Lillard vs Roy...

[Billy]

Lillard is not an obvious future top 10 player or even a top 5 PG. He certainly has shown enough ability to be a good NBA PG, but he doesn't have more ability than a slightly above average NBA player does. He is only going to be as good as he makes himself through hard work. Maybe he is a very hard worker and by improving his game, he can be an all-star someday. I think that is a realistic goal but who can really say how hard Lillard is going to work to improve. And, who can say how many years he will be a hard worker.

Roy was immediately a top NBA player. He didn't need to improve to be a top 10 player. Roy only needed to stay healthy and he was already a top 10 player.

I suppose a lot of this discussion is fueled by the erroneous belief that Lillard is destined to be a top 5 PG. Well, I know better than to argue about the ordained future improvement of the latest round of NBA up and coming stars.

I guess I can agree to disagree. The trajectory is there, but of course you can't vouch for a players ability to want to maintain. JR Rider and Zach Randolph had the ability to be top players at their positions. Rider never was, and it took Randolph about 8 seasons before got his act together.

It won't be easy for Lillard to "officially" be a top 5 PG when you have players like Paul, Rose, Westbrook, D. Williams and Irving playing like they do, along with guys like Nash that can still command a ton of respect. But assuming that the trajectory continues (which assumes that Lillard won't sustain any major injuries, continues to work hard, and doesn't run into trouble off the court), I think Lillard has a good shot to be one of the top PG's in the game.

[Agenda42]

Lillard is having a better rookie season, statistically speaking.

I don't really think this is the case.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 01&y2=2007

Lillard's advantages: PTS, AST, 3PM, FT%, G.
Roy's advantages: FG%, 3PT%, FTA, REB, STL, TO

Overall, Roy has a decent margin in PER and WS48.

[Shem]

This thread has been mostly comparing third year Roy versus rookie Lillard.

[DaVoiceMaster]

Kinda makes ya wonder if Lillard will garner all of the R.O.Y. votes or will he fall just short, as Roy did when he won?

[Shem]

Lillard is having a better rookie season, statistically speaking.

I don't really think this is the case.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 01&y2=2007

Lillard's advantages: PTS, AST, 3PM, FT%, G.
Roy's advantages: FG%, 3PT%, FTA, REB, STL, TO

Overall, Roy has a decent margin in PER and WS48.

I'd still take Lillard's 157-427 (.368) from 3-point range than Roy's 55-146 (.377) their rookie years as I know from Roy's career numbers from out there that he can't sustain that type of performance if he shot the 3-point shot at a higher volume.

[King d]

biggest improvement i've seen from him this season is his shot selection. no more fadeaway 2's and he's no longer forcing those step back 3's. he was making them at a decent rate but it's just not a good shot to take regardless.

Agree about the step back 3 pointers, but his off the dribble step back/fadeaway from the mid range area is so money that I even consider it a high % shot. I don't want him to stop doing those, it's just beautiful.

[Shem]

Kinda makes ya wonder if Lillard will garner all of the R.O.Y. votes or will he fall just short, as Roy did when he won?

I still want to know who was the voter who voted Bargnani for his only 1st place vote.

http://www.nba.com/news/awards2007_rookie.html

[Wizenheimer]

Kinda makes ya wonder if Lillard will garner all of the R.O.Y. votes or will he fall just short, as Roy did when he won?

I still want to know who was the voter who voted Bargnani for his only 1st place vote.

http://www.nba.com/news/awards2007_rookie.html

that was the play-by-play guy fro Toronto who voted for Bargnani...IIRC, his name is Chuck
Swirsky

[Agenda42]

I'd still take Lillard's 157-427 (.368) from 3-point range than Roy's 55-146 (.377) their rookie years as I know from Roy's career numbers from out there that he can't sustain that type of performance if he shot the 3-point shot at a higher volume.

It's an easy sell to say that Lillard is a better three point shooter than Roy. Dude has unbelievable range. Roy had better shot selection, which resulted in a higher percentage made due to difficult shots not being attempted as often.

I was just trying to list out the quantitative factors in raw form.

[d-train]

Lillard is a talented shooter so he will be a great shooter and scorer. The big question marks are his playmaking and defense. Is he a PG or something else?

[Norm2953]

He's much like Steph Curry but it helps that Nicolas handles the ball and can play the point
forward.

[Shem]

Lillard is a talented shooter so he will be a great shooter and scorer. The big question marks are his playmaking and defense. Is he a PG or something else?

Says the guy who said this...

Not only is Lillard unlikely to be better next season than Felton was last season, I doubt Lillard will be as good a PG as Felton's backup, Crawford. This doesn't mean that I expect Lillard to be a bust. Not many rookie PG's are good. Anyone expecting Lillard to be Brandon Roy will most likely be very disappointed.

The Blazers don’t have any backup plan to Lillard so he is going to play and get numbers. But, he isn’t going to know how to lead an NBA team to victories. Nobody was satisfied with Felton showing up to games and filling the box score. Felton was expected to help the Blazers win games and after the expectations were removed, Felton was better. At least Lillard has low expectations in his favor. It was fair to expect results from Felton but it isn’t reasonable to expect great results from Lillard.

I don’t know if Lillard will be a great NBA player or a bad NBA player. I can wait to see him play a few NBA games before I decide what he is capable of accomplishing. I will not be surprised if he and the team struggle and are bad next year. If Lillard is good, obviously that dramatically improves the Blazers chances of being competitive. But, you would have to be living in a fantasy world to think the Blazers have a good chance to win more than 30 games next year with the information we have right now.

And this:

We have a lot riding on a rookie PG who is going to make fat Felton look like a 1st team All-NBA player.

[Case2012]

lol at D train...But in fairness, I had my reservations about him too. I was really hoping for Marshall for months. If he defense wasn't such a drawback of him being on the floor, and he got starter minutes I think he'd be in the top 3 for assists.

[Wizenheimer]

Lillard's supposed defensive weaknesses are being greatly exaggerated.

many of his defensive numbers are better then most other PG's

probably because it's next to impossible to defend NBA PG's anyway

[Clarity]

Maybe I have amnesia but I remember a lot of people calling Lillard for what he is now pre draft. His elite shooting assured he was gonna be a pretty darn good scorer. Him maintaining basically an All Star level of play his entire rookie campaign was a little surprising to some i'm sure but that wasnt hard to see either.