Damian Lillard, who are and who are not good comparables

The genesis of this entire concept was watching people, including ourselves, try to find a way to understand and describe a player, especially when a player is drafted. What are this players strengths, and weaknesses, what has he really done in the past, how do you encapsulate the entirety of a player in a way that is both accurate, but is also expressed in a way that he generally easy to understand and fit into the most appropriate context. One thing that we have seen a lot this year, as well as in years past, is a desire and effort to find comparable’s (comps) for rookies, and young players. Pundits and the media are full of opinions of who are good comps. In baseball there is an entire field of study devoted to this type of analysis, and every year the Baseball Prospectus comes out and it is chock full of player comparables. All during the run-up to the draft, during the draft, and after the draft there were dozens and dozens of attempts to find good comps for the players we drafted. Our goal with this effort is to create a methodology that can accurately describe and understand a player as holistically as possible, and then using as much data as is available and relevant about a given player, find the players that are the most similar.

Similarity can be viewed a number of different ways, and our approach is to try and create the most thorough measurement of a player we can, using the data that is available. This measurement of the player should consider their statistical performances in college, as well as the player’s physical attributes, and athleticism. The tool we have developed considers 48 different statistical measurements of a players college performance, expressed as averages and ratios, and also 22 measurements of a players length/athleticism/physical attributes, expressed as raw number, ratios, and also these measurements relative to a standard.

Now it is absolutely not our desire to be deliberately provocative; we find that kind of prose and style to be contrived, and simply a way to drive attention, rather than focusing on the subject matter. Our hope is that we are very objective in our approach, and as intellectually honest as we can be. We hope you find our efforts useful and enlightening.

Damian Lillard

If there is one thing we have in common with everyone here is that we like you are Blazer fans; there is no franchise anywhere that we are more passionate about. Like everyone here we are always pulling for “Our” Blazer players to succeed; ok, not entirely true, there are a few in our recent past that we weren’t always pulling for. When we started our study we were amazed at how many people had such dramatically different opinions of Damian Lillard. Our goal is to be as objective as we can and set aside any hyperbole, and focus on the known’s available to us.

Physical Attributes, Length and Athleticism

Here are all of Damian Lillard’s actual physical measurements.

Name	Height Inches no Shoes	Height Inches w/shoes	Weight (lbs)	Body Fat (%)	Hand Length (inches)	Hand Width (Inches)	Reach in Inches	Wingspan Inches	No Step Vert (In)	Max Vert (In)	Sprint (sec)	Agility (sec)	Bench (reps)
Damian Lillard	73.75	74.75	189	5.9	8.75	9.75	95.5	79.75	34.5	39.5	3.34	11.15	13

This data alone is interesting, but how does it relate to other players? Our next step was to place all players into a context relative to other players, expressed as the percentile ranking.

	Height Inches no Shoes	Height Inches w/shoes	Weight	Body Fat	Hand Length	Hand Width	Reach	Wing span	No Step Vert Reach	Max Vert Reach	No Step Vert	Max Vert	Sprint	Agility	Bench
Damian Lillard	36.1%	35.5%	23.6%	83.9%	28.6%	55.0%	31.7%	45.3%	75.4%	77.4%	81.6%	75.6%	54.1%	69.6%	46.2%

To describe this data in common language, for all players within a population of about 1700 players, Damian Lillard is in the 36th percentile for height, the 23rd percentile for total weight, the 83rd percentile for lack of body fat, the 71st percentile for the ¾ count sprint, and the 69th percentile for agility.

The next step in this process is to understand how these various measurements relate, and if we can make any judgments using them. In our study we found that there are some strong correlations between the most commonly available variables data (such as height, weight, but including others as well) to other variables such as wingspan, reach, no step vertical, agility, and speed. The results we believe have a great deal of meaning, (the r2 is as high 99%+, with P Values of nearly 0). In other words with other data we can predict what an average player of a given height should have for wingspan, or agility, and determine the difference from a specific player, to give a sense of the players measurable “RELATIVE” to that of another player. For instance with Damian Lillard we determine how different he is from a player of the same general height or height and weight;

Name	Amount greater weight than expected (in lbs)	Amount longer wingspan than expected (in inches)	Amount longer reach than expected (in inches)	Amount higher vertical than expected (in inches)	Amount Speed faster than expected	Amount more agile than expected (in sec)	Number of additional bench reps than expected
Damian Lillard	-4	1.83	-3.23	2.58	-0.2	-0.48	2

Damian Lillard’s weight is 4 pounds less than you would expect, his wingspan is 1.83” longer than you would expect, but his reach is 3.23” less than you would expect. Athletically, Lillard ¾ sprint time was 0.2 seconds slower than the average of players his general height and weight, and his time in the agility drill was 0.48 seconds slower than players of a similar size. The following is a table of selected players looking at their actual measurable, and their relationship to the standard.

