<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/90491673@N08/8252748981/" title="parsons by Rockets888, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8356/8252748981_7086239862.jpg" width="465" height="436" alt="parsons"></a> Parsons twitted this. A very handsome guy. http://t.co/1pTQ2k8Y
I wonder how long til Parsons catches the white media attention to where he will be a household name to housewives all around the country...
Chandler Parsons: Still an elite all-around talent. After a full quarter of an NBA season, there are just 3 other players in the entire league who produce at least his combined numbers in points, rebounds, and assists. Two of them are the consensus-best players in the NBA, and the other is Josh Smith, who is a projected All-Star this season. Not bad for a second rounder. Not bad at all.
Pippen's career numbers are 16/6.5/5.2 assists. I think Parsons could easily get his assists numbers up if he got to handle the ball more.
You know this and I know this, but it bears repeating: 1. What Pippen did, he did across an entire career, not just 1/4 of one NBA season. 2. Much of what made Pippen great had to do with his elite man defense. He is arguably the greatest perimeter defender the league has ever seen. Does that show up statistically? Not really, and it may never will until we somehow find a way to accurately model defensive ability that doesn't suck for one reason or another. 3. All hail Chandler Pippen, NBA All-Star.
Let's be a little bit more realistic here. You've got to drop those average numbers a bit to see who all is really in that realm. Set the requirements to 15PPG, 6RPG, 3APG and you get a better feel of the crowd he's in. http://tinyurl.com/d9smjpf It expands the list, but that's still damned fine company. Numbers are most similar to Paul George and Evan Turner, though.
That's true, though at 24 Chandler is still improving. It's not like he's putting up these #s in a fluke stretch at the age of 28. At this stage, it's quite possible he can sustain it. It remains to be seen how good he will be.
As much as I never liked Pippen the guy is considered a top 50 player of all time and arguably the league's best perimeter defender in history. I love Parsons but let's not go to the Pippen comparisons yet. I do think he could become an all-star player though. He's got all the skills and plays very hard.
No, you don't have to lower the numbers to be more "realistic." The question is "Who is at or better than Chandler Parsons in combined production in points, rebounds, and assists?" The numbers *are* his production, that we are using to try to answer that question. They are the baseline. Using another set of numbers doesn't answer our question. And deliberately lowering the numbers to less than what he actually produces, to include more players in the "neighborhood" of his production, only pointlessly diminishes what he's actually accomplished so far this season: elite all-around production. Will his numbers hold up through the remaining 3/4s of the season? I have no idea. But it would be nice!
The fact that Parson's has held his numbers for more than a half season proves that he is not a fluke and at worst will be the type of player that can be the 3rd option on a championship level squad. He's pretty much at that level now. So what are things that he needs to improve on to get to the next level? I personally think he needs a good pull up jumper to get to the next step. He would then be a 18-20 ppg scorer. He adds some strength and learns how to finish like(not the same) Harden, I think he could be a borderline all-star.
If Parsons can improve his game to 18 PPG and Lin to 17 PPG, we could be looking at an all star trio.
