NBA Current Top 50: #25 Tony Parker

[Allanon]

NBA Top 50: Tony Parker (No. 25)

by Tom Ziller

http://nba.fanhouse.com/2008/09/15/nba-top-50-tony-parker-no-25/

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/nba.fanhouse.com/media/2008/09/tonyparker-tz-425.jpg
Once a spectacle of speed and decisiveness, San Antonio's mousy Tony Parker (http://nba.fanhouse.com/tag/TonyParker/) has turned himself into a bit of a "complete" point guard, degrading his dominance in certain skills to offer a varied arsenal. The shift hasn't exactly worked as planned -- Parker is less efficient this days -- but it has been necessary as the supporting cast of the Spurs weakens due to age (Bruce Bowen, Michael Finley) and free agent losses (Brent Barry).

For two seasons, '05-06 and '06-07, Parker actually had a claim as the king of the league's point guards. And while he's regressed over the past year, he's still among the invisible elite at the position.

What Parker did in '06 and '07: gave up the long jumper in large part, and focused on getting to the rim, where he finishes as well as any shortie. Prior to '05-06, one of every seven Parker FGAs was a three. For a poor outside shooter, that's too much. Over the two top seasons, Parker cut his threes to one every 30 shots. He barely took any threes at all. That's good.

But last season, he returned to the well: one out of 16 shots went for trois. It's low for the league's gunnerific point guards, but twice as frequent as Parker's apparent sweet spot. There was no individualistic reason for this: Parker shot an awful 25% on these, below even his awful 31% career mark. But at the team level, it makes sense that the injury to and brief trade of Barry had an impact: Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili create open threes, and someone needs to take them. Bowen continued to get (and hit) open shots, but he's taking less initiative from the corner than expected. By personnel, it seems Parker was forced into a little bit extra shooting work, and that didn't pay off for anybody.

The real problem with these threes: Parker is way too good under the rim to waste shooting possessions from inefficient spots. No PG in the league finishes in the paint like Parker, and almost no PG gets into the paint with such ease. Duncan's part of the Spurs' eternal "points in the paint" lead, but Parker's the difference-maker there. He shoots over 60% from inside, and has every season of his NBA maturity. 60% on a two-pointer, or 25% on a three? There's no question.

Parker does have to be careful not to become too predictable, though: his turnovers fluctuate, and that's one potential weakness in his driving game. He's not careless with the ball, but you're bound to offer up some easy steals when you put the head down every trip. No one cares about turnovers -- no one has seemingly noticed Jason Kidd has turned into the human "fast break the other way," and Steve Nash rarely gets chided for his carelessness with the ball. And Parker is much more protective than those two. But a turnover, if you can believe it, is worse than a missed longball.

When it seemed Parker had found his outside shot at age 24, I figured we could pencil him in as the third chipmunk in the coming Chris Paul-Deron Williams Wars. That outside shot didn't stay long. As such, while Parker is an unassailable talent and a remarkable floor leader, he's about the fifth best point guard in the NBA, instead of a challenger for the #1 spot. And again, he's only 26. Lots of wins left in this fellow.

[urunobili]

When it seemed Parker had found his outside shot at age 24, I figured we could pencil him in as the third chipmunk in the coming Chris Paul-Deron Williams Wars. That outside shot didn't stay long. As such, while Parker is an unassailable talent and a remarkable floor leader, he's about the fifth best point guard in the NBA, instead of a challenger for the #1 spot. And again, he's only 26. Lots of wins left in this fellow.

yeah right... he actually changed it from consistent to clutch... TP has been hitting some BIG shots for us with his J... i hope everybody remembers the clincher J against the Hornets at their arena this past playoffs... or those three's against Cleveland in 2007... among some other big ones ofcourse... until both Deron Williams and C Punk 3 get a ring... tp >>> than any of them...

[The Reckoning]

but only one can grace the cover of NBA Live '09

[lefty]

About Basketball Contributor Bio - Tom Ziller

Name: Tom Ziller

How You Got Interested in Basketball:
Two words: Duane. Causwell. :lmao

What Makes You Qualified to Write About Basketball:
I made business cards.

