Jose Calderon Far from Ideal NBA Point Guard

A true point guard is a vocal leader who makes his teammates better. He leads by example, knows how to dictate the tempo of a game, when to be passive, and when to be assertive. He's able to break down defenses through penetration off the bounce, and he mostly takes shots within the flow of the offense, rarely forcing bad shots which disrupt a team's on-court chemistry.

He's also his team's first line of defense, a student of the game, and an extension of the coach's philosophy on the court. He knows where the ball needs to go and to whom it needs to go to. He possesses great court vision, and is able to exploit defensive mistakes by the opponent. 

If we're to accept that definition of the ideal true point guard, how many areas are missing in Calderon's repertoire?

For starters, he's absolutely incapable of keeping his man in front of him. If he's matching up against a Chauncey Billups or Tony Parker in the final game of a series, he's probably going to cost you the game on this weakness alone.

Secondly, if we're to speak of him in the same breath as Nash, Kidd, Stockton, or Paul, let's figure out where the hell these assists are coming from.

The Raptors happen to be blessed/cursed with a coach who likes to keep it simple. I'm convinced Sam Mitchell's earlier excuse of simplifying his offense to ease in his younger players was just an excuse for his own inadequacy, but that's for another day, and another article.

In Toronto's offense—which features spectacular shooters like Anthony Parker, Jason Kapono, and Andrea Bargnani when he's up to it—Jose's job is to simply pass the ball to stationary shooters. When he's not doing this, he's passing to a rolling Bosh to the basket for a dunk.

Very rarely will Calderon push the ball to look for easy opportunities in transition, or go one-on-one off the dribble against a top-level point guard. This certainly points to a key reason why he leads the league in assist:turnover ratio. But this isn't fantasy basketball.

Who says that sacrificing two possessions per night isn't worth three or four more transition buckets? This is why one has to take this assist:turnover ratio people obsess over with a grain of salt. While he's not coughing up the ball, he's also not making defenses pay for mishaps the way other ball-handlers with great court vision often do.

Furthermore, one has to wonder how much better a player is for having played with Calderon. Because of his high dribble and ridiculously limited creativity off the bounce, he's unable to penetrate good defenses without assistance. This limits how much he's really able to create for his team.

How can we justify praising a player for passing the ball? Could a player like Derek Fisher in 2003 have racked up 20 assists per night by just dominating the ball, dribbling to a convenient location, and throwing the ball to Shaq or Kobe?

I suppose Phil Jackson would argue that his offense wouldn't work if he allowed Fisher to do that. What do I know? I'm a Raptor fan. I only see true coaching once every four years in the Olympics, and when my beloved Raptors NBATV shows NBA Classics.

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