[ESPN] Projecting Top 10 Shooting Guards for 2013-14

Previously: Projecting Top 10 Point Guards for 2013-14

That was fun. Nothing stirs the pot in the sports world more than rankings. On Monday, we began our projected rankings of NBA players by position with point guards, and today we continue with shooting guards. One thing I learned from the series' first installment: Tony Parker has lots of fans on both sides of the Atlantic. Yesterday, that was me running down Lake Shore Drive with an angry, multinational mob of basketball fans in pursuit with torches and pitchforks.

The Mayans, Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce would all agree that projecting the future is an inexact science, even if science is the basis of your forecast. However, one precept that is undeniable is that things change in the sports world, and they change fast. Age, athleticism, skill and luck, these are not static concepts. To illustrate that, let's look at something very simple -- the top 10 shooting guards from the past two seasons in scoring average, among those who qualified in the respective seasons.

Code:

Top SGs from 2011-12 and 2012-13
No.	Player 2011-12	PPG	No.	Player 2012-13	PPG
1	Kobe Bryant	27.9	1	Kobe Bryant	27.3
2	Monta Ellis	20.4	2	James Harden	25.9
3	Joe Johnson	18.8	3	Dwyane Wade	21.2
4	James Harden	16.8	4	Monta Ellis	19.2
5	DeMar DeRozan	16.7	5	DeMar DeRozan	18.1
6	Tyreke Evans	16.5	6	J.R. Smith	18.1
7	Arron Afflalo	15.2	7	Klay Thompson	16.6
8	Jason Terry	15.1	8	Jamal Crawford	16.5
9	Louis Williams	14.9	9	Joe Johnson	16.3
10	Jordan Crawford	14.7	10	O.J. Mayo	15.3

The lists are completely different. Only five players appear on both lists, and only Bryant was within a point of repeating his scoring average. Things change. Wade missed 17 games in 2011-12 and didn't qualify. Harden changed teams and took a giant leap forward. Thompson improved upon a solid rookie season. The moral is that the NBA you saw last season, the one that ended less than six weeks ago, no longer exists. Each year, a new league is born, and it's a mistake to believe that the hierarchies that emerged before are going to remain unchanged.

As the depth charts have filled, so have the forecasts generated by ATH coalesced. ATH, you may recall, is the projection module of NBAPET, my system of integrated spreadsheets for tracking, evaluating and forecasting all things NBA.

Here are the projected top 10 shooting guards for the 2013-14 NBA season followed by the next five and an overview of how some notable SGs fell outside the top 10. Keep in mind that assigning a primary position to a player in today's NBA is often more art than science. Players are ranked according to ATH's forecasted WARP, or wins above replacement level, which accounts for a player's efficiency, volume of production and team context.

1. Dwyane Wade, Miami Heat
Projected 2013-14 WARP: 11.8

Wade is entering a perilous time of life for 2-guards, but the trends in his game are so stable, ATH is predicting an exact repeat of his .658 winning percentage from last season. His knee problems could undermine his value in a couple of ways. His block rate dropped last year and might be a sign of defensive slippage. Also, he may not play as much, and I've been watching for an Eric Spoelstra quote saying as much.

2. James Harden, Houston Rockets
Projected 2013-14 WARP: 11.7

The winner of the most improved player award is often just the guy who got the opportunity he always deserved. Harden finished seventh in that voting last season, so there wasn't as much recognition for how good he was in Oklahoma City as there should have been. The biggest uptick in his game was the fact that he played nearly 1,000 more minutes than he ever had before. This season, I wouldn't expect that playing time to dip, and while a high-volume perimeter player would be hard-pressed to be more efficient than Harden already is, it will be fascinating to see if Dwight Howard's presence propels him to the front of the MVP race.

3. Manu Ginobili, San Antonio Spurs
Projected 2013-14 WARP: 8.0

While ATH sees Tony Parker taking a slight, age-related step back in 2013-14, the older Ginobili has long since passed and, in effect, beaten the aging curve. Playing time has been the major concession in Ginobili's game, and it's the only reason that he doesn't project to challenge Wade and Harden for the title of the NBA's best 2-guard. Ginobili's winning percentage did dip a little last year, and at age 36, there's no guarantee he'll recover the lost efficiency. However, part of it was due to 3-point shooting and if you look at his career, it's been an every-other-year proposition for Ginobili in that category. If the pattern holds, this will be one of the "up" years.

4. Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers
Projected 2013-14 WARP: 7.0

Bryant should change his uniform number to a question mark, because that's how much confidence I have in this projection. When will he return? How much, if anything, will he have lost from his game? Nobody, not even Kobe, knows the answer to these questions. What I do know is that last year, amid the rubble of the Lakers' lost season, he was as good as ever before wearing down towards the end of the campaign. 17-year veterans should not be hitting the 3,000-minute plateau.

