With the NBA draft just days away, there’s no doubt that teams will be scrambling to fill voids on near-championship caliber teams by trading away draft picks for necessities and vice-versa. Half of the teams that reached this years playoffs — Indiana, Philadelphia, Miami, New York, Atlanta, Orlando, Los Angeles, and Portland — will be looking to add a point guard to their roster this off-season. Just their luck, the most qualified and most available player of this year’s NBA offseason is a point guard. His name is Raymond Felton.
Let’s stop for a moment and play a game. Two players have career averages in points, assists and rebounds respectively. Which one seems more valuable to their team on the surface?
- Player 1: 15 PPG, 8 AST and 4 REB
- Player 2: 17 PPG, 6 AST and 3 REB
Pretty inseparable, right? If you guessed that Player 1 is Felton and Player 2 is none other than 3-time NBA champion Tony Parker then you’re right (and need to step outside and get some fresh air, away from the computer screen). Felton, although under an admittedly stat-swelling D’Antoni system in New York, was averaging 17.1 PPG and 9 AST before being traded to the Nuggets as fill-in piece for the ‘Melo trade. Those are some fairly ridiculous numbers for a throw-in.
Felton’s value doesn’t end when fans are away from the stadium. He’s a hard-nosed, hard-fighting hard worker. Larry Brown, a notoriously detail-oriented coach who often clashes with his more ornery players, went out of his way to try to get Felton re-signed in Charlotte. Felton is a well-liked and respected league figure who is the positive epitome of a ‘character’ guy — one who can actually ball. He’s a quiet veteran who doesn’t play up his own ability or call attention to himself. He doesn’t even have any tattoos.
Felton is due to make around $7 million next season, which is a fairly average salary considering the likes of Steve Nash, Jason Kidd and Gilbert Arenas all get paid double that (or more). Taking into account that Felton is only 26 and the new CBA will drastically reduce the exploding salaries of years past, Felton will most likely be a bargain no matter what he is paid throughout the prime of his career.
Best of all, Denver is looking to move him. The Nuggets front office is in love with young floor general Ty Lawson and will probably be one of the biggest movers and shakers in the offseason trade landscape. Denver isn’t going to give him away, but any team that can offer up the right combination of draft picks, starting players and/or the ability to act as a conduit for some kind of mega-deal to Denver’s liking will get the main prize in Felton.
The NBA world has come alive this morning suggesting that Felton to the Lakers is in the works and that several teams outside of L.A. are interested in him. Meanwhile, NBA fanatics like myself have been hoisting the flag on the Felton bandwagon since April when the Nuggets exited the playoffs. Several teams are publicly in the mix (the most perplexing is Sacramento) with L.A. being the most active being that they have the two most salary and talent-ready trade chips in Odom and Artest for starting-level talent like Felton. However, don’t be surprised if a few other teams come out of the woodwork to score him.
This post-season we watched tremendously talented teams without a proper (or mature) point guard fail; L.A., Chicago, Oklahoma City, Miami and Memphis made it through to the later rounds but were trounced by superior teams. Conversely, we saw a team with one of the best point guards of all-time nab a ring because of his leadership. To say that Felton, on the right team, is cause for championship consideration is an understatement. ‘The Weakest NBA Draft in History’ features three point guards slated to go as some of the most assured picks. Doesn’t that say something about the value of point guards in this league?
With the pending NBA lockout and the Dwight Howard talk able to leap tall buildings all by itself, Raymond Felton has barely been mentioned until a few days before the NBA draft. Giving Felton’s quiet nature, that may suit him just fine. But after the dust settles, those who forgot about Ray Felton in the summer of 2011 will be groaning the loudest.
The newest edition to The Hoop Doctors writing staff, Dane Carbaugh is the editor and lead writer of the popular new basketball blog Hardcourt Hoops. Dane is an accomplished author and blogger of both American politics and NBA basketball.
