Portland Trail Blazers: Is Wesley Matthews a Top 10 Shooting Guard?

When you think of the top shooting guards in the NBA, you think of Kobe Bryant, James Harden and other superstar players. The top three of the shooting guard ranks are set in stone between Bryant, Harden and Dwyane Wade, but what about the other seven within the top 10? The league is a very guard oriented league, does Wesley Matthews stack up with the rest of the best?

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Short answer: yes. But the short answer isn’t as fun, so let’s review. Wesley Matthews is one of the best scorers at the shooting guard position. He has a fluid jumper and is an excellent long range shooter. Matthews is excellent at his role, which is to be a spark plug for the team when

and

aren’t doing too well, or are on the bench.

While his 16.4 points per game isn’t the most impressive number, you have to remember that Matthews is the third option on the offensive end. He has Aldridge and Lillard as the players in front of him to take up a lot of attempts and he has Nicolas Batum behind him should he falter.

Matthews isn’t a household name among the casual NBA fan. He gets overlooked by the bigger names like Klay Thompson and Joe Johnson. But Matthews is just about as good as both of them, though with different strengths. Matthews isn’t a player who will carry your team with his offense, but he will keep the offense going with his efficient shot from deep.

Matthews has a much bigger impact than his 16.4 points per game. Here were his advanced statistics from last season:

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/29/2014.

While his Player Efficiency Rating (PER) wasn’t elite, though it was his career high, it’s still considered high at 15.7 because of his insane 50.6 percent 3-Point Attempt Rate (3PAr). Roughly half of Matthews field goal attempts were from beyond the arc and he managed to keep his PER above the league average, and he kept his shooting percentage at 44.1 percent. Because Wesley Matthews shot such a high percentage from downtown, he had the second highest Offensive Rating (ORtg) on the Trail Blazers with a sky high 118.

Wesley Matthews also put up his highest Win Shares (WS) total and the highest Win Shares per 48 minutes (WS/48) of his career. Matthews was an extremely important part of the Trail Blazers fourth-ranked offense, as he kept the offense rolling with his 3-point shot while being good enough on the defensive end.

Matthews was the third-best player on a team that was an offensive juggernaut and a team that had a ridiculous amount of weapons and options on the offensive end. He’s a bit under-appreciated because his peers at the shooting guard position are a bit flashier and put up more numbers because they don’t have to defer to LaMarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard. Nonetheless, Wesley Matthews put up some pretty incredible offensive numbers for a team full of incredible offensive players.

Wesley Matthews was a top 10 shooting guard because he was so important to his team. Without him, the Trail Blazers would not have won 54 games in the insane Western Conference. Going forward, the Trail Blazers are hoping he can continue being a sniper from downtown. If he can, he will firmly remain within the upper echelon of shooting guards.