Tyreke Evans Looks to Pick Up Where Derrick Rose Left Off at Memphis

As Memphis looks to rebound from its crushing loss to Kansas in the NCAA Championship game, coach John Calipari's hopes of reloading fall on the talented shoulders of incoming freshman Tyreke Evans, who inherits a much-greener roster than big-time recruit Derrick Rose did last year.

Evans is the No. 6 rated recruit for this year’s college basketball freshman class according to Rivals.com.  At American Christian High School in Aston, Pennsylvania, Evans excelled at the point guard position, earning the No. 3 point guard rating from Rivals.com. 

However, Memphis will not be giving Evans the direct burden of filling in the shoes of this year’s No. 1 NBA draft pick, Derrick Rose.  The team has announced the veteran Willie Kemp will take over as point guard, and Evans will shift to shooting guard.  In many ways though, Evans is still expected to replace Rose.

Evans and Rose have many similarities, but it is mostly Evans’ hype coming out of high school that will draw him comparisons to the former freshman phenom.

While Evans is ranked as the No. 6 recruit in his class, Rose was the No. 3 rated recruit in the freshman class of 2007.  Rose was also the No. 1 rated point guard, while Evans ranks No. 3.  

Both Evans and Rose have very good size for the guard position.  Evans is 6’5 while Rose is slightly shorter at 6’4.  

They both also come from very similar backgrounds.  Evans is from Chester, PA, a tough area in Philadelphia, while Rose is from the south side of Chicago. 

When his incredible basketball talent began to show, Rose’s mother made sure that his older brothers looked out for him to keep him safe and out of trouble during high school.  Evans had a very similar situation, as his older brothers protected him and even sent him to a private high school away from the streets of Philly.

In his senior year of high school, Evans averaged 29 points per game.  Rose averaged fewer points at 25.2 per game in his senior season, but did lead his team to their second straight state title.

Both stars have the rare ability to make the game look very easy.  They both are extremely quick and very talented at driving the ball to the basket and finishing strong.

There is one more thing that both Rose and Evans have in common that is extremely important.  Rose only played one year at Memphis before leaving for the NBA, and nobody would be surprised if Evans did the exact same thing.

Evans has already been projected to be the No. 10 overall pick and next year’s draft, and has said he hopes that his time on Memphis helps to prepare him for the NBA.

Ever since the rule was set that players must be one year removed from High School to be eligible for the NBA, the one-and-done college basketball player has become extremely common.  In 2006, six of the top seven ranked players (again according to Rivals.com) out of high school left for the NBA after their freshman season.  Last year, nine of the top ten ranked players made the same jump to the NBA after just one year in college.

Being the No. 6 rated recruit for this year’s class, if the trend continues then the chances of Evans bolting for the NBA after one year at Memphis are very high.

In fact, it is fairly simple to create a logistic regression statistical model to predict the probability of Evans going one-and-done.  Thus, I used data from the last two seasons’ freshman classes to do just that.  I used the top 30 ranked recruits for the freshman class of 2006 and the top 30 ranked recruits from last year.  

I found a model based solely off of the rankings from Rivals.com to be an extremely good predictor for whether or not the player goes to the NBA after one season.  Based off of this model, which only takes into account his No. 6 ranking, Evans is given a 77.4% chance of turning professional after this season.

Additionally, I came up with another model that includes a measure for success in a player’s first year of college.  I chose to quantify this success in terms of points scored per game.  Based off of this model, the chance of Evans going to the NBA after his freshman year depends on how well he does this season.  To give an idea, if Evans averages 10 points per game this season, his probability of going to the NBA then drops to 52%.  If Evans averages 20 points per game, then his probability of going to the NBA goes up to 92.5%.  

It should be noted that there is not a lot of data available to use for this study since the rule has only been in place for two years.  The probabilities mentioned assume that the trends from the previous two years will hold this season as well.

It should also be noted that when I say leaving for the NBA after one season, I mean that a player fails to return to his college team the next season for the main reason of playing in the NBA.  Players that “tested the waters” in the NBA and then returned to their college teams were not considered to be one-and-done.  Also, players that left their teams for reasons other than the NBA (academics, etc.) were not considered to be one-and-done either.

Clearly, Memphis fans should be more immediately concerned about the productivity from Evans for this season rather than if he will be around beyond that, but it certainly makes it more difficult for Memphis (or any other team) to maintain a dominant program if its star players only play for one season.

Evans gives the Memphis program a lot to be excited about for this season, even if he does not stay a Tiger beyond that.  For Memphis to have another chance at a national title this season, Evans will have to live up to his hype.  Just like Rose before him.