These Are My Favorite Players to Watch
Four guys that are worth the price of what ever it is you pay to see them play.
With the upcoming NBA season just days away, I wanted to highlight the players I’ll be keeping my eye on all season long. Fair warning: It’s guard-heavy. I grew up intensely watching all of the great point guards (the best position in all of sports) and 3 out of the 4 players that made my list are point guards. These are the guys I find the most joy in watching.
Here are my random thoughts on each player in no particular order.
Let’s start with the least surprising shall we?
Stephen Curry
How could he not be on anyone’s must-watch list? Earlier this summer I dedicated an entire article to solely examining his warmup routine. People will come early to Warriors games just to catch of glimpse of him warming up. What he’s done the past couple of years has never been seen before.
He shattered his own 3-pointers in a season record. I mentioned it in my article back in August and I’ll mention it again: hitting 402 3-pointers would be like hitting over 100 home runs in baseball (the current record is 73*).
Coming out of college we all knew he was a great shooter — we witnessed it in his 3 years at Davidson — what we didn’t know was how his game would translate into the NBA. For every Stephen Curry — oh wait we’ve never see anyone like him — okay well, for every college sharpshooter (whose athletic abilities are questionable) that ends up having success in the NBA there are plenty of Jimmer Fredettes and Adam Morrisons that don’t. That’s just how it goes.
Even during Steph’s early years in the league we had no idea he’d be this good. Yes, he did have problems with his ankle, but even when healthy I don’t think we saw this coming. It was just 4 seasons ago that he wasn’t even an all-star (actually he should’ve been an all-star in 2013 over Dwight Howard IMO).
Think about it, Steph went from border line All-Star to All-Star to Superstar to 2-time MVP and the greatest shooter we’ve ever seen in the span of only 3 seasons.
Will he take it a step further this year and break his own 3-point record? Who knows? With the addition of Kevin Durant I’m not inclined to think it’ll happen — there’s only one ball to go around between Steph, KD, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green. My guess is that there will be a collective sacrifice between all four guys. They’re all going to have to be okay with getting a couple less shots a game. We’ll see how it pans out. Steve Kerr has his work cut out for him.
Regardless of how this Warriors experiment works out, Steph will go down as one of the greatest — if not the greatest — shooter of all time. And it’s been a pleasure to watch.
Damian Lillard
I’ve kept my eye on Damian Lillard ever since he was in college. I remember hearing about a dude playing at Weber State that had NBA potential. The reason my ears perked up when I heard that was because Weber State is in the same conference as Montana and Montana State — our only two Division I schools in the state. It’s not very often that NBA players pass through the Big Sky conference, so I was hopeful when I heard about Lillard. I really wanted him to make it because of that Big Sky connection.
It’s safe to say that he’s lived up to expectations from the day he stepped onto the NBA floor as he was the 2013 Rookie of the Year. He’s only made the All-Star team once and even then that was only because of injury and that’s a shame. It’s a shame that he has to battle with the likes of Curry, Chris Paul, and Russell Westbrook (guys that are a lock to make the team perennially) for a spot on the roster. If he were in the East, he’d be at least a 3-time All-Star by now.
On a side note, we really need to look at how we select our All-Stars. It makes no sense that Lillard would be left off the team considering he’s one of the best point guards (if not players) in the league. The imbalance between conferences shows itself not only in the teams, but in the players as well. Lillard deserved a spot in the All-Star Game over about half of the entire East team.
Don’t think so? Tell me then, how can you be All-NBA, but not an All-Star? Conference imbalance. Lillard made Second Team All-NBA, while only four players from the East even made All-NBA (LeBron, Paul George, Andre Drummond (?), and Kyle Lowry).
Yeah, it’s time we change up the selection process for the All-Star game. I say top 24 guys straight up. But I’ll save this topic for another time.
Back to Lillard, I think he’s going to have a great season. I like what he said about the Warriors and taking the monster down. I think he’s going to be extra motivated to go up against his hometown team, a team he usually plays very well against. Last year he posted games of 40, 51, 38, 30, 40, and 36 against the Dubs (including the Playoffs). I’m looking forward to seeing more of the same.
The Trailblazers surprised a lot people by even making the playoffs last season. They gave Golden State all they could handle in a tough 5-game series in the Conference Semifinals. Everyone expected Portland to be a lottery team, instead they grabbed the 5th seed in the ultra competitive Western Conference. It’s a testament to both Lillard and Coach Terry Stotts for keeping the Blazers competitive.
Is Lillard primed to be an MVP candidate this year? I think if the Blazers can build off of the success they had last year and fight for a top–3 seed in the West (who knows?), then I don’t see why he wouldn’t be mentioned.
Kawhi Leonard
How can anyone not like Kawhi Leonard? Even the nicest guys in sports seem to still have haters, but I’ve yet to hear anyone say a bad thing about Kawhi. Even the Spurs haters have a hard time trying to discredit anything he does, just because he’s so quiet and lacks outward emotion.
