It's called growing up

In HOU, Aaron Brooks is experiencing some growing pains now that he's moved into the starting PG position.

In his words, "it's a little bit of a burden."

While Brooks is settling into his role, he does not fit into the traditional point guard mold, someone who looks to set the table. Without Tracy McGrady in the lineup — especially at the end of games — Brooks is the primary creator. That means he’s going to be more offensive-minded, because that is what is required of him.

What leaps out are games such as Saturday’s, when Brooks played 31½ minutes, took 18 shots and did not deal a single assist.

According to teammate Shane Battier, for Brooks, "the next step for him is to find a way to use his speed to make his people better. It’s part of the maturation process, and you can’t rush it. It’s called growing up. It’s called living."

When evaluating point guards, the key is whether they make their teammates better

In case you missed it, Jason Kidd just passed the great Oscar Robertson on the NBA's all-time assist list. He'll likely pass Magic Johnson this season, as well, to move into the third spot among assist leaders. [John Stockton is the NBA's all-time assist leader with 15,806.]

But as this article by Jan Hubbard points out, Kidd is more than someone who distributes the ball. He "is the current active leader among all NBA players in career steals," and "among point guards, Kidd is the third best rebounder in history. Only Oscar Robertson (7.5) and Magic Johnson (7.2) are ahead of Kidd (6.7)."

According to longtime NBA coach Del Harris, the measuring stick for point guards is how they impact the guys they play with.

"When we evaluate point guards, the biggest thing is whether they make their teammates better. And when you have 10,000 assists, you obviously made a lot of folks better."

[Kidd, by the way, is quick to deflect praise for reaching the 10,000-assist mark, saying, that it's "a credit to every teammate I’ve ever played with because I can’t get an assist unless someone else scores."]

NJ Nets coach Lawrence Frank describes Kidd as "an elite defender" with "unbelievable strong hands."

"He has a sixth sense about where the ball’s going to be. So he gets to virtually every loose ball. He anticipates where the ball is coming off the rim and he can anticipate where passes are going."

Much of what Kidd does on the court doesn't show up on the stat sheet. Hubbard contends that Kidd is often underappreciated because he "makes so many plays with no TV cameras focused on him."

According to DAL owner Mark Cuban, it's not until you see him in person that "you get a full appreciation for what he does. No one covers the court from end to end like J-Kidd."

"Unless you understand the game and unless you are there, you don’t see all the things he does," said Nets president Rod Thorn. "He’s got an innate sense like a Wayne Gretzky in hockey. He just knows where the ball is coming and because of his strength, he’s always able to get it. If you see him and a big man get to the ball and get their hands on it at the same time, Jason’s usually going to get it. The great thing about his statistics is that he doesn’t care about them. He doesn’t care if other point guards have great stats against him. He just wants to win. And that will to win is what has set him apart and made him a great player."

Nearly 36-years-old, Kidd says he stays in shape by getting plenty of sleep, working out in the pool (to reduce stress on his knees, laying off fried foods, and not eating much red meat.

As for his hands, he "attributes his strength to his father, who kept horses in the backyard of their Oakland home when Kidd was growing up."

"I always had to do chores and lift bales of hay," Kidd said. "I was always scared of the hooks, so I would just lift the hay with my hands. Doing that sort of thing helped develop what some people have called heavy hands."

That's what point guards do in this league

If you've noticed a change recently in Mike Conley's game, it's likely the result of a conversation he had with new MEM coach Lionel Hollins.

"He told me, 'I'm giving you your chance. You're going to be the guy finishing games, the guy starting games. You're going to be our point guard, and you have to be the leader of this team. Assert yourself and be aggressive,'" Conley said. "He wants me being a leader vocally, getting guys up for games. When he first told me all that, it was a shock. I started trying to be that person he wants me to be, and it's really helped my game a ton."

Previously, Conley had split time at PG with 22-year-old Kyle Lowry, who was traded to HOU late last week.

Coach Hollins says he's seen an immediate change in Conley's game.

