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Over the first half of the season, the Sacramento Kings’ Tyreke Evans and the Milwaukee Bucks’ Brandon Jennings have established themselves as the two best rookie point guards in the league.

But which one is better, and how good can each of them be?

In two separate games—Sacramento’s 118-114 victory over the New York Knicks, and Milwaukee’s 97-77 victory over the New Jersey Nets, I set out to answer that question.

Here’s the stat line of each player’s performance:


Evans: 11-26 FG, 0-1 3FG, 5-7 FT, 10 REB, 6 AST, 3 TO, 1 STL, 27 PTS
Jennings: 3-8 FG, 0-0 3FT, 1-2 FT, 3 REB, 3 AST, 5 TO, 2 STL, 7 PTS

Evans Offense

Evans has a wealth of natural talent, which he used to lead Sacramento back from a 15-point fourth-quarter deficit.

He almost always operates from the top of the key where he looks to either feed a wing down screen for one of Sacramento’s perimeter shooters, or receive a screen and go from there. If the down screen doesn’t open up, Evans will stay at the top of the key, get the ball back, and either reverse the ball or go into the screen/roll. Late in the shot clock, Evans will forgo the screen and simply isolate at the top.

Whether he’s isolating or using a screen, Evans gets to the rim an incredible amount of times. Of his 26 shot attempts, 18 came in the immediate basket area, and one was a short floater. While he missed the floater and seven layups, the majority came early in the game or on indecisiveness on which hand to finish with at the rim.

Evans only finishes with his left hand when his attempts are uncontested. In traffic, he has little confidence with his left and makes shot attempts more difficult by attempting to finish with his right on the left side of the rim.

When Evans sees an opening, he covers an enormous amount of ground with his natural speed, explosive first step, and his lengthy strides. He also lulls opponents to sleep because he doesn’t play at full throttle on simple plays. His ability to change gears and play at different speeds overwhelms opponents.

Over the first three quarters, Evans played at three-quarter speed, gliding through the game, setting up teammates, and only attacking when he saw a seam to the basket or a defensive mistake.

All that changed in the second half.

Going one-on-one at the top, left-to-right spin moves straight into Jared Jeffries sent him sprawling backwards while Evans had all the space in the world to finish a layup.

A right-to-left spin left Jeffries frozen in space while Evans found himself uncontested at the basket to sink a layup.

Another drive forced a double team, where a drop off pass to Jason Thompson led to an uncontested dunk and a tied game.

The combination of terrific speed, raw strength, hang time, and creativity puts Evans on an approximate talent level as last season’s version of Derrick Rose. The natural abilities are all there.

However, Evans has major work to do on his jump shot. He still releases the ball over his head (though not as dramatically as early in the season) and doesn’t get enough extension with his elbow. As a result he has little control over where his jumpers will land, and he only connected on one of his seven attempts outside the paint.

He has good court vision and is a creative passer. Three of his assists came on good decisions in transition, two came on accurate passes on down screens, and the sixth was the game-tying dime to Thompson.

However, he failed to read the Knicks overplaying a high post entry pass and the pass was deflected. He also threw a bad pass off the dribble that was deflected out of bounds, and an attempted drive and drop was deflected by David Lee when Evans threw a chest pass that should’ve been a bounce pass.

Evans’ other two turnovers came on a palm early in the game, and a pass straight to Omri Casspi that Casspi failed to attempt to catch. Meaning that despite several bad passes and several turnovers, only once was Evans responsible for a bad pass turnover.

Despite this, Evans has a habit of putting his head down on his drives. This keeps him from inspecting the entire court and seeing events unfurling. At least twice Evans had his head away from the action when a shooter was all alone in the corner and a cutter was wide open under the basket.

Also, Evans literally does nothing on offense without the ball in his hands. Part of this is his responsibility to balance the court, but he never receives the ball with any kind of off-ball action, which limits the possibilities he has to attack. He doesn’t cut, he doesn’t fill, he doesn’t screen away, he simply stands around watching.

The only time Evans made any meaningful basketball move without the ball was on the final play of regulation where Evans was asked to inbound and make a backdoor cut, but he was defended well and the backdoor pass was easily broken up.

For Evans to continue his ascent as an elite point guard, he’ll need to dramatically improve his understanding of how to be a factor without the ball in his hands and how to attack from various parts of the court.

He also has major work to do on his jump shot, and needs to further develop his ability to finish with his left hand.

Based on raw athleticism alone though, Evans is as good as it gets at the point guard spot.

Jennings Offense

Because Milwaukee’s offense features more ball movement, player movement, and general complexity, Jennings’ has a lot more responsibility as a facilitator than a scorer in Milwaukee’s offense.

As so, Jennings’ main attack opportunities come in transition or around screen/rolls going to his left, his dominant hand.

Jennings is fairly quick, but not much quicker than the stable of ultra-quick point guards already employed in the NBA. If Jennings was quick enough to turn the corner on screens, he wasn’t quick enough to beat New Jersey’s contesting helpers converging at the rim.

Jennings shot attempts were equally distributed inside and outside the paint. In the paint, he missed three of his four layups, both his right handed attempts, and a left-handed reverse layup which was swatted by Brook Lopez.

Both of Jennings’ made jumpers were wide open. A short banker after his blocked layup bounced back to him, and an open jumper going left off a screen. A step back jumper going left, and a jumper going right were missed.

If Jennings didn’t force any shots, he forced a pair of passes.

