Is the Future of the NBA's Point Guard Position in Good Hands?
For what is starting to feel like forever, the NBA's point guard pool has been counted as the league's deepest.
Filling out All-Star ballots—especially in the Western Conference—has become a harrowing endeavor. Some teams have two starting-caliber floor generals at their disposal. Others actually choose to deploy two point guards at once. Teams that don't have a proven playmaker directing their offense are considered at a demonstrative disadvantage.
This is the state of the Association's point guard corps as we know it: talent in volume.
But is it destined to stay that way? Or will the NBA, while overloaded with first-rate offensive pilots, soon find its crowning position thinning out as the current generation eventually gives way to a new one?
In the first installment of a five-part series that examines the state of every position, Bleacher Report's Jonathan Wasserman and I took stock of the league's point guard hegemony—both as it appears now and how it's fated to look in the future.
Current Crop
DF: The point guard position isn't in any immediate danger.
Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook are years away from turning 30. Jeff Teague, Mike Conley, Goran Dragic and Kyle Lowry aren't going on the decline anytime soon. Eric Bledsoe, Kyrie Irving, Damian Lillard and John Wall are only just rounding into their primes.
Three of the league's top 10 win-shares collectors start at point guard. Four of the top 10 usage rates belong to point guards.
But many of the founding members of the point guard golden age are approaching their twilight years.
There will come a time when Curry and Westbrook, both 27, celebrate their 30th birthdays. Chris Paul is already on the wrong side of 30 and can no longer claim ownership of Best Point Guard in the World status.
Tony Parker, now 33, shouldn't be making any more All-Star appearances. Rajon Rondo, 29, has already seen superstardom pass him by. Last year, of the eight point guards to appear in the All-Star game, only two (Irving and Lillard) had under five years of experience.
This is a natural and therefore unavoidable progression. Players age. They enter their prime, then leave it. But as their heyday reaches its peak and eventually ebbs into decline, there should be a discernible crop of up-and-comers waiting to take up the mantle.
Irving, Lillard and Wall at one time qualified as those rising studs. But Lillard, in NBA years, is the pup of that trio, and he's playing through his fourth season. Irving is in his fifth, and Wall is in his sixth. They are now part of the golden age, not trailing it.
And when you move beyond them, there isn't much.
Sure, Elfrid Payton and Marcus Smart, both 21, are top-10 draft prospects. But they're also sophomores, and it's too early to loop them into the same category as a younger Irving, Lillard and Wall. The same can be said of Dennis Schroder.
Jordan Clarkson has hardly done enough to be more than a question mark. Brandon Knight is the proud owner of a $70 million contract, but will he be making All-Star appearances anytime soon when he's playing alongside another point man in Bledsoe?
The volume of star talent at the 1 is almost disingenuous to its lofty standing. It becomes difficult for young guns to stand out when they're playing opposite more established megastars, and certain developing projects, such as Cameron Payne of the Oklahoma City Thunder, will be hard-pressed to break out of their cocoons when playing behind the Westbrooks of the NBA.
It helps that the 2015 draft class provided an infusion of promising floor generals. Seven were taken in the first round. Emmanuel Mudiay and D'Angelo Russell have superstar ceilings. Jerian Grant is making noise with the New York Knicks. The undrafted T.J. McConnell is playing his way into prominence with the Philadelphia 76ers.
Are the Knights and Paytons merely the makeshift bridges stationed between today's point gods and those of tomorrow? Or is the inbound crop of talent good enough, and deep enough, to one day match this era?
Wasserman's Words of Wisdom
JW: We went two drafts—2013 and 2014—without adding a new superstar point guard to the league, and now everyone wants to panic. And by everyone, I might just mean you, Dan.
But maybe you're actually onto something. Lillard was the last All-Star-caliber floor general drafted, and he's now entering his fourth year in the league.
Has the NCAA point guard factory (and the one overseas) suddenly begun slowing down production?
Besides Irving, of the top NBA point guards under 24 years old, I'm not convinced any are slam-dunk All-Stars.
| Point Guard | Year | Age |
| Brandon Knight | 5 | 23 |
| Jerian Grant | 1 | 23 |
| T.J. McConnell | 1 | 23 |
| Dennis Schroder | 3 | 22 |
| Marcus Smart | 2 | 21 |
| Elfrid Payton | 2 | 21 |
| Cameron Payne | 1 | 21 |
| Tyler Ennis | 2 | 21 |
| Dante Exum | 2 | 20 |
| Emmanuel Mudiay | 1 | 19 |
| D'Angelo Russell | 1 | 19 |
Players such as Knight, Payton and Smart are quality options and productive NBA assets, but I don't envision their ceilings reaching All-Star heights. They are merely "makeshift bridges" between "today's point gods and those of tomorrow."
Unless rookies Russell and Mudiay—both off to relatively slow starts—take the torch from the Irvings, Walls and Lillards, the superstar cycle that's supposed to spit out a new batch every few years will have fallen a bit behind.
You can argue it already has, considering we aren't likely to see Russell, Mudiay or even Dante Exum explode, if they do at all, for another couple of seasons.