"He's being more assertive. Would I like him to be even more assertive? Yes. I told him (Wednesday) morning I want him to attack more, to take charge more. That's what point guards do in this league. They take control of the game and manage the team from the floor."

Things change when you become the focal point of the defense

After starting two games last year as a rookie, Pistons PG Rodney Stuckey has logged 38 starts this season for DET, his minutes steadily increasing.

But in nine games this month, Stuckey has failed to reach double-digits in scoring six times and he's had three one-assists games during that span.

According to DET coach Michael Curry, that's a reflection of the additional attention he's garnering from opposing teams.

"I've always said in this league there's a difference in getting 20 points when you're not the focal point of the defense and you're pretty much playing off everyone else. Now, his 20 points will always be a hard-earned 20 because he is going to be the focal point of the other teams' defense, at least one of the focal points. A lot of times they are putting their best perimeter defender on him. And so because of that he has to continue to improve and continue to fight through the different challenges he has every night."

The challenge for young point guards

Pistons President Joe Dumars recently compared young NFL quarterbacks with young NBA point guards:

~~~~~~~~~~

What happens is an NFL quarterback or an NBA point guard, initially, you’re not given as much responsibility when you hit the court. Usually in football the playbook is real thin for that guy, usually in basketball you’re limiting the number of plays he’s calling. You’re calling three or four plays and that’s it.

But you can only stay with three or four plays for so long. When his role increases, then the playbook has to increase, responsibility has to increase. You go from calling three or four plays when you’re a young guy to after a while, now you’re calling 10, 12 15, 20 different sets. That’s where you see some of the hesitancy come in. You’re not just reacting any more. You haven’t had enough time out there.

[If] you’re a five-, six-year vet, those 15 or 20 plays don’t even bother you. You know them like the back of your hand. When you’re a guy who hasn’t played 100 games yet, you start calling 15 or 20 plays, you have to start thinking about them. You almost have to envision them – OK, yeah, I know what the play is now.

But when you’re doing that, you’re hesitant out there. You’re processing it and thinking it, but you’re in front of 20,000 people processing it and you look hesitant. So that’s what happens a lot of times with young point guards.

When your point guard tells you what to run, it means he's on it

Kansas State point guard, 6-foot junior Denis Clemente, had 44 points (13-25 FG and 12-12 FT) to lead the Wildcats to an OT win at No. 11 Texas on Saturday.

K-State coach Frank Martin says it's another step in Clemente's development into a leader this season:

"You know that your point guard is doing his job when he's telling me what to run. As a coach, when your point guard tells you what to run, you sit down and listen because that means he's on it, and he knows what's going on."

If you don't get in foul trouble, you're probably not close enough to get a foul

In his career of nearly 570 NBA games with three teams, Warriors guard Jamal Crawford (shown here guarding Derek Fisher) hasn't fouled out a single time.

And that bothers GS assistant Keith Smart, who told 48minutes.net that:

“If you don’t get in foul trouble, there’s a reason. You’re probably not close enough to get a foul. So we’ve got to get him thinking about those things. I’ve told him, ‘Nobody probably ever told you how important it is that you play defense. This is something that has to be a part of you as a point guard in the NBA. You have to give more effort playing defensively.’ So a lot of this stuff is new being reinforced to him. . . . We’re looking at it from ground zero.”

Point guard as quarterback

BOS point guard Rajon Rondo on what he learned as a high school QB:

"When things go bad you take a lot of pressure. You’re responsible for everyone on the field, knowing where they have to be. You call the plays and you’re also an extension of the coach on the field."

The same goes for basketball:

"I think [QB and PG are] the same exact position, really. You’re the leader, regardless of whether you want to be or not. Even though I’m a third-year point guard I’m still the leader of the team. Offensively I’ve got to get the guys in their sets and knowing what plays to call. I’m playing with three All-Stars. It is what it is. I don’t look at individual goals."

