Diamond Ratings; Corey Brewer

I don't know how I found this, but it's a system that tries to unearth the most likely breakout performers by looking at their per minute production. Essentially the idea is that if a player is productive off the bench per minute, and (here's the subjective part it, which the author admits) they are capable of being a starter and thus earn starter's minutes, then the said player should still produce at the same rate, just with more minutes per game. Make sense? Good.

Some of the guys on this year's top ten, given this thought process, makes sense: M. Speights, Gortat, DeAndre Jordan, JaVale McGee, and Roy Hibbert (for examples).

So I got to wondering who on the Wolves, if any, would merit a 'breakout' watch based on this system? Using their formula and win% as the per minute production stat (again, what they use), hit the jump for the top TWolves breakout candidates.

The Twolves Breakout Player list!!!

1. Stewie Pecherov, 14.75 diamond rating

2. Ryan Hollins, 13.57 diamond rating

3. Ramon Sessions, 10.08 diamond rating (I know, he's already 'broken out,' but what the hell)

4. Corey Brewer, 4.88 diamond rating

5. Sasha P., 2.67 diamond rating

6. Damien Wilkins, 1.31

So basically what I take out of this is that (in no particular order):

-Sessions is a very solid, steady starter

-Sasha Pavlovic and Damien Wilkins are what they are at this point, and that is Role Player(s)

-Hollins and Stewie P. might surprise as the season goes on, although Stewie P. is my candidate for this year's Craig Smith impersonator (that player who's really good at one thing to the detriment of all else on the court).

-Corey Brewer has not lived up to expectations or his development schedule.

This brings me to part 2 of this post: what are we supposed to make of Corey Brewer?

After reading this article, I got to thinking about Brewer's preseason and whether or not he can transfer it to the regular season. Where I ended up was with the realization that perhaps Brewer is closer to changing games positively for us than I initially thought.

Looking at his preseason averages some things stood out:

Pts/g = 16.8!

Reb/g = 4.6

Stls/g = 2.4

Asts/g = 1.6

FTA/g = 8.8!

Do I think Brewer will average over 16 a game this year? Not in my wildest dreams. Could he average 4 boards and a couple steals a game? Certainly. That leaves us with FTAs. I couldn't figure out whether or not these kinds of per game numbers are really good or just so-so (understanding that it'd be fantastic if we got this from Brewer this year), so I turned to Basketball-reference for some help. I'll get to my findings in a second, but the short story is that, in my opinion, if Brewer can get to the line at a good to solid rate this year and maintains his rebounding and steals/game rates, we will have found ourselves at player at the SG position.

Look at this. This assumes Brewer averages 12 pts, 4 boards, 2 steals, and 4 FTA's a game. That is some good company. The one guy that jumps out at me the most is Kendall Gill, probably because I remember how good at stealing he was. I'd take Gill-like production from Brewer over Brew's career. But some of the other guys aren't too shabby either.

So what's Hoopus' take on Brewer? Confused like me? Optimistic? Cynical? Cautiously intrigued?

And in case you're wondering what company Brewer would be in if he maintained his small sample size preseason production throughout the season? Don't look unless you want to scratch your head even more.