Wages of Wins on Morris Almond

This is a bit older (Oct 14th, 2008), but a necessary look at Morris Almond from one of the most respected stat guys out there -- David Berri from The Wages of Wins. Basically he appraises Mobe to be better offensively (well, scoring-ingly) than the average NBA shooting guard, but below average when it comes to rebounds (by 1 rpg), steals (by 0.6 spg), personal fouls (by 0.7 fpg), assists (by 2.5 apg) and turn overs (where he gets 1.4 more turn overs per game). For the record he does block more than the average NBA shooting guard.

So, yeah -- you're saying "tell me something I don't already know" . . . well, I come from an unconventional school of thought. One where you eventually have to look at the type of player you have not based on what he is not, but on the type of things that got him to this stage. Almond went to high school with Atlanta's Josh Smith -- and recognized that he did not have the all around game (or athleticism) to do what Smith did; so he had to carve out a special niche for himself to excel in.

Almond's rookie stats don't look great compared to the average NBA shooting guard . . . unless you a) recognize that these are rookie stats, and b) you actually look at the stuff that Almond has really put in the time to work on -- and excel in. No one said on draft night that Morris Almond was going to be an NBA ready defender or playmaker from day one. What people said is that the kid can score at the NBA level.

According to the stats from the article above he can. The average NBA shooting guard (over 48 minutes) scores 20.8 ppg, goes to the line less than 5 times a game, and shoots a little above 48 adjusted fg% and about 80 ft%. What about Mobe? Dude scores a whopping 33.1 ppg (you know, almost 13 more ppg than "average"), he gets to the line 10 times a game (twice as much as 'average') and shoots a better percentage from FG and FT range.

So yeah . . . below average (by some really small margins like 1 rpg, or 0.7 fpg), but above average by some huge margins when it comes to what he is good at.

Still . . . Jerry Sloan isn't going to play him until he gets the all-around game he's going to need if he's ever going to be a starter . . . so yeah, see ya in Orem, Mo' ! And check out the article (link at the top of the post) from The Wages of Wins if you want to go a little deeper!