less like a superstar and more like an aging vet. His trade value may not get better than it is this summer and Riley may see a window to bring a replacement in and shed salary without tremendous backlash from fans. The whole bench could change. In short, the entire Heat’s future, and by extension, the NBA’s are on the line tonight. I think the Heat know this and their sense of urgency will be at all time high. (Yeah, this game is going to be a classic)

>>The officiating in this series has been horrendous both ways. Every game has seen the refs ruin three or four key moments by making a bad call. They rob us of a potential great ending by calling a moving screen on Lebron forcing him out of the game with two minutes in game 2. Refs can call moving screens on almost every screen set in the NBA and to call it in that situation was frankly a dick move. They launched a (unsuccessful) Heat comeback in game 4 by calling a shot clock violation after Roy Hibbert clearly hit the rim with a shot.  They stopped a Heat surge with a terrible charge/offensive foul call on Lebron that completely shifted the momentum in game 6. The NBA will have to do a review on these refs and calls because it’s ruining one of the best Conference Finals ever.

>>On the flip side, please everyone stop flopping and whining to refs over EVERY SINGLE CALL. Bitching and moaning to the refs never succeeds in changing a call (Maurice Lucas, the Blazers forward from the Walton era, actually intimidated a referee into changing a call once but that’s different) and it irks me to see this great players ignoring the game to complain. As for flopping, I get it. Anything to win a game and if flopping wins games, anyone would do it. But, come on. Just one game, no flopping, no complaining, just basketball.

>>Go HEAT.