Introducing Your New Backup PG

So, I live in the Bay Area, and about 75% of the people around me are GSW fans, so needless to say, I've heard a lot about Mickael Pietrus, I've heard a lot about Matt Barnes, and I've heard a lot about C.J. Watson.  I would say that prior to now, Watson was something of an unknown to the rest of the league, he and Kelenna Azubuike are considered by many Warriors fans to be the D-League gems that have made it successfully in the NBA.  While he's new, I'd still like to make a case that C.J. Watson, not Anthony Johnson should shoulder the bulk of the backup PG minutes.

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vs

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FIGHT!

Just kidding.  Let's take a look at the preliminaries first though:

Anthony Johnson 34 years old (35 in October), 6-3, 195 lbs

C.J. Watson 25 years old, 6-2, 176 lbs

Initially the disparity lies in that while Watson is younger, he is also smaller than Johnson.  While nearly 20 lbs is a fairly significant amount of weight, 10 years is also a majorly significant amount of time.  Now, I'm going to mix it up a little, so as not to have any bias, I'm going to make both players anonymous, let's take a look at the base stats:

Player A (2008-2009) per game

PPG: 9.5   RPG: 2.5   APG: 2.7   SPG: 1.0   BPG: 0.0   TO: 1.0   FG%: 45.3   3PM: 0.6   3PT%: 40.0    MPG: 24:30

Player B (2008-2009) per game

PPG: 5.3   RPG: 1.8   APG: 2.5   SPG: 0.6   BPG: 0.0   TO: 1.0   FG%: 40.4   3PM: 0.7   3PT%: 39.1   MPG: 18:30

Hm... well, on a pergame basis you note that Player A does get a whole extra 6 minutes (1/2 a quarter) of play than Player B, which accounts for the scoring.  However, Player A also exhibits higher percentages while maintaining the same assist/TO ratio.  That definitely pushes the favor to Player A.  Well, per games don't always tell us everything, so let's look at some more numbers:

Player A (2008-2009) per 36 minutes

PPG: 14.0   RPG: 3.7   APG: 3.9   SPG: 1.8   BPG: 0.1   TO: 1.8   3PM: 0.9   TS%: 56.4   eFG%: 50.0

Player B (2008-2009) per 36 minutes

PPG: 10.2   RPG: 3.6   APG: 4.9    SPG: 1.1   BPG: 0.1   TO: 2.0  3PM: 1.3   TS%: 50.5   eFG%: 47.2

To be honest it's a pretty even wash, but it favors Player A just slightly.  The main basis that I like Player A more is just that he's more efficient about how he gets his points, his true shooting percentage is higher, though not incredibly significantly. 

As many of you may have already guessed, Player A is CJ Watson, Player B is Anthony Johnson.  If all stats are a wash, my argument is to still play the younger guy, simply because there's more upside. If you take a look at Watson's DraftExpress profile then you'll note that he's an above average defender at the point position, which means that you won't lose a whole lot defensively (which is what got the Magic to the Finals) when Nelson steps off.  In all respects, he actually plays kind of like a poor man's Jameer Nelson, at least from what I see.  I could be off, but I'm all for him moving in front of Johnson on the depth charts.