billups         gp      gs      min     fg%     3fg%    ft%     to      reb     ast     pts
02-03	Det	74	74	31.4	.421	.392	.878	1.8     3.7     3.9     16.2
03-04	Det	78	78	35.4	.394	.388	.878	2.4	3.5	5.7	16.9
04-05	Det	80	80	35.8	.442	.426	.898	2.3	3.4	5.8	16.4

crawford        gp      gs      min     fg%     3fg%    ft%     to      reb     ast     pts
04-05	Nyk	70	67	38.4	.398	.361	.843	2.1	2.9	4.3	17.7
05-06	Nyk	47	14	33.3	.402	.349	.827	2.3	3.2	4.0	14.0

the bold portion is the year lb became the coach. there are some similarities between the two players. brown began coaching billups at age 26, while crawford is at 25. i was pretty surprised to see billups shooting %'s worse than crawford's. obviously, billups looked better b/c of his supporting cast, especially frontcourt players. all this while crawford wasn't the starting pg of this team.

i guess the point i'm trying to make is that statistically, at this point in their perspective careers, they both are at similar places when lb became their coach. things don't look great now but who's to say crawford won't blossom like chauncy did if given the starting pg job permanently? of course, that's pure speculation and we can only revisit this after the fact...

Billups was a great point guard in college, Jamal is so poorly trained.

Posted by djsunyc:

Posted by Knight:

Billups was a great point guard in college, Jamal is so poorly trained.

i agree. i think billups was just more heady and stable. i'm not sure what's going to happen with crawford. he has the tools and he's going through a tough adjustment period. he was our $55 mil lottery pick in the summer of 2004. are we going to stick with him or not? i have no clue.

Consider Jamal played two years of basketball in high school and 17 games in college--then goes to the NBA...he is the exact opposite of an LB guy, he's not smart or tough.

I wasn't expecting Billups to get many more points or assists than Crawford. The difference is HUGE, though, in toughness and defense. That shows up big time in Ws but not in a conventional box score. There's no way you could consider Billups from last year and Crawford from this year at the same stage.