Name	Height Inches no Shoes	Weight	Weight > than standard (in lbs)	Reach in Inches	Reach > than standard (in inches)	Wingspan Inches	Wingspan > than standard (in inches)
Damian Lillard	73.75	189	-4	95.5	-3.23	79.75	1.83
Ronnie Price	72.75	185	-5	96.5	-0.25	77.5	0.63
Ben Gordon	73	192	1	99	0.41	80.5	3.37
Mike Conley Jr	71.75	175	-6	94.5	-1.22	77.75	1.99
Armon Johnson	74	195	2	99.5	0.44	80	1.81
Deron Williams	73.75	202	9	98	0.09	78.25	0.33
Jeff Teague	72.25	175	-14	98.5	1.02	79.5	3.16
Derrick Rose	73.5	196	4	98.5	-0.19	80	2.34
Russell Westbrook	74.25	192	-2	100	0.9	79.75	1.3
Austin Rivers	75.5	203	6	96.5	-3.26	79.25	-0.52
George Hill	73.25	181	-10	97.5	-1.55	81	3.61
Jonny Flynn	71.25	196	16	95.5	0.93	76	0.77
Bradley Beal	75.25	202	5	100	0.01	80	0.49
Kendall Marshall	75.25	198	1	96	-2.61	77.5	-2.01
Stephen Curry	74	181	-12	97	0.42	75.5	-2.69
Rodney Stuckey	75.75	207	9	100.5	0.56	79.25	-0.79
John Wall	74.75	196	1	101.5	1.2	81.25	2.27
Marcus Thornton	74.75	194	-1	99	1.04	77	-1.98
Brandon Knight	73.5	177	-15	98.5	0.5	78.75	1.09
Eric Gordon	74	222	29	99	-0.61	81	2.81

Name	Height Inches no Shoes	Weight	No Step Vert	Vertical > than standard (in inches)	Sprint	Speed > than standard (in sec)	Agility	Agility > than standard (in sec)
Damian Lillard	73.75	189	34.5	2.58	3.34	-0.2	11.15	-0.48
Ronnie Price	72.75	185	31.5	2.56	3.29	-0.15	10.49	0.23
Ben Gordon	73	192	31.5	2.18	3.19	-0.08	11.28	-0.38
Mike Conley Jr	71.75	175	35.5	4.68	3.09	-0.05	11.63	-1.05
Armon Johnson	74	195	31.5	2.52	3.19	-0.03	11.25	-0.24
Deron Williams	73.75	202	30	2.4	3.25	-0.11	10.83	-0.01
Jeff Teague	72.25	175	30.5	1.04	3.18	-0.07	11.05	-0.19
Derrick Rose	73.5	196	34.5	5.05	3.05	0.05	11.69	-0.76
Russell Westbrook	74.25	192	30	1.05	3.08	0.11	10.98	0.14
Austin Rivers	75.5	203	32.5	1.12	3.32	-0.09	11.54	-0.65
George Hill	73.25	181	34	1.71	3.07	0.04	12.2	-1.29
Jonny Flynn	71.25	196	33	6.48	3.23	-0.19	10.86	-0.34
Bradley Beal	75.25	202	33	3.95	3.28	-0.05	10.95	0.16
Kendall Marshall	75.25	198	31	0.9	3.23	-0.04	12.03	-1.19
Stephen Curry	74	181	29.5	1.79	3.28	-0.09	11.07	-0.21
Rodney Stuckey	75.75	207	30.5	2.81	3.11	0.1	11.34	-0.16
John Wall	74.75	196	30	0.94	3.14	0.07	10.84	0.38
Marcus Thornton	74.75	194	31	4.13	3.28	-0.08	10.73	0.26
Brandon Knight	73.5	177	29	-1.19	3.07	0.13	10.74	0.31
Eric Gordon	74	222	32	3.25	3.01	0.13	10.81	0.15

Overall, in comparing Damian Lillard to the 1700 players in the Draftexpress.com database, it is fair to say that for a player of his height he has a little above average length, with good wingspan and vertical, but a poor reach. Athletically he would be described as about average, as he has a good vertical, and he is stronger than typical, but his ¾ court sprint time was slow for a player of his size, and his time in the agility drill was a full ½ second slower than an average player of his height and weight. This general conclusion that Damian Lillard is an average athlete wasn’t a shock to us, as Chad Buchanan has expressed the same general opinion.

