Written by Zach Harper | 23 March 2009

Despite a couple of good NBA games last night, the real match-up that was Must See TV happened on ESPN2 with a second round NIT game.

Um...what?

That's right. The game of the night that I had to watch was the second round NIT contest between Stephen Curry's Davidson and St. Mary's Patrick Mills. It was a match-up of two teams that everyone would rather see in the NCAA tournament rather than a tournament that nobody's cared about in 45 years. But we really needed an extra PAC-10, Big Ten, and/or Big East team rather than two teams that could actually provide some of those much-needed upsets and excitement with viewers. But that would involve a sports broadcasting company actually knowing their audience and having a smart business plan rather than helping out friends of friends who spend a lot of money to bring in scholarship players to their alma mater.

But I digress. This isn't about me being on my soapbox (there's plenty of other posts with room for that). This is about two of the most exciting, NBA-bound, undersized guards who will have high and maybe unfair expectations going into their NBA career. ESPN has built up the hype of the Stephen Curry era at Davidson by showing picture in picture shots of his family during games and letting us know if he has an irregular bowel movement on game day. And the internets, myself included, have lauded over this Aussie-born point guard in Patty Mills who has a strong online following after holding his own in the 2008 Olympics against players like Chris Paul, Deron Williams, and Jason Kidd.

So the hype going into this game was high enough that this was appointment-viewing for me for an NIT game. THAT'S how popular these two guys are. So I'm going to breakdown how these guys played more than the actual game because unfortunately, we don't really care about the other players and just want to know how these guys stack up going into the NBA Draft.

I have concerns about Stephen Curry as an NBA player and this isn't any ground-breaking analysis here. Many people question if he can be effective at a professional level. He's really small, especially when comparing him to NBA players. He looks like he's trying to figure out puberty and probably could get into a junior high school dance without anybody questioning if he's too old to be there. His small stature is almost alarming. So will a 6'1" shooting guard be able to play his natural position at the pro level? Will he be able to get his shot off? Will he be abused on defense?

He moves really well off the ball and has that Reggie Miller, Richard Hamilton tireless motor for getting around screens until he's open and then raising up for a solid jumper. He did so last night against St. Mary's even though his shot wasn't falling for him. He seemed to hesitate whenever he curled around a screen towards the elbow, which often hindered him from freeing up for his deadly jump shot. When he did shoot, he seemed to be forcing a lot of shots while taking the onus on himself to score and be the leader when the better play could have been finding his teammates as the defense gravitated towards him. And that's where you have to question is play-making ability.

In the NBA, he's going to most likely be a point guard because he's too short and not athletic enough to be a Jason Terry-type shooting guard. So in anticipation of that, he's taken on more responsibility with handling the ball for the majority of the offensive game and pretending to be a point guard as he drops 25 points every night. His passing is definitely a lot crisper and more accurately directed towards setting up his teammates when he decides that he doesn't have a shot than it was last season. But on a national stage last night, it seemed like he was trying to prove to everyone that he was a point guard in spots where he should have been looking for his shot. It was essentially a lose-lose situation for him with his shot not falling like he wanted it to.

For Patty Mills, I don't know what else this guy could do to stop me from having a huge fancrush on him. Yes, he's really under-sized, even for a point guard. But he is so controlled and calculated in everything he does that you feel like every move, dribble, and adjustment has a dedicated reason. He moves extremely well off the ball and in the NBA could even play with a big point guard at times and become the shooting guard for five or six minutes at a time. He's a decent defender at the college level, which makes me think that he's going to be abused on the defensive end in the NBA.

Last night, he was like a cobra waiting to strike. Whenever he got the ball, he immediately was attacking. But it wasn't just put your head down, try to get past your guy, and try to get your shot off before the second defender gets there. He was fluid without the ball, tight coming off of screens, and completely balanced on every move he made towards freeing up for his jumper. He was very clever off the ball and freed himself for a lot of wide-open looks from three that simply didn't go. He did a nice job of running fast breaks, getting the ball ahead, and finding his teammates in half court sets.

Curry finished with 26 points, nine rebounds, and five assists. But he shot just 11-27 from the field and had six turnovers. He forced a lot of action throughout the night and always seemed to be trying to make up for the last mistake. He moved a lot on offense without the ball and seemed to tire towards the end of the game. He only sat for three minutes total in the entire ball game. One alarming statistic for him is that he did not attempt one single free throw in this game. He kept almost everything outside whether it was effortlessly pulling up from 27-feet and draining it or not taking more steps towards the basket and settling for 18-footers.

For Mills, he showed a deadly mid-range game and an outside shot that was just a little off. He finished with 23 points, 10 assists, and just one turnover. His shooting wasn't great from going 9-22 but a lot of those misses were because of a 1-10 performance from three-point range. Like I said, a lot of those were wide-open outside looks that just didn't fall. He took amazing control of the ball and really managed the game well but hearing that 10 assists set his career-high was a little alarming. I wonder if he's too much of a shoot-first point guard.

Final analysis is that these guys will be valuable NBA players (big shock, I know). You probably don't want to spend a lottery pick on either of them but might have to in order to get them. Steph Curry looks like a glorified version of Steve Kerr. He can be a deadly reserve as a shooter off of the bench of a contender. But I don't think he'll make it as a point guard in this league. Mills looks more like Steve Nash to me. But the Steve Nash version from when the Mavericks were figuring out how to win. I don't think he'll ever get to that upper-echelon level but he can definitely be a starter in this league for years to come.

< Prev		Next >