Where have all the point guards gone?
Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2019 2:56 pm
The performance of my backup point guards has been awful this year. I decided it was time to move in a different direction so I checked the pool of free agents. Yuck. There wasn't much choice there. So next I started to look around at other teams' rosters to see if I could poach one somewhere. As I clicked through the team pages I noticed that everyone else has pretty crappy backup point guards as well. This got me wondering, where have all the point guards gone? As usual, I went to the data to see if there has actually been a noticeable decrease the quality of point guards. All of the graphs below show the yearly average of a given variable by year for players labeled as point guards. I split all of the graphs by starters and backups, where starters are defined as players that started more than 42 games in a given season. Also, ignore the last year of data, all players are classified as backups because I made a mistake in the code and I am too lazy to regenerate, save, and upload new graphs.
Player Attributes
Passing Ratings
It does not appear that the passing ratings of point guards have really decreased. In fact, they are considerably better than they were in the 2005-2015 period. Maybe I'm just imagining this whole thing.
Handling Ratings
Okay, maybe I'm not imagining this. The average handling attributes are down about 10 points over the past 10 years and 20 points over the past 30 years. You should feel pretty lucky if you have a guy that can bring the ball of the court without bouncing it off his foot.
Perimeter Defense
What about defense, though? Surely these guys are making up on the defensive end. Nope. The average perimeter defense scores have been lower than they've ever been in recent years, about 15 points down from their peak in the 90's for backups and 10 points down for starters.
Stealing
The picture for steals is even worse. Average steal ratings are down about 20 points for both backups and starters since the mid 90's. The average for backups was actually below 40 in 2024.
Outcomes
Do these considerably lower ratings lead to much worse outcomes? Not really.
Asists
Assists have held steady. If anything, they are up. This is likely because of the increased shot-making capabilities of the college game generated players I have documented in other places.
Turnovers
Turnovers are essentially unchanged. Perhaps this is because the stealing capabilities have decreased in sync with the handling capabilities of point guards. So, even though turnovers haven't gone through the roof, we're likely seeing a lower level of play.
And there you have it. Essentially, today's point guards are worse than those of yesteryear but it doesn't actually matter that much because they are being guarded and guarding point guards of the same poor quality.
Player Attributes
Passing Ratings
It does not appear that the passing ratings of point guards have really decreased. In fact, they are considerably better than they were in the 2005-2015 period. Maybe I'm just imagining this whole thing.
Handling Ratings
Okay, maybe I'm not imagining this. The average handling attributes are down about 10 points over the past 10 years and 20 points over the past 30 years. You should feel pretty lucky if you have a guy that can bring the ball of the court without bouncing it off his foot.
Perimeter Defense
What about defense, though? Surely these guys are making up on the defensive end. Nope. The average perimeter defense scores have been lower than they've ever been in recent years, about 15 points down from their peak in the 90's for backups and 10 points down for starters.
Stealing
The picture for steals is even worse. Average steal ratings are down about 20 points for both backups and starters since the mid 90's. The average for backups was actually below 40 in 2024.
Outcomes
Do these considerably lower ratings lead to much worse outcomes? Not really.
Asists
Assists have held steady. If anything, they are up. This is likely because of the increased shot-making capabilities of the college game generated players I have documented in other places.
Turnovers
Turnovers are essentially unchanged. Perhaps this is because the stealing capabilities have decreased in sync with the handling capabilities of point guards. So, even though turnovers haven't gone through the roof, we're likely seeing a lower level of play.
And there you have it. Essentially, today's point guards are worse than those of yesteryear but it doesn't actually matter that much because they are being guarded and guarding point guards of the same poor quality.