At this point we are not taking a position that Damian Lillard’s relative athleticism is inherently a negative, it is simply a fact. Athleticism or length alone do not define success or failure. Speedy Claxton was an incredibly explosive athlete, and very much a mediocre NBA player. The last decade of his career Arvydas Sabonis was a poor athlete, and he was an utterly exceptional basketball player. Of course Lebron James is perhaps as close to a complete athlete as we have ever seen, and he is the best player on the planet.

When you look at these various physical attributes, which players are the most similar to Damian Lillard? Here is the list of the top 15 of players who were drafted, or have played in the league (there are others who fit into this category, but didn’t play in the NBA).

Name	Year of Combine	Total Composite	Physical Attribute	Length	Strength & Athleticism
Damian Lillard	2012	100.00%	100.00%	100.00%	100.00%
Ronnie Price	2005	94.47%	94.63%	93.51%	94.97%
Ben Gordon	2004	94.15%	93.63%	91.76%	95.48%
Eddie Gill	2000	94.06%	92.42%	92.33%	95.65%
Derrick Zimmerman	2003	94.04%	93.60%	92.35%	94.11%
Mike Conley Jr	2007	94.01%	94.68%	95.19%	92.78%
Jimmer Fredette	2011	88.09%	88.74%	85.01%	88.67%
E'Twaun Moore	2011	93.34%	94.03%	90.48%	92.24%
Darius Johnson-Odom	2012	93.32%	93.83%	95.79%	92.12%
Charlie Bell	2001	93.28%	95.68%	94.76%	90.94%
Chris Paul	2005	93.13%	92.38%	91.71%	94.36%
Marcus Denmon	2012	92.90%	94.41%	94.05%	90.10%
Javaris Crittenton	2007	92.82%	91.76%	90.63%	94.30%
John Jenkins	2012	92.56%	92.84%	92.85%	93.07%
Luther Head	2005	92.46%	91.28%	89.91%	94.39%
Armon Johnson	2010	92.44%	93.60%	93.13%	90.99%
Derrick Rose	2008	92.35%	94.30%	93.45%	88.92%

There are 4 measurements,

1.) total composite - Which is the average of the physical attributes, length, and athleticism, acknowledging that height, wingspan, reach, no step vertical, and max vertical our counted in multiple categories.

2.) physical attributes - Which is height, weight, body fat, reach, wingspan, and hand size

3.) length - Which is height, reach, wingspan, vertical

4.) athleticism - Speed, agility, strength, and vertical.

As you can see Mike Conley and Ronnie Price are the most similar to Damian Lillard in terms of the physical attributes; Darius Johnson-Odom and Mike Conley are the most similar in terms of length: and Ben Gordon and Eddie Gill are the most similar athletically. In aggregate Ronnie Price and Ben Gordon are the most physically similar.

A number of people have made the comparison between Lillard and Derrick Rose. Lillard’s physical attributes are similar to Rose, but athletically the similarity falls off. Just to put that into perspective the following players are more athletically similar to Lillard than Derrick Rose is;

Luke Babbitt, Eduardo Najera, Maarty Luenen, Luke Jackson, Mark Madsen, Joakim Noah, and DeJuan Blair.

Statistical Comparisons

The next step in the process was to do a statistical similarity study. Now this is one of our first efforts, and we would like this process to be a broader, but simply put we compared Damian Lillard’s redshirt-Junior season (2011-12) to 1625 players who have been drafted, or finished college in the last 11 years, and then played in the NBA. We got our data for this from Draftexpress.com, http://www.draftexpress.com/stats.php, and basketball-reference.com, http://www.basketball-reference.com/. From this study we identified the following players as good statistical comps for Damian Lillard.