A forced chest pass in traffic needed to be a bounce pass to reach its destination. Instead, Yi Jianlian picked up a steal. Also, an entry pass to a post player being overplayed was knocked away.

Jennings drove parallel to the foul line going right after a screen on the left side, couldn’t turn the corner against a wall of Nets, didn‘t take the jump shot that the Nets gave him, picked up his dribble in able to throw the ball back to the weak side wing, found the angle cut off, and took an extra step to find a passing lane.

His other two turnovers came when he tried to catch a pass with one hand and it rolled out of bounds, and when he didn’t meet the ball, and had it stolen by Courtney Lee, hinting at a lack of focus.

Jennings is far too small to be a reliable finisher, and his overall field goal percentage is actually lower than his three point percentage. His puny size also allows defenses to push him where they want him to go, and he’s not quick enough to compensate. While he has decent vision, he’s prone to stretches where he loses focus, and therefore isn’t adept at running an offense yet.

While Jennings is certainly okay, he’s not the difference maker Evans is.

Evans Defense

Evans’ defense was almost as bad as his off-ball offense. On the weak-side he does nothing but ball gaze, allowing Jared Jeffries to beat him back door once, though the Knicks never took advantage.

When Evans’ teammates get beat off the dribble, Evans ends up in no-man’s land, neither throwing his body in the way of the penetration, nor being in a position to contest his own man should a pass make its way to him. Worse, Evans’ closeouts are atrocious, and any quick move can either get a player past Evans, or get Evans sprawling in the air.

Evans is tentative defending screens, usually needing the screen defender to take a step back so he can go under the screen without giving up too much room for a jump shot. Even with this strategy, Evans had difficulty recovering after reading the screen.

On-ball Evans’ defense of choice is to reach around the ball handler to try and poke away the ball from behind as the ball handler beats him off the bounce.

Indeed, the only player Evans defended with success was Chris Duhon who Evans was able to stay on par with and use his long wingspan to discourage a shot over him.

Otherwise, Evans’ hands are at his sides, he doesn’t contest dribbles, and plays with no aggression whatsoever.

In other words, as talented as Evans is offensively, is as poor as he is defensively.

Jennings Defense

Due to Scott Skiles’ philosophy, Jennings is by default a better defender than Evans simply because Milwaukee’s point guards will pressure the ball up the floor.

While Jennings doesn’t make a major impact on wrecking an opponent’s philosophy, the extra second or two to get an offense set up is an intrinsic help.

Jennings is more willing to move his feet and raise his hands on defense, and he’s slightly more alert in his weak-side defense.

Jennings’ main problem is because of how tiny he is, he gets wiped out by every single screen, and on one play, even fell to the floor after getting nailed by a Brook Lopez pick.

Indeed Devin Harris screen/rolls found great success for the Nets due to Jennings’ diminutive stature. When Jennings did stay within the vicinity of Harris, as he did on one particular drive, Harris just drove to a spot 12 feet away from the hoop and shot over Jennings—something most average-sized point guard can do with regularity against Jennings.

If Jennings has some speed and quickness to play adequate defense, he needs to put on weight or he’ll be at the opposition’s mercy.

Scoreboard

Speed/Quickness

Jennings may be quick, but Evans can get to the basket at will thanks to his natural speed and his long strides. He can also shake and bake with the best of them. If Jennings may be able to beat Evans in a 40-meter dash, Evans beats Jennings to the basket.

Edge: Evans by a little.

Strength

Evans is made of steel while Jennings is a runt.

Edge: Evans by a lot.

Scoring At The Rim

Jennings is one of the worst finishers in basketball right now, while Evans has the body type and body control to be a terrific finisher. Each is uncomfortable with his off-hand, but Evans is stronger with his dominant hand.

Edge: Evans by a lot.

Jump Shooting

Evans’ form still needs major reconstructing. Jennings isn’t a terrific shooter either, but has more range.

Edge: Jennings by a fair amount.

Classic Point Guard Skills

Evans plays in a simpler offense and has somewhat less responsibility than Jennings. Both have good vision, though Jennings sometimes loses focus and Evans plays with his head down. Evans is much more of an attack guard, while Jennings is more of a distributor.

Edge: Jennings by a little.

Defense

Jennings is slightly less awful than Evans, though if Evans learns to take more pride in his defense he has more upside to become a good defender.

Edge: Jennings by a little.

Intangibles

Evans can take over games by his lonesome, as he essentially did against the Knicks. He lives in the paint, has more explosive moves, and his strength and size allow him to be dominant down low. He was given the responsibility of carrying his team back in order to win on the road and succeeded with flying colors.

However, with Evans’ attacking mindset and raw strength, it’s a wonder if he’ll eventually become a playmaking combo guard or if he’s really set in stone as Sacramento’s point guard?

Jennings isn’t even the best point guard on his own team, as Luke Ridnour’s vision, unselfishness, smarts, and tricky mid-range shooting has him on the floor in crunch time and relegates Jennings to the bench much more often than an elite point guard would be.

One caveat—Evans is given maximum playing time because he can play both guard positions, while Jennings really isn’t a two-guard at all. Also, Jennings hasn’t been given full reign to play and make mistakes with the Bucks in contention for a playoff spot.

Edge: Evans by a lot.

Final Score

Jennings has the potential to develop into an above average NBA point guard. Evans has the potential to be mentioned with the best point guards in the NBA.

Edge: Evans, and it’s not even close.