Rookies Deconstructed: Emmanuel Mudiay

This season's rookie class could be something special. There is talent and depth, size and skill, and the promise that there could be a few transcendent players in the mix. Oddly, though, some elements of each player's game and physical presentation feel familiar. Rookies Deconstructed is a series that means to take each rookie apart, identifying the building blocks we know and the natural comparisons that emerge and appreciating how they come together in ways that are radically and invigoratingly new. Because these are rookies, with just under half a season under the belts, some comparisons are necessarily forward-looking.

Even at the very top of the pyramid, athleticism comes in many different forms. Russell Westbrook and Derrick Rose ostensibly play the same position. Both are listed at 6-foot-3 and roughly 195 pounds. Both have been described as hyper-athletic, although not so much recently for the star-crossed Rose. And yet, there is very little overlap in the way their shared athleticism is leveraged. Rose, at his athletic peak, was a slasher, a sharpened wedge; Westbrook is a battering ram that has been set on fire.

Jumping over or through people was never really Rose's style, one Goran Dragic fireball aside. When his body was healthy and he was in full command of it, Rose's athletic advantage was raw speed, precise handling, and the ability to go from 0 to 60 faster than the defense. His drives to the hoop were a series of daring zigs and zags, all explosive changes of direction pushing forward. That ability to control his own personal pace was what made him so hard to stay in front of. This fallow post-injury period, from which he is now perhaps emerging, has only served to emphasize what he had when he had it. He has not been an appreciably worse jump shooter or defender. His finishing suffered because he could no longer fly through the gears as quickly, or change speeds as effortlessly.

Emmanuel Mudiay, like Rose and Westbrook, is a big point guard, probably an inch or two taller and a dozen pounds heavier. He has also been gifted into the athletic one-percent, but he falls much closer to Rose's end of the spectrum than Westbrook's, and is as a general rule more focused on threading the needle than embedding it in a brick of C4. His career has just begun, but you can already see how changing speeds is going to be what separates Mudiay from his peers. Unfortunately, at this stage, Mudiay is still grinding his gears a bit. A shaky jumper means he's almost always probing for an opening at the basket or a chance to drop the ball off to an open teammate. In those efforts you can see him struggling not just with timing but the speed of his own body.

A deft passer, Mudiay sees angles and already understands how to get the ball into even the tightest of spaces. Where he sometimes struggles right now is pacing himself to move the defense and make those spaces appear where he wants them. A non-scientific survey of his turnovers—and there have been a lot this season, certainly enough for a more scientific survey—would attribute the vast majority to moving just a little too fast or too slow to make the play work the way he sees it in his mind. Mudiay's relatively poor showing around the basket is often caused by the same syncopation, running or sashaying himself into leaps off the wrong foot, or from strange places and angles.

His body, the ball, and the defense always seem to be a few inches from where he expects them to be. The good news is that this is a common affliction among young point guards—Rose and especially Westbrook certainly both suffered from it early on. It's so striking, in this case, because it is so wrapped up in the unique nature of Mudiay's talent. But, at some point, his personal metronome is going to kick in and then time and space will become his playthings.

I can think of a lot of things I'd like to do with Ricky Rubio—ride a tandem bicycle, split a nice shellfish paella, build a replica of the Alhambra out of Legos. I would definitely not want to dribble a basketball near him. He's already led the league in steal percentage twice, and his career steal percentage is the tenth-highest all time. If you factor in drawing offensive fouls, he has been among the absolute best in basketball at forcing turnovers over the past decade. This perception of Rubio as an insanely destructive defensive force hasn't really made its way into his reputation, probably because every time he smiles all we can think about is bike rides and seafood and marathon Lego sessions.

This ability to take the ball away is a big part of why Rubio can still have a significantly positive impact despite being one of the least efficient shooters in the league. Rubio's outside shot has never been a threat and his inability to finish around the basket is at least as disruptive to the team's offense as his perimeter issues. But all those turnovers he's creating lead to hyper-efficient transition offense, which he happens to facilitate with uncommon artfulness, and it all begins with that digging defense.

Mudiay, like Rubio, has had an enormously hard time putting the ball in the basket, from anywhere really. Focusing on shooting percentages may make this seem like an unflattering comparison, but Mudiay has the same hawkish tendencies on defense and that gives him the potential for a Rubio-esque impact down the road. By the percentages, Mudiay doesn't separate ball from ball-handler quite as often as Rubio does, but there is something inescapably similar in their defensive magnetism—the way every clumping of bodies seems to end with them emerging with the ball and loping off in the other direction.

At this point, Rubio is fairly well settled in his basketball box. There is a large enough sample to say his shooting is probably never going to scrape respectable levels, but he's found a way to work around it. Mudiay has the benefit of time, and the possibility that repetition and experience could change his trajectory, or at least improve his shot. He may have much more to offer as a shooter, but even if league average shooting percentages never materialize, he is well steeped in the Tao of Rubio on the defensive end.

Mr. Big Shot, Finals MVP, Future Hall-of-Famer—Billups' NBA life is rich on accomplishments and well-deserved praise, almost all of it tilted towards his career's back half. He will be remembered best for what he accomplished with the Detroit Pistons, but he didn't arrive there until he was 26 years old, after having played for four other teams. Selected third overall in the 1997 NBA Draft by the Boston Celtics, Billups was traded to the Toronto Raptors before his rookie season was even over. He then spent two years apiece with Denver and Minnesota, only really finding his footing as a productive player that second season with the Timberwolves.

Other than size and shape, there aren't many tangible physical or stylistic similarities between Billups and Mudiay, at least not yet. The former played a more measured and intentional game—slower, stronger, more shoulders and mid-range jumpers. Mudiay has a touch of nervous, jittery energy and plays more end-to-end, where Billups lived in the side-to-side. The overlap between the two is more about the obstacles in front of them than the ways in which they might scramble over them.

It took Billups nearly four seasons to figure out how to translate his basketball skills into production that really boosted his team's bottom line. The learning curve for him was not about developing his tools but finding an effective application for them. Mudiay appears to be facing the same battle—his task is about using his size and strength and vision and determination to try and corral a series of outcomes that are twisting and squirming out of his grasp. Being able to hit from the outside would help, as would scoring around the rim in the way his height and muscle mass suggest he should be able to. But watching him you can't help but feel that those challenges are mental as much as physical.

These comparisons for Mudiay—Rose, Rubio, Billups—have all climbed mountains of their own. Thinking about the climb ahead of Mudiay, especially where Billups is concerned, should be a reminder of the value of patience and the power of time. Reaching the summit can take awhile.