Name	Stats Similarity	Team	Season	Class
Damian Lillard	100.00%	Weber State	2011-12	RS Jr
Rodney Stuckey	89.92%	Eastern Wash.	2006-07	So
George Hill	89.98%	IUPUI	2007-08	Sr
Ben Gordon	88.29%	Connecticut	2003-04	Jr
Stephen Curry	89.43%	Davidson	2007-08	So
Marcus Thornton	90.16%	LSU	2008-09	Sr
Ronnie Price	88.15%	Utah Valley State	2004-05	Jr
Randy Foye	89.24%	Villanova	2005-06	Sr
Jerryd Bayless	89.08%	Arizona	2007-08	Fr
Morris Almond	89.40%	Rice	2006-07	So
Jameer Nelson	90.10%	Saint Joseph's	2002-03	So
Devin Harris	91.83%	Wisconsin	2003-04	Jr
Luis Flores	90.11%	Manhattan	2002-03	So
Jimmer Fredette	92.53%	BYU	2009-10	Jr
Dominique Jones	89.84%	South Florida	2009-10	Jr
James Harden	89.37%	Arizona State	2008-09	So

We then looked through the data to find players who had multiple seasons similar to Damian Lillard’s redshirt Junior season, and who also had a high degree of physical similarity to Damian Lillard, to find the definitive list of best statistical comps for Damian Lillard;

Name	Total Similarity	Stats Similarity	Physical Similarity	Team	Season	Class
Damian Lillard	100.00%	100.00%	100.00%	Weber State	2011-12	RS Jr
Rodney Stuckey	90.30%	89.92%	90.67%	Eastern Wash.	2006-07	So
Rodney Stuckey	90.24%	89.80%	90.67%	Eastern Wash.	2005-06	Fr
George Hill	90.82%	89.98%	91.66%	IUPUI	2007-08	Sr
George Hill	88.98%	86.29%	91.66%	IUPUI	2005-06	So
Ben Gordon	91.22%	88.29%	94.15%	Connecticut	2003-04	Jr
Ben Gordon	91.18%	88.20%	94.15%	Connecticut	2002-03	So
Ben Gordon	86.96%	79.76%	94.15%	Connecticut	2001-02	Fr
Stephen Curry	90.16%	89.43%	90.89%	Davidson	2007-08	So
Stephen Curry	89.89%	88.89%	90.89%	Davidson	2006-07	Fr
Stephen Curry	88.22%	85.55%	90.89%	Davidson	2008-09	Jr
Marcus Thornton	90.28%	90.16%	90.39%	LSU	2008-09	Sr
Marcus Thornton	88.39%	86.38%	90.39%	LSU	2007-08	Jr
Jimmer Fredette	90.31%	92.53%	88.09%	BYU	2009-10	Jr
Jimmer Fredette	88.69%	89.28%	88.09%	BYU	2010-11	Sr
Jimmer Fredette	86.94%	85.78%	88.09%	BYU	2008-09	So
Ronnie Price	91.31%	88.15%	94.47%	Utah Valley State	2004-05	Jr
Ronnie Price	87.34%	80.21%	94.47%	Utah Valley State	2003-04	So
Randy Foye	90.59%	89.24%	91.93%	Villanova	2005-06	Sr
Randy Foye	87.46%	82.98%	91.93%	Villanova	2004-05	Jr

Just to put all of this into perspective here are the similarity scores for some other players who Lillard has been compared to, and one player we all hope has very little similarity.

Name	Total Similarity	Stats Similarity	Physical Similarity	Team	Season	Class
Damian Lillard	100.00%	100.00%	100.00%	Weber State	2011-12	RS Jr
Damian Lillard	95.59%	91.18%	100.00%	Weber State	2009-10	So
Damian Lillard	95.20%	90.39%	100.00%	Weber State	2010-11	Jr
Derrick Rose	88.17%	83.99%	92.35%	Memphis	2007-08	Fr
Chris Paul	87.73%	82.32%	93.13%	Wake Forest	2004-05	So
Chris Paul	87.29%	81.44%	93.13%	Wake Forest	2003-04	Fr
Dwyane Wade	87.01%	86.74%	87.28%	Marquette	2002-03	Jr
Dwyane Wade	84.77%	82.25%	87.28%	Marquette	2001-02	So
Ty Lawson	84.75%	81.23%	88.27%	North Carolina	2008-09	Jr
Ty Lawson	84.49%	80.70%	88.27%	North Carolina	2007-08	So
Ty Lawson	82.14%	76.01%	88.27%	North Carolina	2006-07	Fr
Russell Westbrook	85.91%	79.93%	91.89%	UCLA	2007-08	So
Raymond Felton	82.03%	79.08%	84.98%	North Carolina	2004-05	Jr
Raymond Felton	81.28%	77.58%	84.98%	North Carolina	2002-03	Fr
Raymond Felton	80.65%	76.32%	84.98%	North Carolina	2003-04	So

