Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Curry vs. Lawson


Written by TDERIGG2

The other day my boy Ski called me (as he does way too much) during the UNC basketball game, and even though I'm usually reluctant to answer the phone when he calls, because it turns into an hour of pointless breathe wasted, I answered with great caution.

Me: Yo

Ski: Whats goodie son, UNC son!!!!!...they're unstoppableeeeeeeeeeee My man Lawson, Hansborough, Ellington...cant stop themmmmmm!!!!

I knew where this phone call was headed..........right to a 20 minute conversation that I really didn't want to have. ( I was busy trying to take names in Call of Duty 4) It turns out though, that in between me not really listening to him and my 12th Search n Destroy kill....something caught my attention the second it came out of his mouth.

Ski: Son, Ty Lawson is the best point guard in college basketball...

....pause button on the 360....

This pretty boring conversation then turned pretty interesting. I understand he has a personal bias towards UNC and he thinks Tyler Hansborough is probably the next Shaq (his idol) when hes more like the next Adam Morrison (draft DUD), but he brought up some compelling arguments about Ty Lawson.

My quickest response to his Ty Lawson claim, was Steph Curry of Davidson (who I might be obsessed with...NO HOMO) Since Curry has moved to the PG slot his game has improved to tremendous heights, and most noticeably in his passing...as I alluded to two posts ago. So as we continued speaking on the issue his main argument for Ty Lawson was his assist to turnover ratio. Not a bad argument considering his is pretty ridiculous for a college point guard as fast an as energetic as he is. My counter argument is what Steph Curry has to do for his team as opposed to what Ty Lawson has to do for his. Ty Lawson has to facilitate that fast break offense and make sure his super-duper stars get the ball in spots where they can succeed, and he does that to a T. But what Steph Curry has to do for his team supersedes what Ty Lawson has to do by a boat load. Consider that Davidson only has one other main player from that elite 8 run last year and only 1 other player averaging over 10 points per game, (while UNC has 6 PLAYERS THAT AVERAGE 10+ per game) Curry has to score almost half his teams points every night (he is averaging 29.1). So I decided to crunch some numbers and this is what I came up with courtesy of ESPN.com....

NAME GM MIN PTS REB AST TO A/T STL BLK PF FG% FT% 3P% PPS
Stephen Curry1734.129.13.96.53.91.6/13.00.32.4.455.854.3591.40

Ty Lawson 18 27.114.8 2.4 6.7 1.8 3.8/1 2.3 0.2 1.5 .530 .775 .4801.63


If you look at the "True Point Guard stats" , as I call them (AST, TO, A/T)...you can see that they are indeed pretty close. The assists are dead even. The Turnovers are a little high for Curry, but consider him playing 7 more minutes a game then curry...plenty of time to make 2 turnovers a game. The one glaring stat is the assist to turnover ratio. (as my boy Ski pointed out) Whether you account Lawson's high ratio because of his 5 all star teammates or his great decision making is your choice. However it is clear that in terms of true point guard, Lawson is probably a better fit for that term.

As far as I'm concerned though, there is no question at this point I would take Steph Curry over Lawson. The one major stat we left out was the PPG. (And the fact that Steph is the best shooter since Reddick...and may be better then him) Steph Curry is a new breed of point guard, in the mold of Baron Davis, Derek Rose, Deron Williams, and Chris Paul...where scoring becomes a need for the team they are on, therefore hindering some of their true PG statistics.

Either way you can't go wrong with both of them. But if you had to give me a choice right now between Curry and Lawson, traditional PG and New-Style PG....I'm going Curry...all the way to the bank....

No comments:

Post a Comment

Take the time to comment on this work of art!!!