Luke Ridnour: Back to the Future?

Growing up along the Interstate 5 corridor, I began hearing the virtues of Blaine’s Luke Ridnour about 10 years ago. His legend was Pistol Pete-esque. He resided in the tiny town bordering Canada, where his dad – who was his prep coach – gave him keys and unlimited access to the high school gym. So he practiced. A lot. So much so that by the time he had completed his prep career, he was a two-time state champion, an All-State selection, and a McDonald’s and Parade High School All-American. All this with deadly range, deft ball-handling, and flair that I’m quite sure hadn’t ever been seen before from a prep star in northern Whatcom County.

His success continued at Oregon, where alongside Luke Jackson and Fred Jones he helped lead the Ducks to NCAA tournament appearances in 2 of his 3 seasons in Eugene, including an Elite Eight performance in 2002. He left the Ducks following a junior season that saw him average 19.7 PPG (2^nd in the Pac-10) and 6.6 APG, earning him Pac-10 Player of the Year honors. The Sonics drafted Luke 14^th overall in the ’03 Draft, nabbing what seemed to be their PG for the next 10-15 years.

But unfortunately for Supe fans, Luke lost something when he moved to Seattle: his ability to make an open jumper.

While he has great change of pace, pushes tempo well, and has distributed amazingly to Ray and Rashard, his inability to make a 17-23 footer has annihilated the Sonics the past few years. The half court setting has been a disaster for Luke: teams simply wait for the ball to get rotated back to him, back off & clog the middle, and let him chuck away. And while the team suffered with a crazy amount of injuries last season, Bob Hill’s confidence in Earl Watson’s shooting ability – and lack thereof in Luke’s- created a fairly equal logging of minutes between the two PGs by season’s end. This, accompanied by his mediocre-at-best one-on-one defensive abilities, led to Sam Presti and the new regime shopping him to anyone that would listen this past summer.

So why do I think it’s Luke’s time to shine?

For one, I’m done living negatively in the past with Ridnour. I’m done getting pissed about brick after brick after brick. I’m finished being angry watching every point guard drive by him like his shoelaces are tied together. It’s Luke’s 5^th year, and I’m going to be optimistic and think that most NBA PG’s make the next level jump around the time they hit 25.

Take a look, for instance, at the following stats I grabbed from a "random" NBA PG’s first four years:

G	GS	MPG	FG%	3P%	FT%	APG	TO	PPG
65	2	10.5	0.423	0.418	0.824	2.1	0.97	3.3	Age 22
76	9	21.9	0.459	0.415	0.86	3.4	1.29	9.1	Age 23
40	40	31.7	0.363	0.374	0.826	5.5	2.08	7.9	Age 24
56	27	27.4	0.477	0.403	0.882	4.9	1.82	8.6	Age 25

Now, take a look at Luke’s stats from his first four campaigns:

G	GS	MPG	FG%	3P%	FT%	APG	TO	PPG
69	6	16.1	0.414	0.338	0.823	2.4	1.16	5.5	Age 21
82	82	31.4	0.405	0.376	0.883	5.9	1.82	10	Age 22
79	77	33.2	0.418	0.289	0.877	7	2.05	11.5	Age 23
71	58	29.5	0.433	0.353	0.805	5.2	2.2	11	Age 24

So, neither player’s stats jump off the page, but it could be said that in comparison, Luke was the better player. Well, here’s Player X’s stats since that point:

G	GS	MPG	FG%	3P%	FT%	APG	TO	PPG
70	70	34.1	0.487	0.406	0.895	7.3	2.93	15.6
82	82	34.6	0.483	0.455	0.887	7.7	2.79	17.9
82	82	33.1	0.465	0.413	0.909	7.3	2.34	17.7
78	78	33.5	0.47	0.405	0.916	8.8	2.68	14.5
75	75	34.3	0.502	0.431	0.887	11.5	3.27	15.5
79	79	35.4	0.512	0.439	0.921	10.5	3.49	18.8
76	76	35.3	0.532	0.455	0.899	11.6	3.78	18.6

If you haven’t figured it out, Player X is 2-Time MVP Steve Nash. While at first glance it’s easy to kill the comparison, early on there were many parallels to their careers. Like Ridnour, it took many years of frustration and growing pains to begin to discover what it took to succeed individually, so with age and experience he naturally matured and became a smarter player. The jump coincided with having the superstar all-around elite player in the form of Dirk Nowitzki and a solid scorer in Michael Finley. He’s obviously made the next leap by playing in Mike D’Antoni’s high-octane system and being surrounded by Amare, Shawn Marion, and Boris Diaw. Point being: once he became the guy, had some dependable parts around him, and could run and gun to his strengths, Nash became one of the NBA’s most unstoppable forces.

Now, look at Luke. He’s starting fresh with a new coaching staff, especially a new assistant in Paul Westhead who’s never been afraid of making his teams play up-tempo. Luke’s experienced mixed successes and failures, all of which have to make him cerebrally stronger than previous seasons. Oh yeah, he’s got the best player in the world under the age of 21 jumping into the mix with him. Could all these things coming together make him the PG that Sonics fans have lusted for since GP took off the #20?

If he starts burying 17-footers on the regular, I’m willing to take that bet.