Physically and statistically Damian Lillard is far more similar to Rodney Stuckey, George Hill, Stephen Curry, and Ben Gordon than he is to Derrick Rose, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, Ty Lawson, or Russell Westbrook. Below we have included a table that measures a number of relevant statistics for what we describe as his poor comps, and below that another table for what we describe his good comps. As you study these we believe it will become readily apparent how truly different Damian Lillard is from the first group, and how statistically similar he is to the second group.

Name	Stat Similarity		Pts	FGA	2PtA	3PtA	FTA	FT%	Ast / g	Pos /g	Ast / Pos	TO / Pos	eFG%	FTA / FGA	Player Passer Rating
Damian Lillard	100.0%	RS Jr.	24.5	15.5	8.3	7.2	8.0	88.8%	4.0	19.4	0.21	0.12	56%	52%	0.95
Dwyane Wade	86.74%	Jr	21.6	15.4	14.1	1.3	7.3	78.2%	4.6	19.2	0.24	0.17	51%	48%	-0.61
Derrick Rose	83.99%	Fr	14.9	10.9	8.3	2.6	5.1	71.2%	4.7	13.9	0.34	0.19	52%	47%	1.52
Chris Paul	82.32%	So	15.3	9.9	6.9	3.0	5.8	83.6%	6.6	13.4	0.49	0.21	52%	59%	4.76
Ty Lawson	81.23%	Jr	16.6	9.8	6.7	3.1	5.9	79.8%	6.6	12.8	0.51	0.15	45%	23%	1.10
Russell Westbrook	79.93%	So	12.7	10.0	8.1	2.0	3.9	71.2%	4.3	12.4	0.35	0.20	50%	38%	1.08
Raymond Felton	79.08%	Jr	12.9	9.2	4.8	4.4	3.7	70.2%	6.9	12.6	0.55	0.28	56%	41%	3.09
Deron Williams	77.92%	Jr	12.5	10.5	5.7	4.8	2.5	67.9%	6.8	12.4	0.55	0.23	52%	23%	4.96

Of the entire group Damian Lillard was statistically closest to Dwyane Wade, and even given that it is clear they are very different. In aggregate in comparing Lillard to the entire group, Lillard scored more points, took way more threes, but was around the middle in 3 %, shot many more FT and made them at a higher %, had generally fewer assists per 40 minutes (the number in the second table not the 4th) , and also a lower PPR.

Let’s now compare and contrast that with the better statistical comparables group (all of these are Pace Adjusted per 40 minutes from http://www.draftexpress.com/stats.php)

Name	Stat Similarity		Pts	FGA	2PtA	3PtA	FTA	FT%	Ast / G	Pos / G	Ast / Pos	TO / Pos	eFG%	FTA / FGA	Player Passer Rating
Damian Lillard	100%	RS Jr.	24.5	15.5	8.3	7.2	8.0	88.8%	4.0	19.4	0.21	0.12	56%	52%	0.95
Jimmer Fredette	92.53%	Jr	22.1	14.4	9.3	5.2	7.4	89.3%	4.7	18	0.26	0.15	54%	51%	1.13
Marcus Thornton	90.16%	Sr	21.1	15.5	9.7	5.7	5.7	74.6%	2.1	17.1	0.13	0.11	54%	37%	-1.30
George Hill	89.98%	Sr	21.5	12.6	9.2	3.4	7.7	81.2%	4.3	17.1	0.25	0.17	61%	61%	-0.30
Rodney Stuckey	89.92%	So	24.6	17.3	11.7	5.6	8.8	84.6%	5.5	21.4	0.26	0.16	50%	51%	0.79
Ronnie Price	88.15%	Jr	24.3	19.1	11.2	8.0	6.4	78.9%	3.0	21.3	0.14	0.14	50%	34%	-2.84
Ben Gordon	88.29%	Jr	18.5	14.1	8.0	6.2	4.4	83.0%	4.5	16.1	0.28	0.17	53%	31%	0.61
Stephen Curry	89.43%	So	25.9	18.2	8.0	10.3	4.2	89.5%	2.9	19.6	0.15	0.13	61%	23%	-2.04
Randy Foye	89.24%	Sr	20.5	16.7	9.0	7.7	5.2	79.1%	3.0	17.8	0.17	0.12	49%	31%	-0.44

It is quite clear to us that Damian Lillard is far more similar to this group than the group above. In the first group Dwyane Wade was the closest comp to Lillard, and yet you can clearly see the differences between Wade and Lillard by seeing this group in totality.

