Posts tagged ‘gary payton’

{K. Weidie}

John Wall has shown signs that he’s starting to hit that dreaded rookie wall.  He’s been struggling to fight off injuries, and as a result, his aggressiveness, his explosiveness and his ability to defend opposing point guards has suffered. I’ve been watching basketball long enough to know that all rookies go through this type adversity at some point, let alone rookies who are assigned the arduous task of running a team and saving a franchise. With the Utah Jazz in town to face the Wizards on Martin Luther King afternoon, I knew I would have the opportunity to get some point guard perspective from three different members of that model franchise.

Jazz head coach Jerry Sloan instructed Hall of Fame point guard John Stockton for 15 seasons, and he’s coached All-Star Deron Williams for six. Williams is in the ‘best point guard in the league’ discussion along with Chris Paul, Derrick Rose and Rajon Rondo. His backup, Earl Watson, was coached by former Sonics great point guard Nate McMillan and mentored by a future Hall of Famer Gary Payton.

Among those three men, I was sure I could learn the traits of a good point guard, what Wall might be going through right now and get a good assessment of how he’s progressing almost halfway through the season.

Before the game, Sloan talked about how little the Wall/Williams match-up meant to him, and how important intelligence is to playing point guard:

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(flickr/coolgates)

There was a mini-spike in Randy Foye news last week. On Monday, after watching a video about Foye on NBA.com, I wondered if he could be ‘the’ difference maker.

On Wednesday, the WaPost’s Michael Lee put together a nice piece on Foye off his notes from a previous meeting. Here, we learned of a potential style conflict between Foye and former T-Wolves head coach, current Wizards assistant, Randy Wittman. Lee also related something Kevin McHale once told Foye before a matchup against Dwyane Wade, “Anything he can do, you can do.” Foye battled and finished with 29 points to Wade’s 31. The game came down to a last second foul call that Foye did not get … Wade probably would have.

Predating Wade-Foye comparisons, looking back into John Hollinger’s vault, we find Foye associated with Vinny Del Negro. Before he was drafted in ’06, ESPN compared Foye to Ben Gordon, while NBADraft.net to Chauncey Billups. But it was DraftExpress FTL … in their ‘best’ case, Randy Foye is Mike James; worst case, Juan Dixon. Yuck.

Clearly it’s time to use historical record to compare Foye. Here are the requirements that I plugged into Basketball-Reference.com:

Looking for a season in which a player was: Read more »

See that fella above? That’s “Dinner Bell” Mel Turpin, a member of the cursed Washington Bullets/Wizards draft history … sorta.

Turpin was taken by the Bullets with the 6th overall pick in the famed 1984 NBA Draft … the Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and of course, Sam Bowie draft. Bowie was a teammate of Turpin’s at Kentucky, and while both are known as busts, it’s Bowie’s name that most often gets mentioned amongst NBA basketball infamy.

With Rick Mahorn and Jeff Ruland already holding down the paint, Turpin was immediately traded by then GM Bob Ferry to a team currently generally managed by his son Danny, the Cleveland Cavaliers. In exchange, the Bullets received Cliff Robinson and Tim McCormick, who was promptly sent to the Seattle Sonics, along with Ricky Sobers, for Gus Williams.

Williams lead the ’84-85 Bullets in scoring (20.0) and assists (7.7), while Robinson was fourth on the team in scoring (16.7) and second in rebounding (9.1). That Bullets team improved by five wins over the previous season’s mark to finish 40-42, but still lost to Barkley, Julius Erving, and Moses Malone in the first round of the playoffs.

Williams only played one more year with the team before signing with Atlanta, spending a single season there before retiring. Robinson also spent just one more season in Washington before being traded to Philadelphia, along with Ruland (who would only play 18 games for the Sixers over two seasons), for Moses Malone, Terry Catledge and two first round picks.

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