It's not anything the NBA should stress over. Today's stars—who all started at such young ages—will be good for another six to 10 years of high-level play. The league can afford a multi-year drought when it comes to producing All-Star point guards.
Incoming!
JW: If Russell and Mudiay can't find their way into the position's top tier, Kentucky's Jamal Murray and Providence's Kris Dunn will be next in line.
A freshman from Canada, Murray stands 6'5" with a 207-pound frame and deceptive athleticism. He's super advanced offensively and projects as a scoring playmaker in the mold of a Deron Williams or Brandon Roy. For what it's worth, he leads Kentucky in both points and assists through its first three games and looks the part of a prospect cemented into 2016's top-five conversation.
Meanwhile, a breakout sophomore year from Dunn helped restore belief in his potential after back-to-back season-ending shoulder surgeries seemingly knocked him off the map.
He aces the eye test with his 6'4", 205-pound size, a 6'8" wingspan and blazing quickness. Last year, he led the country in assist percentage and finished fifth in steals, highlighting both playmaking prowess and disruptive defense.
Dunn opened his junior season with a 32-point eruption in a win over Harvard and seems poised to continue building his image as a future starting NBA point guard.
Still, we aren't talking about two sure-thing franchise players. Murray lacks the explosiveness and speed that traditionally fuel big-time upside. On the other hand, the jury is still out on Dunn's jumping and decision-making.
Thankfully, the 2017 draft isn't far away.
The current high school senior class is loaded with special talent at point guard. I could argue right now that Trinity Christian's Dennis Smith and Cypress Lakes' De'Aaron Fox are the two best point guard prospects outside the NBA.
Smith will suit up for North Carolina State next fall, though he'll enroll in January while recovering from a torn ACL suffered in August. Smith blends superhero-like quickness and explosiveness with exceptional ball skills and passing instincts.
Assuming he gets back to full strength, expect a steady flow of comparisons to guards such as Derrick Rose, Wall and Westbrook—above-the-rim ball-handlers who operate with similar bounce to their step.
Fox, also a ridiculous athlete, will follow Murray at Kentucky next season. Standing 6'3", he's a blur with a handle. His scoring attack isn't as potent as Smith's, but unlike most at the position, Fox has established himself as a defensive blanket nearly impossible to shake off the dribble.
DeMatha Catholic's Markelle Fultz—6'4", 6'8½" wingspan, exceptional skill level—is another highly rated recruit you can bet will generate plenty of NBA attention. He'll play at Washington next season, where Fultz, according to coach Lorenzo Romar, will be the program's "most dynamic guard coming in the door" in Romar's 14 years with the Huskies, via the Seattle Times' Percy Allen.
There may even be an eligible international sleeper in 2017 who'll be worth traveling to see. Belgium-born Frank Ntilikina plays in France. And he created some eye-opening moments during this summer's Under-18 European Championship.
If the guards from the 2015 draft class struggle while breaking through and the high school up-and-comers prematurely plateau, then we could be in some trouble. The top recruiting services (ESPN, Rivals) only have one point guard rated top 10 in 2017 (Trevon Duval) and one in 2018 (Javonte Smart).
Crystal Basketball
DF: This lack of incoming star power will run through at least 2016, putting the burden of burgeoning stardom squarely on the shoulders of those already in the league. And as of now, Knight and Mudiay are holding down that fort on their own.
Knight is the Phoenix Suns' answer to Curry. He plays on and off the ball, his defense is solid in the half court and his per-game production pins him to truly elite company.
Mudiay is the dare-to-be-great prospect. Though inexperience rears its head nightly, often through missed three-pointers (under 30 percent) and volume turnovers (around five per 36 minutes), he is relentless when attacking off the dribble and works the corners on kick-outs like a seasoned Wall.
"Getting to the rim, creating free throws, driving and kicking to shooters, and making strong defensive plays with his size and athleticism," wrote CBS Sports' Matt Moore. "It provides a blueprint for how he needs to play, and the way that he needs to approach the game. 'Being aggressive' is a platitude, but figuring out how to translate that approach into real playmaking is huge."
Future Hall of Fame point guard and current Bucks head coach Jason Kidd is on record as saying Mudiay will be "better" than him, per the Denver Post's Christopher Dempsey, and he's not necessarily wrong. Mudiay already turns the Denver Nuggets into an above-average offensive team when on the floor, and he's on pace to post the highest assist percentage of any rookie since Wall.
But that's not why the future of the NBA's point guard position is in good hands. Nor is it the long-shot 2016 prospects or the forever-away 2017 possibilities.
The league's tradition of playing host to star point guards is safe because the current regime isn't, collectively, anywhere near the end of its rule.
Curry, Irving, Lillard, Wall and Westbrook have years of accolades left in them. The crop of inbetweeners—Bledsoe, Conley, Reggie Jackson, Knight, Ricky Rubio, etc.—are not far behind. Dragic, Lowry and Paul are older, not retired.
And with so much time separating the golden age of point guards from its end, the future of star floor generals is in equally great shape—if only because the next generation of superheroes needn't even be on the NBA's radar just yet.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com unless otherwise cited and are accurate leading into games on Nov. 20, 2015.