Anything You Want To Add:
A side salad with ranch, please.

[spursfan09]

:lol the pic they used.

well I agree with the author that he should go back more to his main moves, and not shoot outside so much. His teardrop was not on display as much this past season, but taht is also because teams focus more on that now. He needs to practice his outside shot and be able to do use in games. The author shouldn't say he's regressed or anything. I mean 07 yes he was finals MVP and he wasn't in 08, but does that mean you weren't as good?

[Allanon]

yeah right... he actually changed it from consistent to clutch... TP has been hitting some BIG shots for us with his J... i hope everybody remembers the clincher J against the Hornets at their arena this past playoffs... or those three's against Cleveland in 2007... among some other big ones ofcourse... until both Deron Williams and C Punk 3 get a ring... tp >>> than any of them...

I have to agree with some parts of the article. Tony Parker seems to have regressed or hit a plateau. It was him and Nash 2 years ago as the number 1 and 2 point guard. I thought he'd take over and become the #1 point guard without question but he just stopped moving up.

Of late, he's much less aggressive it seems. His shooting percentage is way down especially on 3s. I wonder if any of it has to do with Eva (I'd be distracted) or maybe his rap career. I don't feel like he's trying to "prove" anything anymore like he was in his earlier days.

I'd rank Tony Parker as the 4th best point guard right now (1. DWill, 2. CP3, 3. Nash). Maybe he should be ahead of Nash but it's pretty damn close. Tony Parker really SHOULD be #1 but he didn't take it to the next level.

CP3 and DWill don't have anybody close to Duncan level on their team so I don't see any rings for them in the next few years.

[spursfan09]

^^^^ I think Paul and Dwill just got so good, that you don't hear about Tony Parker as much. He didn't do as well last season as them, but he was still very good. he was one of the best pg's in the playoffs last year. It is just Paul got all the talk. The power of the media.

[Tully365]

^^^^ I think Paul and Dwill just got so good, that you don't hear about Tony Parker as much. He didn't do as well last season as them, but he was still very good. he was one of the best pg's in the playoffs last year. It is just Paul got all the talk. The power of the media.

Yeah, I agree. He plays in small-market S.A., in the shadow of the quiet but great Tim Duncan. If he played in NY and married a famous actress and put out a rap CD, he'd be in the national gossip columns every day, and be a much bigger topic of national conversation for both NBA and non-NBA fans.

In the playoffs last year, I thought it was a good thing that Pop had assigned Bowen to defend CP3 in game one, but after going down 2-0 that changed. With Parker as the main defender on Paul and Bowen doing his thing elsewhere, the Spurs won 4 of the next 5 and won the series. Paul may have posted all around better numbers, but I think this (along will Duncan recovering from the flu) was the most important adjustment of that series. Also, we saw last year how the individual stats of KG, Pierce, and Allen all suffered.... not that any of them are complaining. If Parker played for a mediocre team (especially one that didn't play a slow-down-defensive style), he could easily put up more eye-catching numbers...but, again, I doubt he'd prefer that to his current collection of rings.

[MB20]

NBA Top 50: Manu Ginobili (No. 12)
Posted Sep 25th 2008 8:00AM by Tom Ziller (author feed)
Filed under: Spurs

FanHouse's Tom Ziller argues his ranking of the top 50 players in the NBA.

For a few easily ascertained reasons, Manu Ginobili almost never get mentioned in the same breath as the league's top two-guards. He gets ignored in favor of fellows like Michael Redd and, prior to last season, Ray Allen. Manu gets respect -- don't get that twisted. But it's always as a sixth man, as a firestarter and not as one of the best in the NBA, no qualifiers necessary. His role and style are so different from Kobe and Wade and Redd and Iverson that it knocks him out of the conversation, which is unfair to all of us.

Manu, despite being a primary scorer for the Spurs, has never topped 20 points per game. He has also never topped 31 minutes per game. A.I. outscored Manu by seven points a game last season, which would indicate A.I. is the better scorer, right? But when you adjust for minutes (Iverson played 42), the two turn out virtually identical per-minute scoring numbers. There would be a further adjustment for pace, and Ginobili takes fewer FGAs and FTAs per minute than Iverson ... while still being his equal as a scorer.