Having a hand in 80 percent of your team's decisions

Good quote from DEN coach George Karl about TOR point guard Jose Calderon, who, as this article points out, isn't particularly well known because he's understated, didn't play college basketball in the States, and plays north of the border in Toronto.

"He's a true point who cares about the point," Karl said, "and in the last few years we talk about Chris Paul and Deron Williams, but this kid isn't very far behind him. I think Calderon is (John) Stockton-like. Eighty percent of his team's decisions are made by his decisions."

It's a matter of getting the reins, but with the coach guiding you

Good story today on NBA.com about point guards Devin Harris and Chris Duhon (pictured here), who currently rank in the top 5 in scoring and assists, respectively.

Nets GM Kiki Vandeweghe contends the PG spot is the most challenging "because you have responsibility not only for yourself, but for running the plays, organizing the team and it's a matter of getting the reins, enough of the reins, but with the coach guiding you at the same time. It's a matter of finding what works and what doesn't work, and that's true of any player, but especially for a point guard."

Mike D'Antoni credits Duhon's improved play to an increase in confidence.

"That's the first thing. He's playing a lot of time. He's not worried about making a mistake. Most players in this league when they get that type of confidence they're better than they were."

Says Duhon, whose nickname is "48 Plus" because of his heavy minutes, he's not concerned about getting a quick hook after a bad play:

"This offense has given me an opportunity to shoot or create for my teammates. Coach has confidence in me and I know I'm not going worry about coming out because I've made a mistake."

Harris attributes his improved play to Coach Lawrence Frank's offense, saying:

"I feel free, the system allows me to make plays. And it makes it easier when you have a coach who sits back and just lets you play."

According to the NBA.com article, "Repeatedly after a rebound, the Knicks... seek out Duhon to bring the ball up. [In a recent game] Duhon had numerous 'hockey assists'... where he'd get into the lane off dribble penetration or on a pick-and-roll and dish it off, only to have his pass lead to another pass to a wide open Knick."

The guys who ask questions are the guys who are looking to get better

Jim Boeheim's Syracuse club is off to an 8-0 start, including an OT win over Kansas before Thanksgiving.

Leading the Orangemen is PG Jonny Flynn, a 6-foot sophomore who shared Rookie of the Year honors last season in the Big East.

As Coach Boeheim said after a Syracuse win earlier this month in which Flynn had 12 points, 7 assists, and 3 steals: "It all starts with the point guard."

According to this article:

This summer, Flynn attended LeBron James' basketball camp in Akron, Ohio. He served as a counselor and played pick-up with James and New Orleans Hornets all-world point guard Chris Paul.

Paul pulled Flynn aside and tutored him on the pick-and-roll, one weapon in Paul's vast arsenal. "He was just telling me, 'Always take your time,'" Flynn said. You dictate the pace, not the defender.

Flynn listened. He's like that, said Syracuse assistant coach Mike Hopkins. He opens his ears up when elders speak.

"The guys who ask questions are the guys who are constantly looking to get better, who don't take this personally," Hopkins said. "Those are the guys who make it. And I think Jonny's one of those guys, who all he wants to do is get better and will do anything to win."

The article continues:

One summer when he was a teen, Flynn had surgery on his right wrist. His dominant hand was out of commission.

Every time Sal Constantino, an assistant coach at Niagara Falls High School, saw Flynn that summer, the kid had a basketball in his left hand. He worked on developing a balance to his game, turning a negative into a positive.

"He wanted to get better with his weaker hand," Constantino said.

Leading by playing with heart

Interesting piece in ESPN The Magazine about PG Brandon Jennings, who went from Oak Hill Academy to playing professionally in Italy.

Jennings' coach in Italy, Jasmin Repesa, who coached the Croatian National Team at this summer's Olympics in Beijing, tossed Jennings from the team's practice for lack of hustle.

According to the ESPN article, the event "proved to be a blessing for Jennings."

Not only did it get his attention, his reaction won him respect in the locker room. Repesa forced him to apologize to the entire team the next morning. By the time the club returned to Rome to prep for preseason games, Jennings was diving for loose balls, pestering his man on D, fighting through screens and moving without the ball. He started pushing the rock upcourt with passes instead of fancy dribbling, nixing the urge to add to his highlight collection.

