In the draft, the Pacers took a flyer on Lance Stephenson with 40th pick in the NBA draft.  I thought this was an interesting draft choice when it was made because Stephenson is a very talented player whose attitude caused him to drop.  With that being said, I thought he had a pretty good chance of making the Pacers, and that was before they announced that they thought Lance Stephenson could be a point guard.

The transition from shooting guard to point guard isn’t as easy as it seems, especially if you are doing it in the NBA.  It isn’t just dribbling the ball up the court and initiating the offense.  You need to make sure everyone else is in their spots, and most importantly, you need to balance distributing the ball among your teammates and attacking the basket.

Pros

Tyreke Evans Lite

Now, I am not going to say that Lance Stephenson is going to have the same impact as Tyreke Evans did last year (Evans had a year of experience running the point before coming to the pros), but you can see a little Tyreke Evans in his game.  He has a similar combination of size and speed, and it gives him an advantage when being defended by smaller point guards:

Here, Stephenson’s defender actually gets his hands on the basketball, but he isn’t big or strong enough to get the ball away from him.  This allows Stephenson to get into the lane and finish at the rim.

Point Guard Feel

To be a point guard, you need to have a good feel for it.  What I mean by feel, is that a point guard needs to know when and where to get the ball to his teammates so that they have the best chance to score.  Over the past two games, Stevenson has shown that feel:

Here, Lance Stephenson is bringing the ball up getting ready to start the offense.  He spots his teammate Paul George open at the three point line, decides that he is open enough to get a shot off, and hits him with a perfect pass.

This play is sort of a delayed fast break where he has a big trailing, sprinting to the rim.  Instead of running full speed and trying to attack the lane, Stephenson slowly brings it up, as if he is waiting for his teammate to open up.  As soon as he does, he its him with a pass right at the rim.

Drive And Kick

When moving from SG to PG, it is hard to kick that shoot first mentality, especially when you are attacking the basket.  Lance Stephenson has shown an ability to drive, assess the situation, and make the pass to the open man if need be.

On these three plays Lance Stevenson had opportunities to force a shot up, but he seems aware that he is in fact the point guard and he needs to distribute the basketball.  In all three of these plays, Stevenson kept his head up and was able to get the basketball to his teammates in even better positions to score.

Cons

Some Basic Stuff

Lance Stephenson made some mistakes over the first two games of summer league, but these mistakes are little things that experience playing point guard solves.

Here, Stephenson kind of has tunnel vision, and that is the reason behind the bad pass and the deflection. This is something that happens a ton to young guards. They feel like they have to run the offense and they try to force it to the first option. There is no reason for this pass to be made, and what Stephenson should have done was gone to his second option here.

Here, Lance Stephenson breaks maybe one of the most important rules as a point guard. The “don’t get caught in the air unless you know what you are going to do rule.” Stephenson jumps and gets caught in the air without and option, and he ends up tossing it out of bounds.

Here, Stephenson wants to push the basketball up the court and forces a pass in transition.  As a point guard in transition, you don’t want to make a pass unless you can complete it…if not, just keep the ball in your ends and set up the offense.  No need to force a pass in this situation.

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After watching Lance Stephenson’s first two summer league games, I think he has what it takes to be a competent point guard this year.  All of the mistakes that Stephenson has made are correctable with experience and film sessions.  More importantly, Stephenson has that feel of a point guard that you really need to have to be successful, and that is why I think Lance Stephenson can become a point guard.