Ginobili has a tremendous shooting stroke from everywhere on the court. We know all about his slashing efforts, including that old bastion of self-respect and congeniality, the flop. I'm not here to cast judgments on sissy, nancy-boy tactics, though: Manu works to get himself to the charity stripe, but he doesn't rely on it: he's a career 38% three-point shooter, and a guy who takes plenty of those. He's in a similar category as Chauncey Billups and Kevin Martin in terms of maximizing output by focusing on drawing fouls and hitting threes; it's a huge boon to efficiency when you make your toughest shots at the level of highest reward, or when you offset them by drawing a whistle. If you can shoot as well as Manu from distance, you should hit that buzzer repeatedly. Manu realizes this.

One area of Manu's game which is especially strong is rebounding. The Spurs have one of the better rebounders of all-time in Tim Duncan, but one man isn't winning the war on the boards. San Antonio has always focused on adding pieces which rebound well for their position. Manu's a classic case. The average two-guard corrals approximately 6.5-7% of all rebound opportunities when they are on the court. Manu ups that to 9%. It doesn't look like much in the box score -- again, the minutes per game and the glacial S.A. pace dampen the normal counting stats -- but it's a real boon.

Manu has also become an above-average passer. He turns the ball over a little too much, but it's acceptable given his role as primary playmaker when he subs in. (He uses 28% of the Spurs' possessions when he's in the game, an extremely high number.) When we look at Manu's development, it's easy to wonder if perhaps every team could benefit from slotting their best perimeter scorer in as a sixth man. It's a tricky gambit. Last season, S.A. had some truly woeful offensive performances, ones in which the team began a quarter in the tank and couldn't pull themselves out. Two years, Duncan was fresh enough to keep that from happening, and the league hadn't figured out Tony Parker (to the minor degree he has been figured out as of now, that came quite recently). Manu might not have been the team's best weapon two years ago. But he's a little more necessary these days -- and his minutes have been increasing. Could we see Manu slotted back in as a full-time starter once he's back from injury?

That's the key: you have to be able to run an efficient offense without your top threat in order to allow your top threat to come off the bench. A Kings line-up without Kevin Martin is going to get skunked before the six-minute mark. It might work in Milwaukee, which either Redd or Richard Jefferson sliding in off the bench, assuming Andrew Bogut and Charlie Villanueva can put points up. Could Miami put Wade in Team USA mode, and let Shawn Marion and Michael Beasley handle scoring duties early? It's an interesting question each team needs to answer individually. Almost none will decide the ploy is right for them. As I said, the Spurs could very well abandon it, should Parker slip or Michael Finley disappear. And in Manu, they have the perfect player for the strategy. There aren't many others who could do what he does.

http://nba.fanhouse.com/2008/09/25/nba-top-50-manu-ginobili-no-12/#cont

[Dramon]

I have to agree with some parts of the article. Tony Parker seems to have regressed or hit a plateau. It was him and Nash 2 years ago as the number 1 and 2 point guard. I thought he'd take over and become the #1 point guard without question but he just stopped moving up.

Of late, he's much less aggressive it seems. His shooting percentage is way down especially on 3s. I wonder if any of it has to do with Eva (I'd be distracted) or maybe his rap career. I don't feel like he's trying to "prove" anything anymore like he was in his earlier days.

Or maybe the reason he hasn't been as aggressive was partially because of the bone spurs in his foot....

[ulosturedge]

Wasn't he mvp of the finals year before last? TP has been a big part of the last 2 Championships for San Antonio. I guess rings don't count for much these days.

[m33p0]

Or maybe the reason he hasn't been as aggressive was partially because of the bone spurs in his foot....
echoing this reply.

[J_Paco]

People forget that prior to his ankle/heel injury flaring up, Parker was having a career season statistically. He was averaging more assists with less turnovers, while putting up solid scoring numbers. His injury obviously affected his play last year, and I expect him to have a career year with more of the offensive burden (scoring and passing) on his shoulders than ever before.

My prediction for Tony: 20 PPG, 7 APG, 4 RPG, 1 SPG in 35-38 MPG