The first event in the lineup for Saturday night is the Taco Bell Skills Challenge. It’s an obstacle course of sorts, where contestants need to navigate through barriers, hit shots, and make some passes. The fastest player wins the competition and is a great way to showcase the talent of some of the best guards in the league. There’s just one twist this year. They’ve decided to add a few big men to the competition to see how they fare against the smaller, faster guards. This year’s participants are Isaiah Thomas, CJ McCollum, Emmanuel Mudiay, Jordan Clarkson, Karl-Anthony Towns, DeMarcus Cousins, Anthony Davis, and Draymond Green.
Of the big men in the competition, I think the only one that doesn’t have a chance is DeMarcus Cousins. He has never been known for his ball handling abilities and isn’t exactly the quickest guy on the floor, he's also known to be pretty lazy(http://deadspin.com/heroically-lazy-demarcus-cousins-takes-an-entire-posses-1677143332). The other three however, have a fighting chance. Anthony Davis primarily had played the guard position growing up, that is until he hit a growth spurt and shot up to the 6’10 that he stands at today. He occasionally will display some handling and passing skills while bringing the ball up on fast breaks, but most of his day to day roles don’t involve these things. Karl-Anthony Towns is an interesting choice for this competition, he doesn’t really handle the ball too much outside of the post and is only averaging 1.4 assists per game. However, with his athletic ability he may be able to be a dark horse in this race. Draymond Green is my personal favorite of the big men to succeed. Not a traditional big man, he’s almost more of a small forward than he is a center. Leading the league in triple doubles this season, he has shown many times that he can be a poor man’s Magic Johnson, in the sense that he’s a big man who has handles.
Moving on to the guards, I feel like the favorites are Jordan Clarkson and Emmanuel Mudiay. Both can be scorers for their respective teams, but do have an above average ability to get the ball to the open man in tight situations. They also have been known to push the ball on the fast break on their way to the rim, so ball handling shouldn’t be an issue for either(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMkYQTv8IIc). However, Mudiay is only a rookie and I think the big stage might get to him here, watch for the consecutive missed passes and dribbling the ball off of his foot. Clarkson has seemed a bit more poised in these situations even though he really hasn’t played on a good team, he still has to deal with media of LA. The reason why I feel that Thomas and McCollum aren’t likely to win, is because they really are only scorers. McCollum is a shooting guard after all, and even though he fills in a the backup point guard at times, shooting the rock is where he thrives, not running the fast break. Thomas who is the shortest All-Star ever, is the main crunch time scorer for the Celtics, and has never been known to be a distributor. Coincidentally, fellow contestant DeMarcus Cousins didn’t like Thomas when they were teammates in Sacramento due to his lack of sharing the ball.
Winner: Jordan Clarkson
Runner Up: Draymond Green
Dark Horse: Isaiah Thomas
Of the big men in the competition, I think the only one that doesn’t have a chance is DeMarcus Cousins. He has never been known for his ball handling abilities and isn’t exactly the quickest guy on the floor, he's also known to be pretty lazy(http://deadspin.com/heroically-lazy-demarcus-cousins-takes-an-entire-posses-1677143332). The other three however, have a fighting chance. Anthony Davis primarily had played the guard position growing up, that is until he hit a growth spurt and shot up to the 6’10 that he stands at today. He occasionally will display some handling and passing skills while bringing the ball up on fast breaks, but most of his day to day roles don’t involve these things. Karl-Anthony Towns is an interesting choice for this competition, he doesn’t really handle the ball too much outside of the post and is only averaging 1.4 assists per game. However, with his athletic ability he may be able to be a dark horse in this race. Draymond Green is my personal favorite of the big men to succeed. Not a traditional big man, he’s almost more of a small forward than he is a center. Leading the league in triple doubles this season, he has shown many times that he can be a poor man’s Magic Johnson, in the sense that he’s a big man who has handles.
Moving on to the guards, I feel like the favorites are Jordan Clarkson and Emmanuel Mudiay. Both can be scorers for their respective teams, but do have an above average ability to get the ball to the open man in tight situations. They also have been known to push the ball on the fast break on their way to the rim, so ball handling shouldn’t be an issue for either(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMkYQTv8IIc). However, Mudiay is only a rookie and I think the big stage might get to him here, watch for the consecutive missed passes and dribbling the ball off of his foot. Clarkson has seemed a bit more poised in these situations even though he really hasn’t played on a good team, he still has to deal with media of LA. The reason why I feel that Thomas and McCollum aren’t likely to win, is because they really are only scorers. McCollum is a shooting guard after all, and even though he fills in a the backup point guard at times, shooting the rock is where he thrives, not running the fast break. Thomas who is the shortest All-Star ever, is the main crunch time scorer for the Celtics, and has never been known to be a distributor. Coincidentally, fellow contestant DeMarcus Cousins didn’t like Thomas when they were teammates in Sacramento due to his lack of sharing the ball.
Winner: Jordan Clarkson
Runner Up: Draymond Green
Dark Horse: Isaiah Thomas