Here we have 2 young, stud point guards. It is very interesting to compare them in terms of fantasy production, as we might be witnessing the beginning of a great rivalry between 2 of the best pass first point guards for the next decade. They entered the league same year, taken in the draft 3rd and 4th respectively, and so far have blown away the rest of their draft class. In their first year, Paul emerged as an elite fantasy player (maybe even a bit overrated, but we’ll get back to that later) while Deron had to endure a rough season under coach Jerry Sloan. Paul looked like one of the greatest steals in recent draft history while Deron looked like greatest disappointment amongst top picks (since Marvin Williams was not expected to contribute in his rookie season). But Jerry Sloan’s tendency not to rely too much on rookies is well known around the league and once that learning experience was over, Deron proved to be every bit as good as Paul. So their first season went to Paul, and second to Deron (we’ll get back to that later too), but who will be the better choice come this year's draft day? To begin the analysis let’s take a look at their numbers (Deron's numbers on top, Chris' on the bottom):

GP - FGM - FGA - FG% - 3PTM - FTM - FTA - FT% - REB - AST - TO - STL - BLK - PTS
80 - 6.2 - 13.5 - 45.6 - 1.0 - 2.8 - 3.7 - 76.7 - 3.3 - 9.3 - 3.1 - 1.0 - 0.2 - 16.2
64 - 6.0 - 13.6 - 43.7 - 0.8 - 4.6 - 5.6 - 81.8 - 4.4 - 8.9 - 2.5 - 1.8 - 0.1 - 17.3

At first glance you can see that their stats are extremely similar (almost all cats fall under 1.1 difference), but there are some noteworthy differences.

1. First notable difference comes in FG%, where Deron comes up ahead by 1.9%. 43.7% on 13.6 attempts is a solid percentage for a point guard, it won’t hurt you much and still gives you a chance of building good FG% team. 45.6 is a great FG% for a PG; not only does it not hurt you, but he will actually help you win that cat in some weeks. It makes Deron a top 5 contributor among PGs who score 15+ ppg. Deron wins

2. FT%, both need to improve in this segment. Paul shoots an acceptable percentage for a PG at 81.8% (though he regressed from his rookie season). Deron already made significant improvement rising his % from 70.4 to 76.7, but that’s not enough. Anything below 80% is unacceptable from an elite PG. Paul wins
Percentages practically cancel each other out so they won’t be the deciding factor, but it should be noted that CP3 gives you more traditional production from a PG position thus far. Why do I cancel out %s? Here’s why: let’s say great majority of players shoots between 40 and 55 FG% and between 50 and 90 FT%. That means that 3% FG% difference equals 8% FT% or that difference of 1.9 in FG% equals 5.7 in FT%. This reasoning is relatively superficial, it doesn’t come close to fully analyzing 2 important, but underrated by many, cats but that is not my goal here; it should be enough to convince you that difference between then is very small.

3. 3 pointers: Neither one of them shoots enough for a PG, but that helps in the FG% department; Deron hits .2 more but I expect Paul to improve his average with Peja returning and Mo-Pete replacing Mason, because he’ll get more open outside shots with other shooters on the team drawing the attention of opposing defenses. At this moment neither is too good though. Draw

4. REB: Paul has a slight advantage and has shown the ability to achieve a triple-double, much like Kidd. But in the end, a 1.1 difference isn’t too important. Slight edge goes to Paul

5. AST: Deron ranks 2nd, Paul 4th in the league. But the difference between them is just .4. Peja’s return should help Paul boost his average a little but it’s a tie nonetheless

6. PTS: 1.1 ppg wasn’t much to begin with, but considering that Peja’s return can cause Paul to get a point or 2 less I’d say this is a draw

7. BLK: neither is a factor here.

After 7 cats analyzed these guys are very evenly matched, but there are 3 more factors to be considered:

