Hmmm.. Lets see. In no particular order: Paul Williams Rose Westbrook Nash Kidd Miller Rondo Billups Brooks I agree with you DD. Baron Davis, has not been great this season and Tony Parker has not been very good as well.
Curry is the PG for Warriors, so Ellis doesn't technically count. Tony Parker has not been great this season, he has had injuries and Pop wanted him to distribute the ball more and he has struggled with that. Tyreke is good, but he isn't that good yet, he is a rookie. On talent alone, he is better than Brooks, but Brooks is still a better NBA player at this point. The rest, I agree with you.
You are saying that a rookie scoring PG in Tyreke Evans is the 6th best PG in the league. Gimme that whole list over Evans, and then throw in Brooks as well. Your misplaced anger towards Aaron Brooks clouds your vision. Also, you should consider what the Rockets want their point guard to do.
Well of course I am not Yoda, but I am taking a stance, not sitting on the fence. I think Aaron is up for debate in terms of Top 10 OFFENSIVE PGs, but if you factor in his defense, then he is clearly not even in the top 15. Usually people ignore defense in these top 10 lists, but if you factor in defense, he falls behind a LOT of other PGs that are below him offensively, like andre miller.
He is clearly better than Ellis, Evans, and Westbrook, IMO, and has an argument for being better than a few of the others.
I also think Aaron's defense is underrated here, by the way, especially recently. He still has his good speed on the defensive end and decent IQ he just has a tendency to get pushed around a bit by the more physical types.
I love me some Aaron Brooks, quickly becoming one of my favorite Rockets players ever; I hope he is with the team for a long long time. Losing him would actually hurt more for me than losing Landry did. Go AB Go!
The list is not in order, but yes, tyreke evans is clearly better than Brooks, defense wise, it's not a comparison, reke is 6'6 with wingspan with strength. Offensively, he can get to the rack way better than brooks can.
Can't agree more. If people pay a little more attention to Brooks's defense(I mean watch closely how Brooks defend his man), they will change their opinions about Brooks. I strongly suggest a nice simple statistics I used personally: When Brooks score 2/3 points->+2/3, assist->+1, TO->-1, the player he's defending scores->-2/3... Calculate this one when you watch the game, and you can see why Brooks is not that good overall and why Battier/Hayes are surprisingly good players.
I definitely think he is. How many assists would Westbrook get without Durant? How many would he get playing in Adelman's system? Combine that with Brooks clearly being the better and more efficient scorer by a significant margin.
Tony Parker doesn't play good defense, and yet he has a finals MVP trophy. Bibby wasn't a good defender either and Sacramento was a great team back then. No one expects AB to lead the Rockets to the finals as the top dog. We also have Yao/Martin/Scola and more help is coming our way. He's quite equal to what Rick Adelman has asked his PGs to do. Live with what you've got.
How is it underrated? His speed doesn't do him any good, he can't draw a charge, his anticipation skills are not good enough for him to play the passing lanes, he is not strong enough to poke balls loose, he's not tall enough to bother ANY jumpshooter, and he is not STRONG enough to stop opposing PGs to take him all the way to the hoop.
He stays in front of his man and contests shots and is pretty good at rotating. He also has a nice wingspan and reach for his size and good hops. Scouts actually praised his defense going into the draft believe it or not. He could stand to gain a few pounds of muscle in the off-season, true, as long as it doesn't hurt his speed.
Westbrook is a better rebounder, passer, defender, than Brooks. He might not match Brooks offensively, but he has some offensive skills and probably will get better with time. Look at Jason Kidd, his offense is not great (although he has a much much improved 3PT shot these days) but he is still a much better player than Brooks. I know Westbrook is not as good as Jason Kidd distributing the ball but he is good and he is going to get better. Westbrook has been a huge reason for OKC's success (of course Durant being the #1 reason). By the way, I agree with you about Brooks being underrated as a defender. I mean he isn't by any means a great defender but he is not below average either. The problem is not having a shot blocking presence therefore it is much harder to defend the perimeter (especially with no hand checking rules).
He can't actually "contest" shots, since by contesting usually you mean affect the shot in some way. His "contests" have zero affect on the shooter That's like winning a gold medal at the special olympics, yes, he is a good defender for his size and weight, but it still is very bad NBA defense for the PG position.
Of course he affects the shots. This is what I was talking about when I said you're making a fool out of yourself. You keep making these extreme statements which are obviously incorrect in some cases or unmeasurable in others.
Go look at his "contests", straight up, he always keeps his distance because he is so weak, he can't let people get a shoulder on him on the drive, so he has to sag. Since he is sagging so much, he has way too much distance to jump and contest, he is no where near even the eyeline let alone the ball on a typical brooks "contest". Don't take my word for it, go look at his defensive on/off stats, rockets are 3 points per 100 possession better with Brooks off the court on defense.
So you think NBA coaches spend more time/energy figuring out how to contain Jason Kidd than they do Aaron Brooks? Laughable.
