Frankly, and I'm sure you won't agree with me, but only Chris Paul, Curry and Rose (if he returns to his pre-injury form) are clearly better than Conley. Deron is the most overrated player in the league. Look at the players that he's had on his team, JJ, Lopez, Okur, Boozer, AK47, Gerald Wallace, and he hasn't done anything with that since the 2006-07 season. He is living on reputation. Wesbrook, Irving, Wall and Lillard aren't better than Conley, no matter what people think. Wesbrook is obviously a great scorer, and he is great on the Thunder as Robin to KD, but he's also a turnover machine, he makes a lot of bone-headed plays, and generally doesn't play good defense. Irving, Wall and Lillard are good young players but they can't run a team like Conley can and only Wall shows any interest to play defense or run a team. I'd rank them: Wall Irving Lillard right now. The only "flaw" in Conley's game right now is that he needs to up his scoring output, which, a year removed from Rudy Gay, it isn't inconceivable that he does that.
wall makes 16mill shot 25% from 3 point line last year and Lin (8mill) gets ripped by fans all summer that say we need to trade him after he shot 40% after Allstar break and shows up against wall every time dating back to warriors summer league and Knicks when he crossed him and dunked on him. Conley 14.6 / 6.1 / 36% from 3.. Do these stats remind you of someone who rarely even had the ball here ? LIN 13.6 / 6.1.... what is the hype around Conley I don't get it ?
Westbrook and Deron Williams are light years better than Mike Conley. Hell, I'm not even sure Conley is better than Kyle Lowry...
Someone help me understand seriously, this man Conley has a thread here on a Houston site saying he's better than we think and averages 1 more point and shot the same from 3 as out pg did last year ??? and it's all Lin needs to be traded, 6th man , or bev needs to start because of his defense... I don't get fans
His D and he averaged 17pt the 2nd half of the season after they traded Rudy Gay. Also he averaged 17pt 7 ast in the playoffs. Seems the voters gave a lot of weight to playoff performance this year. Harrison Barnes, Klay Thompson and even Parsons were probably ranked higher than they deserved because of the playoffs.
If your response is "Deron's teammates", I'd throw that right back at Conley. Deron at least has always been the best player on his team, Conley never has, and never will. Not to mention that I'd take Marc over pretty much every single one of those players you listed, especially at the times they're playing with Deron ( LOL at listing Gerald Wallace, for example) Conley has better defense, is nowhere as bad in turnovers, and is better at shooting. I do however think the comparison isn't terrible, and that if Lin really develops as much this year as we hope he does, he'll be basically Conley.
understandable but he's basically a vet pg how long has he been in the league? Lin just finished his first full nba season last year
You can make the argument that Conley had a better impact than Irving last year. Conley in the Spurs system would be quite insane as well. Westbrook, CP3, healthy D. Rose are clearly ahead. Tony Parker probably as well (but with defense included it becomes really close).
Parker is better than all them and has rings to prove it. Paul is nice but he can't lead his team pass 2nd round, Parker specializes in in getting at least to the wcf time and time again & I can bet you cp3 with doc and that talented team sti don't make it out the west
Bringing up the fact that Deron is/was the best player on his team, doesn't help your cause when it has resulted in early playoff exits. Especially when you consider that the year he got to the WCF he absolutely was NOT the best player on that team. Secondly, and more to the point, Scottie Pippen was never the best player on his team either, but I suspect that you'd consider Pippen a better player than Dominique Wilkins. I also think that you clearly have an opinion about Conley that doesn't take into account his current level of play, or his potential to improve. I don't think you see him as an improving player, regardless of what he does, which is strange when you don't have the same dogmatic opinion of Jeremy Lin. The truth is that since Conley has been a Grizzly, he has beat out: Kyle Lowry, he has became a better player than Rudy Gay, Zach Randolph, OJ Mayo, and, he is closer than you think to Marc Gasol. The guy has also hit big shot after big shot in the playoffs when it counts, he has made timely steals, he played Chris Paul to a standstill in many games and not that I am saying that he is better than Marc Gasol, but show me the signature playoff moment from Marc Gasol? I can show you 10 playoff moments where Conley has done big things to win games. Most Grizzlies fans believe that Conley has been our best player in the playoffs for 2 years in a row.
Conley looked 'better' because he took more shots and scored more points after Hollinger traded away Rudy Gay. And after he supposedly played 'better' than Chris Paul in the post season. Here's Conley's postseason stats - 17pt, 7 assists, 4.7 rebs in 38 min. Looks fantastic. Then you look at his efficiency - Yikes!!! 28% 3pt shooting, 38% overall FG. Yikes!!!
And just for fun for you guys ... compare Mike Conley and Jeremy Lin's post all star stats on a per 36 minute basis. http://espn.go.com/nba/player/splits/_/id/3195/mike-conley http://espn.go.com/nba/player/splits/_/id/4299/jeremy-lin They are very similar ... one guy looked better than pre-all star because Hollinger traded away a ball-dominant perimeter player, and the other guy looked better after he recovered from injury while still playing with a ball-dominant perimeter player.
His ts% was .496, which, while not THAT impressive, considering that he basically had no help at point guard and was going up against the likes of Chris Paul and all of those clipper guards, and Tony Parker, and the fact that he was taking on more a scoring role, this was actually pretty good. Last year his ts% was a more impressive .550. Similarly, take KD. When Westbrook went down KD had to take on a more active shooting role and his ts% predictably dipped from .632 to .574 in this years playoffs. By no means can you call Conley's shooting inefficient. This year he has help and he has another year to adjust to a life without Rudy Gay taking the brunt of the shots.
Those sound like excuses. If you think he's near the level of Marc Gasol on the Grizzlies, he doesn't need help. You can't say his low efficiency is due to trading away Rudy Gay and not recognize his higher per 36 pts/assists do not reflect his high usage with Rudy Gay traded away. Very few teams sported a perimeter combo of extreme low usage mostly defensive players like Allen / Prince. That inflated Conley's usage and box score stats just as much as it impacted his efficiency. You can't have one and ignore the other.
Well, you could look at +/- numbers and check how good Mike Conley is. Look at RAPM. Conley is the 3rd best PG and 4th best guard in the NBA. Behind CP3, Westbrook and James Harden. He has the biggest positive impact elite defensively of any PG in the NBA. And offensively he's good too.
