Harris is the best of the bunch. But I think Bayless is the only Freshmen, and the only turnovers and rebounding are the main diff. between the two. Jack was jr. Westbrook a Soph and Blake a Sr? Or are those career? Was Harris a Soph? Gotta give him credit for making that many 3’s as well, and 19 points in the Wisconsin system is like 30 in AZs.

I’m pretty impressed by Bayless. He wasn’t too far off from Harris’ production as a Freshman. Their production I think is comparable since Harris went to a good program in a solid conference and so did Bayless (AZ, Pac-10). Georgia Tech and Maryland meanwhile, really aren’t Basketball schools. Well maybe Maryland, but there aren’t too many stars from there. The coaching situation in AZ obviously negatively impacted Bayless but he still managed to put up good numbers. He seems like the best shooter of the players listed.

I love Bayless and think he’s the best possible choice. But how many votes do you think Westbrook would have gotten if he had been a Blazer at this time?

I think the true point of this is to show how statistically close the 5 players were. There’s nobody there blowing people out of the water. The big differences I saw: Bayless and Harris were by far the top scorers [due to Jerry Dee’s ability and Harris’s role for that team], Blake was the best distributor [again, due in part to skills and due in part to his role], and Jack had by far the best shooting percentages.

Stuff like this doesn’t take into account the teams they played for or the competition they faced. For instance, Blake’s Maryland teams were absolutely stacked (for the NCAA), while Harris and Bayless had to do most of the scoring for their teams. If memory serves, Jack had a pretty good second banana with him when GT went to the final four. Interesting stuff, but unless you can read between the lines re: their unique situations, I don’t think it says much about who will fair the best in the NBA.

Bayless played SG no PG for Arizona so his assists are going to be down and his scoring is going to be up list like the stats reveal. I watched Bayless and Westbrook towards the end of the Season and was not impressed by either, but they are young dudes with athleticism and the GMs of the league are expecting them to eventually live up to their potential. It may be a while though. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bayless doesn’t start for a couple of years. But if doesn’t start by then. Then I’d say the Blazers gave up to much for him, since Brandon Rush is NBA ready and Jack is at least a solid bench guy and will definitely be in Indiana’s rotation if not starting.

but not a big one. JJ was good, but his days were numbered, and Rush wouldnt have goten any time behind Roy and Rudy. If Bayless doesnt turn out like we hoped, we didnt lose that much….But if he grows, and is as good as we hope, or even better than we hoped, he could be exavtly what we need.

As everyone has said, the fact that Bayless, as a freshmen, compares favorably in most categories with the others later in their career is encouraging. And, as many have noted some numbers, like assists, certainly depend a lot on who is on the team and what type of offensive system the coach runs.

The only red flag I see here is rebounding. Rebounding is one of the more stable statistics in basketball and Bayless numbers aren’t great. I’d argue that there isn’t a huge need for the Blazers to have a PG that can rebound, given the size and rebounding prowess of Oden, but a PG that can get a few offensive rebounds a game is a great way to steal some points.

Bayless compares quite favorably to Harris as a Freshmen:

Devin Harris
Season 2001-02
TEAM Wisconsin
G 32
MIN 1094
MPG 34.18
FG% 41.3
FG3 59
FG3A 161
FG3% 36.6
FT 101
FTA 130
FT% 77.7
PTS/G 12.3
A/G 1.8
ST/G 1.3
B/G 0.6
TO/G 1.65

Looking at these stats, at the college level Westbrook was by far the best defender of the bunch. By far. He got more steals and committed more fouls. It’d be very useful to see points scored against each of these guys when they were in the game. I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to say Westbrook’s would be the low, though that might be somewhat mitigated in instances where the other team’s lead scorer.

Let’s look at this a little more closely with a representative example – in the two games UCLA played USC and Westbrook spent most of his 74 minutes dogging OJ Mayo (likely to be a legit NBA scorer), Mayo had a total of 20 points in 80 minutes, on 7-20 shooting from the field, with FOURTEEN turnovers. Mayo is listed at 6’5”, but he’s measured out at closer to 6’4” – either way we’re not talking about an undersized guard here. Westbrook is going to be a fantastic defender in the NBA, that’s why he went at the fourth pick.

The other thing that jumps out is Westbrook’s great motor – he had by far the most offensive rebounds from among the guards – they’re all about the same size, but Westbrook has a nose for the ball, like Rondo.

Bayless had excellent offensive punch this past season, as the primary scorer for his team (with the overrated Chase Budinger second), but didn’t show the same energy in his defensive effort and rebounding. I think “our guy” this year was Westbrook, but Bayless was an acceptable alternative for what we gave up to get him. Make no mistake, I think Bayless will be the better scorer in the league, but Westbrook was a better fit for the Blazer’s needs.