Commenting On A Preview

The Bratwurst spent some time giving a rundown of the Bucks' roster with player-by-player previews.

A sample:

"Mo Williams: I’ve never really bought into the whole “pure point guard” vs. “shoot-first point guard” thing for two reasons: first, the most important thing is for the team to score more points than the opposition and, second, there isnt really any good way to objectively measure how good a passer a player is. Assists, for example, has as much to do with the point guards’ pass as it does with the finishing ability of the recipient and the decision of the official scorer. So does Mo shoot too much? Last season he took the 5th most shots per 40 minutes of all point guards (behind Arenas, Parker, Cassell and Davis) with 16.87, but the difference between him and the #21 point guard (Stephon Marbury) was only 2.81 shots per 40! That’s less than 1 per quarter! Also, Mo had several games where he was the only starter in uniform, so his scoring was necessary. No, his shooting was fine. Mo’s new contract is reasonable given his production and age, and he still has room to improve. Point guards often take years and years to reach their peaks, so while Williams will most likely plateau as a slightly below-all-star level player, there is always the outside chance that he could have a Chanuncey Billups-like career."

Good stuff as always. I tend to agree that while there are different types of players at every position who possess different strengths and weaknesses, and point guard is no different, it is sometimes an exaggerated concept. If Williams is going to help the team score, and use his strengths to do so, he shouldn't be condemned. Not everyone can be like Jason Kidd or Steve Nash and I'd sure rather have Williams than Brevin Knight, or a number of other "pure point guards" running Milwaukee's show.

That said, hopefully he will continue to play to his strengths while developing better distribution skills. Like it was noted, point guards take time to progress, so it's certainly not out of the question, and in fact is likely that Williams will develop as a passer. That shows that players shouldn't be labeled so generically, because labels stick, but players change.