5. Bradley Beal, Washington Wizards
Projected 2013-14 WARP: 6.1

I love it when the youngbloods crack these lists, and ATH loves Beal. I'm not thrilled the system is forecasting Beal to knock down 43 percent of his 3s, even though that's a strength in his game. That category is the most variable on a player's stat line, and I distrust such bold predictions. However consider this: The only teenager to ever shoot a higher percentage from deep with an above-average usage rate was Kyrie Irving. Beal is off to a great start.

6. Louis Williams, Atlanta Hawks
Projected 2013-14 WARP: 6.1

Williams is tough to classify in terms of position, but I think it's safe to say his game is more of a 2-guard than a 1. When healthy, Sweet Lou is one of the most efficient scorers in the league, with a terrific complement of volume, foul-drawing, playmaking and a solid, but not spectacular, deep stroke. He's also coming off a major knee injury, and you have to be concerned that the quickness and explosion Williams has relied upon will be diminished. For what it's worth, I saw him walking around my hotel in Las Vegas and he looked fine. Unfortunately, it wasn't on a basketball court.

7. J.R. Smith, New York Knicks
Projected 2013-14 WARP: 5.4

Smith is yet another player who enters the 2013-14 season with an injury cloud hanging over his head. When healthy, he's one of the most explosive bench scorers around, though his streakiness means sometimes his impact affects the wrong team. Nevertheless, on a Knicks squad strapped for shot creators, he's in a perfect situation for his skill set. Smith, believe it or not, decreased the frequency of 3-point shots taken in relation to possessions used last season, which undermined his winning percentage. However, Knicks fans will take whatever regular-season performance they can get if he can only translate it to the postseason. As a Knick, Smith has shot 32.6 percent from the field in 16 postseason games.

8. Danny Green, San Antonio Spurs
Projected 2013-14 WARP: 5.2

The top shooting guards are the guys who have the ball in their hands a lot and make plays for others as well as themselves. Green, though, is a perfect example of how you can still offer premium value by being uber-efficient and being a threat without the ball. As we saw in the latter part of the Finals, there is a ceiling to how much offense Green can create for himself, but teams have to account for him at all times. It doesn't hurt that he plays big minutes on one of the NBA's elite defensive teams.

9. Monta Ellis, Dallas Mavericks
Projected 2013-14 WARP: 4.8

Did you know that in his third NBA season, Ellis put up a .580 true shooting percentage while playing 3,073 minutes? Last season, he played 3,076 minutes, and his TS percentage was .493. If Rick Carlisle can somehow extract Ellis' youthful efficiency, the Mavericks will really have something.

10. Kevin Martin, Minnesota Timberwolves
Projected 2013-14 WARP: 4.7

Martin's value has always been enhanced by his ability to attack the lane off of close-outs and get to the line. Now that he's entering his age-31 season, you do have to worry that that skill is diminishing, as his foul-drawing rate has been way down the past two years. Minnesota signed Martin for his floor-spacing ability, and he's solid at that, if a bit up-and-down. It'll be essential that he stick to the role he's given, playing off Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio.

Next five: Vince Carter, Wesley Matthews, Tyreke Evans, Marcus Thornton, Eric Gordon

Like Smith, many of the more prolific 2-guards in the league are used in instant-offense bench roles. Three of our next five will fit that bill this season, perhaps more if Matthews is beaten out by C.J. McCollum in Portland. Carter was one of the league's top bench players for Dallas last season and, as old as he is, his athletic indicators are remarkably strong for a player with that much mileage. Matthews and Thornton are fairly steady in their production. Evans, on the other hand, is a wild card as he's never been used in a sixth-man role. Gordon is coming off a major injury, which makes his playing time forecast murky. More than that, his incessant physical woes have stunted his development arc, and Gordon could use a big season to improve his baseline as he nears his prime seasons.

Also notable: Klay Thompson, Joe Johnson, DeMar DeRozan

These are the torch-and-pitchfork guys, the ones many are going to howl about because of their omission above. Thompson is the one guy that, subjectively speaking, I think will take a big leap in value. So far though, Thompson's stat line does not elevate him beyond the status of role player. He's great in his role, with a high volume of extremely efficient 3-point shooting, and there's not a team in the league that wouldn't want to have him. However, he hasn't done much inside the arc during his career and needs to become more a threat off the dribble. Not only will that get him to the line more often, but he'll become a better playmaker as well. That will enhance his value. Of course, team context matters, too, and with Stephen Curry and Andre Iguodala around, the Warriors might not need Thompson to do more than he does.

We've long warned about the perils of age 32 when it comes to shooting guards, and Johnson hit that age just after the Finals ended. His value dropped like a stone last season, with a winning percentage that dipped from .564 to .443. With so many alpha-personality players to share possessions with in Brooklyn's new lineup, Johnson has entered the role-player phase of his decline. As for DeRozan, I've written it many times: Until he proves otherwise, he's just an empty scoring average.


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I would agree with that.