Rose vs. Beasley Against NBA-Caliber Competition
by YaoPau on Jun 4, 2008 12:41 PM CDT

Much has been made of Beasley's eye-popping 26pt, 12reb average and Derrick Rose's comparatively bland 15, 4 and 4. Based on these numbers, most see Beasley as the scoring behemoth at the next level, and Rose as the player who makes his teammates better.

But there's a problem with that conclusion. Both players played in mediocre conferences (Big 12 was ranked 7th hardest, Conference USA 11th), meaning Beasley and Rose played a lot of games against non-NBA talent. What difference does it make if Beasley can put up 32-24-4 against Sacramento State, or if Derrick Rose can put up 19-2-12 against Austin Peay? How would the numbers change if we just took their stats in potential-NBA matchups? Glad you asked.

Mike Beasley against NBA-caliber PF/Cs:

(opponent, player: fgm/fga, pts, reb, ast, to)

vs. Rider, Jason Thompson: 5/11, 13, 10, 1, 0
vs. ND, Luke Harangody: 8/20, 19, 13, 1, 5
vs. Cal, Devon Hardin: 7/13, 19, 11, 2, 4
vs. Xavier, Josh Duncan: 1/6, 5, 12, 1, 5
vs. Oklahoma, Blake Griffin: 13/18, 32, 11, 0, 8
vs. Texas A&M, DeAndre Jordan: 7/14, 21, 4, 0, 0
vs. Kansas, Darrell Arthur: 9/18, 25, 6, 2, 4
vs. Kansas, Darrell Arthur: 11/23, 39, 11, 0, 2
vs. USC, Taj Gibson: 7/12, 23, 11, 2, 2
vs. Wisconsin, Brian Butch: 8/19, 23, 13, 0, 3

Averages against NBA-talent: 7.6/15.4, 21.9ppg, 10.2rpg, .9apg, 3.4topg, 58.7 TS% 32.9mpg
Averages against all others: 10.0/18.4, 28.1ppg, 13.3rpg, 1.3apg, 2.7topg, 63.0 TS%, 31.0mpg


Derrick Rose against NBA-caliber PGs:

vs. Tenn-Martin, Lester Hudson: 8/16, 17, 6, 5, 1
vs. UConn, A.J. Price: 8/17, 24, 6, 0, 5
vs. USC, OJ Mayo: 3/9, 9, 10, 4, 5
vs. Arizona, Jerryd Bayless: 5/9, 12, 3, 5, 6
vs. Gonzaga, Jeremy Pargo: 6/12, 19, 8, 9, 4
vs. Tenn, Chris Lofton: 9/16, 23, 5, 5, 3
vs. Miss St, Jamont Gordon: 6/14, 17, 9, 7, 1
vs. Mich St, Drew Neitzel: 10/16, 27, 4, 5, 1
vs. Texas, D.J. Augustin: 7/10, 21, 6, 9, 2
vs. UCLA, Darren Collison: 7/16, 25, 9, 4, 1
vs. Kansas, Mario Chalmers: 7/17, 18, 6, 8, 5

Averages against NBA-talent: 6.9/13.8, 19.3ppg, 6.5rpg, 5.5apg, 3.1topg, 57.0 TS%, 33.3mpg
Averages against all others: 4.6/9.8, 13.3ppg, 3.8rpg, 4.4apg, 2.5topg, 56.6 TS%, 27.7mpg

Immediately you see that Beasley ran up his gaudiest numbers against weak opponents while Rose turned it up for big matchups. But there are still two other factors to account for: the slight difference in minutes played, and the larger difference in team pace.

To try to compare apples to apples, I used DraftExpress's pace multiplier found on each player's stats page (slight issue here is that the pace multiplier is from each player's complete season, not in just their games listed above. The actual numbers will be a tad off from what's below). And here's what spit out:

Per-40 minute pace adjusted numbers for Beasley and Rose against NBA-caliber competition:

Beasley: 8.8/17.9, 25.4ppg, 11.8rpg, 1.0apg, 3.9topg
Rose: 7.9/15.9, 22.1ppg, 7.5rpg, 6.4apg, 3.5topg

Take any stat derived from a 10-game sample size (and created by a Rose fan) with a grain of salt... but offensively, Rose but might be a little bit closer to Beasley than most people think.

DJ, take a look at Derrick Roses stats in the NCAA tournament against the BIG BOYS. They were anything but bland.

Posted by purple012870:

DJ - great analysis

haha...if you see caps in any of my posts - that means i didn't write it.