From the best comparable’s list above we feel good about making the following statements about the best comps for Damian Lillard.

Best Case - Ben Gordon, Stephen Curry

Worst Case - Ronnie Price

Fair Comps - Marcus Thornton, Randy Foye

Best Comps - Rodney Stuckey, George Hill

Jimmer Fredette is actually a very good comp for Damian Lillard, but we have chosen to leave Fredette out as a comparable, simply because we have only a single season in the NBA to compare and consider with Fredette, albeit a very poor rookie season. I will also state that one could also describe George Hill as a Best Case comp, included in as a best case, or in place of either Ben Gordon or Stephen Curry.

Our next step was to build a model that predicts Damian Lillard statistical performance for the first the years in the league. This is a weighted model, and is based the NBA stats of these players, adjusted for our projection of the real opportunity Lillard will get compared to the opportunities the above players got. So here is our 3 year projection for Damian Lillard;

Damian Lillard		Per 36 Minutes
Damian Lillard		Shooting
	Season	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	TS%	eFG%
Weighted Composite	1	6.17	14.49	42.6%	1.54	4.11	37.5%	3.23	3.85	83.9%	52.39%	47.90%
Weighted Composite	2	6.19	14.05	44.1%	1.55	3.93	39.4%	2.86	3.57	80.1%	53.41%	49.57%
Weighted Composite	3	6.35	14.57	43.6%	1.56	4.13	37.8%	3.54	4.21	84.1%	53.60%	48.94%

Damian Lillard		Per 36 Minutes
Damian Lillard		Accumulation Stats
	Season	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	A/TO	PF	PTS
Weighted Composite	1	0.99	3.19	4.19	3.98	1.31	0.29	2.58	1.54	3.45	17.08
Weighted Composite	2	0.84	3.16	3.95	4.19	1.28	0.24	2.34	1.79	3.25	16.8
Weighted Composite	3	0.72	2.77	3.45	4.12	1.32	0.28	2.28	1.81	3.19	17.74

Damian Lillard		Advanced Stats
Damian Lillard		Accumulation %
	Season	ORB%	DRB%	TRB%	AST%	STL%	BLK%	TOV%	USG%
Weighted Composite	1	3.16%	10.32%	6.72%	18.25%	1.88%	0.61%	13.91%	23.81%
Weighted Composite	2	2.65%	10.30%	6.45%	19.35%	1.85%	0.44%	12.97%	22.63%
Weighted Composite	3	2.20%	9.11%	5.62%	19.19%	1.89%	0.57%	12.13%	23.41%

Damian Lillard		Advanced Stats
Damian Lillard		Advanced Composites
	Season	PER	ORtg	DRtg	OWS	DWS	WS	WS/48
Weighted Composite	1	14.43	103.1	107.13	1.35	1.6	2.95	0.078
Weighted Composite	2	15.01	106.1	108.57	2.41	1.75	4.13	0.091
Weighted Composite	3	15.69	108.5	108.85	2.73	1.6	4.33	0.104

We are sure that our projections will provoke some differences of opinions as to what to expect from Damian Lillard in the future. As we stated above, it is not our intention to be deliberately provocative, but rather to be as objective and intellectually honest as we can be.

First we found that the best comp for Damian Lillard’s RS Jr. season was Damian Lillard’s Jr. and So. seasons. So in some regard it is fair to say that none of these comps really do him justice and certainly we understand and accept that. As we stated above it is not our intention to absolutely define any player, but rather to place that player into a context that is most appropriate to him. We also believe that the one absolute truth is that Damian Lillard is the player he is, and it is not likely that he will make a significant transformation in the pro’s. What he has done and not done in college is what you should expect from him as a pro. One of the most significant parts of our comparables analysis is to understand how other similar players deviated from their college performance to their pro performance.