His foreign teammates started to see a player they liked on the court and enjoyed being around off of it. One day in the weight room, Jennings, not exactly a strongman on the iron, donned a wifebeater and went to work on the bench press. After completing a tough four-set session with 110 pounds, the slight 180-pounder stood tall in the middle of the room, banged his fist to his chest repeatedly and let out a primal scream: "With the heart! With the heart!"

Glancing at one another, his teammates smiled knowingly. "That meant a lot to us," said Rodrigo De La Fuente, Jennings' roommate in Folgaria. "Because he's the point guard, if he leads us by playing with heart, guys will follow that."

As is common in Europe, Coach Repesa "doesn't believe in a set starting five. He'll switch starters by the game; he'll go 10 deep, playing almost everyone at least 15 minutes and hardly anyone over 25."

Says Jennings, who is showing clear signs of maturing:

"Once I saw how Coach did things, I decided to concentrate on running the team. I'm playing defense, learning as much as I can and just trying to win. In the end, this is going to make me better."

Experience is the wheel that grinds and hones

After Stephen Curry posted 33 points and 9 assists the other night to lead Davidson by James Madison, his coach, Bob McKillop said:

"You can see him continue to grow and get better as a point guard. Decision-making, leadership, two challenges that point guards and quarterbacks always have to master, he's got the technical skills, clearly we understand that, but he's starting to master those other skills, the skills of decision-making and leadership."

There's an old saying: "Good decisions are the result of experience. Experience is the result of bad decisions."

Clearly, Curry has benefited from experience.

Let's go back to 2006. In Curry's first college game (against EMU), he committed 13 turnovers in 35 minutes.

Last December, early in his sophomore season in a game against Duke, Curry had eight turnovers in 34 minutes as the Blue Devils won, 79-73.

Now, fast-forward to late March to the NCAA Tournament. In 34 minutes against Georgetown, Curry didn't commit a single turnover in 36 minutes as Davidson beat the Hoyas, 74-70.

Curry's a perfect example of a player whose smart decisions today are based, in part, on poor decisions he made in the past. The difference is, while a lot of players make bad decisions and never learn from them, Curry's gotten better as a result of his experience.

As one executive contended recently as part of a Harvard forum:

"A person without experience is very unlikely to have good judgment; experience is the wheel that grinds and hones."

UCLA v Miami (OH) at Pauley

Was at the UCLA vs Miami (Ohio) game the other night at Pauley. Miami almost upset the Bruins thanks to excellent spacing offensively and sharp execution.

SF Michael Bramos finished with 22 for Miami.

UCLA PG Darren Collison (pictured here) may have been the difference in the game. He absolutely shut down Miami PG guard Kenny Hayes, who went 7-7 from 3-point range the night before against Weber State.

Against Collison, Hayes was 1-6 from the field. Collison has great quickness (quick hands!) and can really defend, applying full-court pressure to Hayes.

Offensively, Collison pushes ball and really looks to get in the lane. He's an excellent penetrating point. He finished the game with 16 points (only 3 assists), but his two big FTs late in the game to help UCLA beat Miami, 64-59.

At the game, I heard someone comparing Collison with Patrick Mills, the St. Mary's PG who was a member of Australia's Olympic team this past summer in Beijing. They're about the same size (6-0), though Collison is a senior and Mills is only a sophomore.

After watching Collison the other night, and having seen Mills play about a dozen times last season as a freshman, I really believe Mills could contribute as much or more to an NBA team than Collison.

A point guard lists the NBA's best point guards

Dave D'Alessandro asked Devin Harris (pictured here) to name which NBA point guards were the best in several categories.

Here's an excerpt of their exchange and a couple of quotes from the story:

Who's the best point guard in the NBA nowadays?

"I think you have to give it to Chris Paul," Devin Harris said, almost instantaneously.

The best shooter among point guards?

"Steve Nash."

Best penetrator?

"Tony Parker. Slight edge over CP."

Best passer off the dribble?

"That would be CP."

Best point guard on the break?

"Probably Deron Williams."