8. TO: Paul commits a very tolerable 2.5 turnovers, Deron commits 3.1. While .6 doesn’t sound like too much of a difference, it is notable when, often overlooked, TOs are in question. In his rookie season Paul recorded 2.4, meaning that it’s reasonable to expect similar number next season as well. Deron on the other hand assumed a much bigger role with his team last season and both his ast and TO numbers reflect that. Ast went from 4.5 to 9.3, TOs from 1.8 to 3.1. That actually means his a/t ratio improved, but will he further improve and cut down on TOs a little is anybody’s guess. Slight edge goes to Paul

9. STL: This is the biggest difference between them. Paul gets 1.8 per game (after getting 2.2 year before) against 1.0(.8 year before) by Deron; so Paul wins hands down.

If your league counts 3pt%, their contributions are very similar there as well, while Paul wins a/t ratio if your league counts that.

So after analyzing their stats Paul appears to be better mostly due to his victory in steals, but there is one more important number to be considered: Deron played 80 games in both seasons while Paul played 78 + 64. Although Paul showed he is willing to play through injuries on several occasions, he still had to miss a significant number of games. Games played were the main reason why Deron won the match up last season. When an older player misses 18 games during a season you can look at his games played numbers from the last few years and decide if it was an aberration or if he has a tendency to miss games. But with Paul the sample is too small, we can draw no conclusions. If we were talking about 5th rounders, this would not be as important. But it is when you’re picking your 2nd rounder, or even 1st rounder (in deep leagues), you better make sure it’s not an injury prone player. Many GMs learned last season how quickly injuries to top players can destroy a great team. I’m not suggesting Paul is injury prone, it’s still too early to draw that conclusion, but the fact that he failed to play 80 games in either of his first 2 seasons does make me little uneasy.

Now let’s take a look at where they were drafted. Paul, on average, was taken at 10.8 , ranking 9th in the league. Deron meanwhile went 115.9 on average, and was only drafted in 70% of the Yahoo leagues. Top 8 picks were well known last year and Paul went right behind them. While he certainly holds that potential and may very well be top pick in few years, I wouldn’t say he’s 9th best fantasy player yet and that’s why I called him little overrated earlier. Faith in Deron was pretty low last year and it will be interesting to see where he’ll go this season, but I expect him to land anywhere between 15 and 30 on most drafts. I personally feel a little uneasy promoting a player so much, especially if he was drafted 100th+ the year before, but we are talking about a guy who finished 2nd in assists per game last year. For me Deron is late 2nd to early 3rd round material, and should be taken no more then 10-15 picks after Paul. In keeper leagues they are both top 12 picks considering they’re both 22 (Deron will soon be 23). Neither of them has yet fully defined his style but the first 2 seasons gave us a good idea of what we can expect and I believe they can both only get better in future. Their teams made no major changes in the off-season so I don’t see their roles changing too much if at all. Deron’s recent postseason heroics (especially the Spurs series) will probably raise his value some, but bare in mind that regular season is one thing and playoffs are something completely different. The ultimate proof of that is Tim Duncan. He was great during the regular season, but he really stepped it up when it counted the most in the playoffs. So I’ll take these playoffs as a preview of what we can expect out of Deron in near future but not necessarily right away this year.

Another argument in favor of Paul in H2H leagues is that New Orleans has a better H2H playoffs schedule (one more game in each of the last 3 weeks of the Yahoo! season).

Without taking injuries into account Paul is better statistically. But the real question you have to ask yourself is who will improve faster? Many people claim that Deron is the player with more upside and injuries are not something that should be disregarded lightly. In conclusion: as of now I’d give the edge to Paul, but you can’t go wrong with either of them. And if Paul fails to play at least 75 games again it might be a sign that Deron is a better bet and the more durable player in the long run.

Nick's note: At the conclusion of the 2006-2007 season, Paul's per game averages had him ranked the 24th best fantasy player last year, while Williams was the 65th. Our 2007-2008 projections have Paul being the 12th ranked player this season, while Williams is the 30th.

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Aleksander is a new column writer for RotoFreak.com. If you'd like to comment on the article, please chime in on the boards.