Scoring and Shooting Percentage - Players with high shooting percentages in college see those percentages fall as they enter the NBA, especially players who have a high usage and a high number of 3 point shots. The NBA 3 Point line is longer, and NBA defense do not allow players with high usage rates to shoot a lot of uncontested or poorly contested 3’s. As a redshirt Junior Damian Lillard had a 46.7% FG%, and a 40.9% 3 pt %. We are projecting 42.6%, and 37.5% as a rookie, with those increasing over his second and third seasons to an average of 43.9%, and 38.6%. Extremely high usage rate players have a fairly low success rate at the NBA level. Typically, extremely high usage rate players come from smaller programs, and their high scoring rates are very much a function of situation, talent surrounding the player, and the lower level of competition. A very high proportion of the high usage rate players at the NBA level did not have extremely high usage rates in college.

Predicting points per game or per 36 minutes is the single most difficult statistic to predict, as it is heavily dependent upon a players usage rate. At Weber State Damian Lillard scored 24.5 point per 40 minutes, with a usage rate of almost 29%. We are predicting his usage rate to decline to about 23.5% for his first 3 years. Last season there were only 3 Blazers with a higher usage rate, LaMarcus Aldridge, Elliott Williams, and Jamal Crawford. The vast majority of Williams extremely limited minutes were in garbage time, and Crawford is now a LA Clipper, so this would indicate that Lillard will have the second highest usage rate on the 2012-13 Blazer team, unless Batum or Matthews make a substantial leap forward in usage rate.

Assists - We have read here and at other site that some people believe that Lillard is capable of 7 or more assists a game in the NBA. There is no evidence available to support this belief. In Lillard’s best college season he averaged EXACTLY 4.0 assists per 40 minutes. Lillard has never shown a real affinity for passing, as his Player Passer Rating of 0.95 indicates. High assist players show that ability early on, and Lillard has not yet shown that he can be a good passer; he is a shoot first point guard.

Turnovers - Lillard’s projected assist to turnover ratio is low (1.54 to 1.81). Lillard’s turnover rates in college were low, averaging 2.31 per 40 minutes in his senior year. The most obvious reason his turnover numbers are so low is directly related to his passing and his shooting, as most turnovers come as a result of a pass, but you don’t get a turnover for a missed shot. Lillard shot the ball a lot, and he didn’t pass a lot. There is every reason to believe that as he increases his passing attempts that his turnovers will increase proportionally.

Defense - The consensus in scouting circles is that Damian Lillard is not considered to be strong defensively. His length is above average, and length is most commonly associated with defense, but Lillard has been described as losing focus on the defensive end. His 3 year projected defensive rating of 108.5 would place him very much on the lower end of last year’s Trail Blazer team, basically the same as Nolan Smith, Raymond Felton, and Jamal Crawford.

One of the points we wish to make with this is that our three year projections are based upon what we know today. As we know more about Damian Lillard after a single NBA season, then it would be foolish for us to ignore that data and not make adjustments to our predictions. At the present time we have found what we consider to be 7 very good comparable players. It may turn out that one or more of these are in fact not good comps. Ronnie Price, or Ben Gordon may in fact not turn out to be good comps, and if so then we would remove that person from our model. Our gut tells us that Damian Lillard will have a nice NBA career, but there are some things that are very hard to quantify. Lillard was a star on a good team, from a weak conference. The same can be said for George Hill, Ronnie Price, Rodney Stuckey, Jimmer Fredette, and Stephen Curry. Randy Foye was the star on a very good college team, in a very good conference, as was Marcus Thornton, and Ben Gordon.

In aggregate looking at players actual first three NBA seasons our projection is that compared to a random list of other NBA point guards / combo guards, Damian Lillard projects to have;

A greater number of win shares than

Raymond Felton

Rodney Stuckey

Randy Foye

Marcus Thornton

Mike Conley

Jerryd Bayless

Delonte West

Monta Ellis

Jimmer Fredette (our projected for Lillard is well ahead of Fredette’s rookie season)

John Wall (our projected pace for Lillard is ahead of where Wall is after 2 seasons)

Kemba Walker (our projected for Lillard is well ahead of Walker’s rookie season)

A similar number of Win Shares to

Rajon Rondo

Brandon Jennings

Jameer Nelson

Stephen Curry

Devin Harris

Kyrie Irving (similar to what we projected for Lillard’s rookie season)

And fewer Win Shares than

Dwyane Wade

Derrick Rose

Chris Paul

Ty Lawson

Deron Williams

George Hill

Ben Gordon

Next up; Comparable’s analysis for Victor Claver

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Damian Lillard, who are and who are not good comparables

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