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In 2005, after two too-big-to-pass-up-on big men were drafted one-two, three straight point guards were taken by rebuilding NBA teams. It didn?t take long for Chris Paul and Deron Williams to blossom into the point guards everybody thought they?d be, but for Raymond Felton the road has been a little bit longer and a lot more bumpier. For a while it looked like the Bobcats were the only ones to draw a losing Texas Holdem hand. It?s surprising given that Felton was the one of the three to win a National Championship. He hit big shots in the title game to beat Deron Williams and Illinois, and he also drove the Tar Heels that season to outperform Chris Paul?s Wake Forest in the ACC.
Felton showed speed, an ability to hit clutch shots, displayed leadership on a team of stars, and an ability to manage the game no matter the situation or opponent. He also managed the egos of teammates like Rashad McCants. You take all those qualities and blend them together and you should have an NBA all-star point guard. What more could you want? The New Orleans Hornets and the Utah Jazz thought otherwise.
With the third pick the Jazz selected Deron Williams who, only a short time after losing John Stockton, gave them an All NBA player at the position. With the fourth pick the New Orleans Hornets picked Paul, and he?s since become the face of the franchise, and the biggest non-New Orleans Saint sports celebrity in town. Meanwhile, Felton didn?t have to go far to begin his NBA career.
The Charlotte Bobcats selected him and hoped his Carolina fans would follow him there. At times during his rookie season he put up numbers that matched the players selected before him, but he was inconsistent at best, and pegged as inferior to his peers. While Williams and Paul improved and became centerpieces to their franchise, Felton lagged behind.
Granted the Bobcats gave ?Everybody Loves Raymond? less to work with but that wasn?t as obvious at first. What was obvious was Williams and Paul were shining fan favorites while even the UNC faithful soured on Felton as a pro. Nobody can deny the potential that was there, but his dominance of the college game wasn?t transferring over in the pros.
Rather the stigma became he got it done in college because of his teammates not by leading them. As those former team-mates, Rashad McCants, Sean May (also on the Bobcats for a spell), and even Marvin Williams struggled as pros, people begin to reassess just how good that college team was. Turns out the truth might have been, the problem was more about Felton?s pro teammates than his college colleagues.
This year, Felton moved to the New York Knicks and the more wide open system of Mike D?Antonio. With the style far more similar to the breakneck pace he played under Roy Williams, Felton has found himself again. Now, the 2005 class is discussed as three point guard class again, rather than two, and Felton is squarely in the mix of comparisons.
Deron Williams leads the trio in scoring with 23 points per game. Felton is next with just under 19, while Paul is just over 16. Williams and Paul are just a hair under ten assists but Felton isn?t far behind with the same fraction under 9. Paul leads the trio with 4.4 boards per game. Williams is averaging 4 and Felton 3.7.
There is very little to separate the three players now that Felton is running things at Madison Garden playing Robin to Amare Stoudemire?s Batman. Course, Felton has had hiccups of productivity before, so we should wait a full season before drawing any conclusions, but what no one can deny is he?s back in the discussion that started on draft day in 2005.
