Is Tyreke Evans a Point Guard? Does It Matter?

There can never be success without disclaimers, not in this cynical world. The Kings, so awful a season ago, are good. Well, decent -- 13-15 after an overtime loss to Cleveland Wednesday. Some smart pundits picked the Kings to win fewer than 20 games again this year, and even the most glassy-eyed went no higher than, say, 28 or 30. But Sacramento looks to hang out just below .500 for the long haul, and finish perhaps in the mid-30s in the wins ledger.

But that success, helped in no small part by sensational rookie Tyreke Evans, has come with new questions, the foremost being whether injured scoring star Kevin Martin can integrate himself into the New World Order, and whether the Kings would be better off trading Martin (a shooting guard) and moving Evans (drafted as a point guard) to the two.

Many fans around the league have proposed as much, and it has gotten into the media's ear of late. Martin is due back in a couple weeks (he broke a bone in his hand in early November, and succumbed to surgery after five games) and the franchise's interesting status -- clearly not a contender, but not half bad -- has everyone wondering if Martin might be too oily for Evans's new water. Of course, the Kings are a patient franchise, and with still eight weeks before the trade deadline, the team will obviously give Martin and Evans a test run together at least before making a decision. It is highly unlikley Martin's trade value will miraculously decrease between today and mid-February: he's a brilliant scorer on an extremely fair contract with a weird injury history. No one doubts teams will call Sacramento to find out Martin's price, and no one doubts the Kings will listen to the best offers. As they would for any of their players.

But the question of Evans's positionality is perhaps more annoying for Kings fans. ESPN's Bill Simmons, after writing how embarrassed he is that he called Sacramento's choice of Evans in June's draft a "disaster," lobbied for the Kings to trade Martin. In justifying his trade idea (to Utah for Andrei Kirilenko and the Knick's first round pick), Simmons said that, "In no way, shape or form is he a point guard. You will never sell me on that one." Never mind the audacity of someone admitting to a massive gaffe immediately before making such a definitive statement. Does Simmons have a point? Isn't Tyreke a point?

This is something seemingly everyone has missed in Martin's absence: Evans is still playing the point guard position! For several games, Paul Westphal placed Beno Udrih in the starting lineup as the "shooting guard," though everyone understood this was a bit tongue-in-cheek. And true to form, Evans and Udrih shared duties as ball-handlers, with Udrih typically guarding the opposing PG. But that lasted only seven games. In 15 of Sacramento's 22 games without Martin and with Evans (who missed one match), Tyreke has started at point guard. And Westphal really hasn't left to question who the point guard is in those games, with Donte Greene (6'11) and Omri Casspi (6'9) filling the two-guard slot.

Of course, Evans has shared the court with each of Udrih and Sergio Rodriguez plenty. In fact, Evans has played about 40 minutes with Beno and Sergio also on the floor in a weird three-PG line-up. That's the beautiful thing about Evans: he's completely versatile! He can play the point, the off-guard ... even some small forward. If you look at his positional splits on 82games.com, you'll notice that, yes, he and the team perform a bit better on offense when he is joined by a point guard on the floor. But even at the point (where he has spent nearly 400 minutes of game time) he's really, really good! Evans has started the last 15 games at the point, and the Kings are8-7. That's pretty good!, considering the team was 17-65 last year.

Lost in all this is the very nature of Martin's game. He has never been a selfish player. The only recent star who regularly averages 20 points a game with such few shots taken is Amar'e Stoudemire. Martin sits 13th in the history of the NBA in True Shooting percentage, a measure of shooting efficiency. When he shoots, he typically scores. Last year, he was forced to take on a heavier offensive load, thanks to talent attrition in Sacramento. But in the very recent past Martin has been extremely effective as a No. 2 or No. 3 option. In 2007-08, teammate Ron Artest took two more field goal attempts per game than Martin. Kevin still scored more than three points more than Ron per game, thanks to better efficiency and foul-drawing. The season prior, Martin led the team in scoring despite being third on the offensive pecking order (behind Mike Bibby and Artest).

I mean, one of the major problems with the Kings last season was the lack of scoring help around Martin. Evans is the antidote! One problem Evans (and the Kings) face now is that teams are packing the lane on defense, preventing Tyreke from getting into his comfort zone, which happens to be around the rim. Martin is a brilliant shooter. He is the antidote! Evans can clearly play point guard, Martin can play some small forward if need be ... Evans can play two-guard and some small forward. It can work, and Westphal will show how in the upcoming weeks. If I'm wrong and it doesn't work, then serve up some crow. I'm just of the mind that just because a team's two scorers are roughly the same height and skillset doesn't mean they can't work out.

And never mind how ridiculous the debate over what is and is not a point guard has gotten. Any good student of basketball history should be able to recite by name the scoring point guards with championships: Magic, Isiah, Walt Frazier, Dennis Johnson, Oscar Robertson ... even Bob Cousy averaged more than 20 points a game four times!