Quickest first step?

"Tony. But Rajon Rondo isn't far behind."

Best handle?

"We can include (Allen) Iverson, right? Then it's A.I. (Jose) Calderon never turns it over, but he keeps it real basic. He doesn't take the same chances other guys do."

What is the one quality that a great point guard needs, anyway?

"The most important thing is respect of his peers and coaching staff," Harris said. "If you don't have that, you don't have anything. You have to work for that. Work to get it, and work to keep it."

Who's the best point guard at getting his own shot?

"Dwyane Wade, if we can count him. You can't pick Gilbert (Arenas), because he just launches from 30 sometimes. That's not hard."

Who's the best at keeping his dribble against a blitz and making a play?

"Nash."

Who runs the best screen-roll?

"It depends. On the side, it's Deron. On top, it's CP."

Quickest hands?

"Rondo, hands down. Brevin Knight, too, but Rondo's hands are so big."

Best defender?

"It's really about team defenses now - you don't go into it dreading anybody. But I'll go with Chauncey (Billups). And Baron (Davis) is a major pain when he's motivated."

Best one-on-one point guard?

"That would be Gilbert."

Best catch-and-shoot guy off the ball?

"My pick would be Mo Williams."

Last one: Who's the most underrated point guard?

This time, he paused.

"Devin Harris," Devin Harris said.

[Nets coach Lawrence] Frank likens it to a relationship between a football coach and his quarterback.

"It's an interesting dichotomy. You have to give trust, yet you hold him the most accountable. He has to feel that the coach is behind him, yet feel that he's held to a higher standard because he's responsible for the other four guys. And it doesn't matter if it's fair or unfair.

The tradeoff is that he has the opportunity to be fearless in his approach, and he gets to carry the torch on the court and in the locker room, set the tone and determine how we'll play."

Don't you need an ego to do this job properly?

"Oh, absolutely," Harris said. "You have to have one, because you're going against very tough guys every night, guys who are coming for your throat. You have to have a swagger, and come in thinking, 'I'm running this team, we have to do it my way.' Absolutely, you have to think that way, and think you're the best one out there."

Parker: My biggest role will be to get everybody involved

Note out of San Antonio about Spurs PG Tony Parker taking on more of a leadership role this season:

“I’m trying to establish myself as a leader, and be more vocal,” Parker said. “I want to take more responsibility. My biggest role this year will be to get everybody involved.”

That part of Parker’s game has taken a while to come out of its shell. When he arrived as a 19-year-old rookie in 2001, he experienced considerable and understandable trouble imposing himself on a team overflowing with veterans.

Somehow, he sensed, a 37-year-old NBA graybeard like Terry Porter wasn’t going to be taking basketball advice from a teenager fresh from Paris. At the time, Parker felt it better to be seen, but not heard.

“When you have David Robinson and Steve Kerr and all those guys, you just watch and you listen,” Parker said. “Now, this is my eighth year, (and) we’ve got a lot of young guys. It’s my job to help them.”

Popovich saw signs of that leadership emerging in Parker last season. Finally comfortable in his own NBA sneakers, Parker had no qualms about bossing around even a future Hall of Famer like Tim Duncan.

“He’s being really demanding of his teammates, and not worrying about hurting somebody’s feelings,” Popovich said. “He’s not here to win king of the Fun-a-rama. He’s here to make sure everybody does their job.”

When you have Jason Kidd, you've got to have an up-tempo game

Dallas coach Rick Carlisle on why he's decided to encourage his team to run this season:

"It's about me doing the right thing for this group of players. When you have Jason Kidd, you've got to have a strong, up-tempo game. So we're committed to getting the ball up and down the court.

Listen, I've always wanted to play at a faster pace; it's more fun to coach. But it's a different kind of coaching because the majority of the decisions fall in the hands of the players. So you've go to educate them in a lot of situations as to what's best for the team, and there's a learning curve. But we're committed to it."

Speaking of Kidd, here's Donnie Nelson's assessment of the Mavericks' PG:

"He’s kind of basketball’s version of Brett Favre, one of the best ever to play the position. What he did for the Dream Team this summer is proof and an indication of that leadership. With the quarterback position being in his hands, that’s something we’re looking forward to."