Everybody has haters though, and it makes me wonder who Kawhi’s are. They’re most likely the same people that don’t like pizza. Or don’t have turkey for Thanksgiving. Or they pass out carrots on Halloween.
You know what I’ve come to realize? Kawhi doesn’t give us a reason to dislike him. He is one of the top 5 players in the league, but he doesn’t act like it. He doesn’t draw attention to himself, he’s not a diva, he’s not a cry baby. All of that makes for someone that people enjoy watching. We can all get behind a guy like that.
Everyone talks about being humble and staying humble, well Kawhi exemplifies what humble looks like. He’s someone we all can root for. And I haven’t even mentioned his game yet.
One of Kawhi’s most “Kawhi” moments was when he snuck in and won the Defensive Player of the Year award in 2015. He had been out of the lineup for a big chunk of that season with an injured hand, so I think many of the NBA writers weren’t really mentioning his name as someone to win the award.
Remember everyone thought it was between Draymond Green and DeAndre Jordan to win the award? So much so that even their coaches started campaigning for their own guy. Then Kawhi swooped in and snatched it from their hands leaving both guys (and their coaches) looking somewhat foolish. Probably my favorite Kawhi moment so far.
But let’s talk about his defense, as he’s one of the best all around defenders in the league. He has the ability to guard smaller guys out on the perimeter, but he’s also big enough to check LeBron. Not many guys can do that. Even LeBron knows how tough he is.
One of my favorite things about Kawhi’s defense is his ability to make a play even when his man beats him off the dribble. A lot of defenders will yell for help once their man gets past them, but the intelligent defenders know that if they can ride the hip of the guy they’re guarding, they can still make a play on the ball.
Kawhi is excellent at blocking shots this way. He’ll stay on his man’s hip after being beat off the dribble and then block the shot by sliding over to the outside hand of his man.
Watch how Leonard stays on Lillard’s hip after getting beat. Then when Lillard goes up Kawhi slides over to the outside of Damian to block his shot and avoid the foul. It’s just one of the many things that Kawhi is excellent at.
So when you’re watching the Spurs this year pay close attention to Kawhi’s defense after getting beat of the dribble. He’ll usually make a play.
Isaiah Thomas
Isaiah Thomas is one of my favorite players to watch for a couple of reasons. Not only do I like the style of his game, but I also like him for the fact that he can do what he does in today’s NBA while being under 6 foot.
Isaiah and I are exactly the same height as well. He’s listed at 5’ 9”, but even he’s admitted that he’s actually 5’ 8” on a good day. Every time I watch him play I think to myself, so that’s how’d I’d look standing next to a bunch of NBA players. In all honesty, when I see him out there he doesn’t look as short as you think he would. I mean you can definitely tell he’s the smallest guy out there, but he doesn’t look as crazy as Mugsey Bouges or Earl Boykins did.
The fact that Isaiah is an All-Star in a league that is more and more starting to value the 6’ 7” do-everything-guard-all-positions type of player says a lot. And I mean a lot.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard in the past few months that, yeah he’s an All-Star and Boston’s best player, but he’s no superstar. He can’t be your best player if you want to win a championship.
That may or may not be true, but I feel like people are dismissing him just because of his height. If he was 6’ 2” I don’t think anyone would be saying that.
Let’s compare him to another player that’s around the same age — one who is looked at much differently and is often called a superstar. Is it because he’s taller?
Isaiah Thomas (’15–16): 22.2 points, 6.2 Assists, 3.0 Rebounds, 42.8 FG%, 35.9 3-point FG%, 87.1 FT%, 21.5 PER.
Mystery Player X (’15–16): 19.6 points, 4.7 Assists, 3.0 Rebounds, 44.8 FG%, 32.1 3-point FG%, 88.5 FT%, 19.9 PER.
Can you guess who our Mystery Player is? I’ll give you a hint: He hit probably the biggest shot of the year last season.
If you guessed Kyrie Irving then you’d be right.
Yes, the number one pick in the 2011 NBA Draft has a very similar stat line to the guy taken last in that very same draft. They’ve had similar stat lines from the time they’ve entered the league.
Isaiah Thomas (Career): 17.1 points, 5.0 Assists, 2.6 Rebounds, 43.7 FG%, 36.2 3-point FG%, 86.3 FT%, 19.7 PER.
Kyrie Irving (Career): 20.8 points, 5.5 Assists, 3.4 Rebounds, 45.2 FG%, 37.8 3-point FG%, 86.5 FT%, 20.9 PER.
Why then do we view the players so differently? Is it because one of them is under 6’?
That’s why I appreciate Thomas’ game so much, he’s able to be one of the best players on the court at any given time despite being the shortest player on the court almost all the time.
Do it for the under 6 footers Isaiah.
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Originally published at roundballsupply.co.
