Guest Post: The continued development of Langston Galloway and Jordan Clarkson

Brendon Kleen writes about the New Orleans Pelicans for FanSided’s Pelican Debrief. You can find him on Twitter @BrendonKleen14.

It’s far from controversial to postulate that 3-point shooting is among the most valuable of skills for an NBA player at this point in the league’s history. So for two players to add above-average long-range shooting and become legitimate on- and off-ball offensive talents is to make themselves even more valuable as they go into restricted free agency at the end of the season.

Both Langston Galloway and Jordan Clarkson signed minimum two-year deals as prospects coming out of the 2014 draft — Galloway went undrafted before agreeing with the New York Knicks, while Clarkson went 46th overall to the Los Angeles Lakers. Both players have done just that this season, raising their shooting from distance considerably, and giving their respective teams a lot to think about as they head into the offseason.

DraftExpress’ Matt Kamalsky had this to say about Clarkson in May of 2014:

"A smooth athlete who is more fluid than shifty or explosive with the ball in his hands… Possessing just an average first step, using his off-arm extensively to create space, and looking shaky at times trying to navigate through traffic… capable of finding seams when dribbling off ball screens or attacking one-on-one where his rangy strides and aggressiveness help him get into the paint… not a great ball-handler or an overly explosive leaper… uses simple crossovers, spin moves, and euro-steps to find angles to the rim."

He was, if memory of frenzied Draft Twitter serves us correctly here, a common sleeper pick around May and June. No matter what the consensus on his skills was, though, a second-round pick is never someone you expect legitimate contribution from right away. However, contribution is just what he gave in his rookie season, to the tune of two offensive win shares, a 16.9 Player Efficiency Rating and a True Shooting Percentage of 52.8, per Basketball Reference.

While those numbers came on a deeply unimpressive Lakers squad, they still serve to highlight the individual impact that Clarkson had right out of the gate. 

Galloway was productive in his own right and should count as even more of a surprise having come out of St. Joseph’s undrafted. Individually, he posted a 12.3 PER and a True Shooting Percentage of 48.9, using 19 percent of the Knicks’ possessions while on the floor. Down the stretch, after the team shut Carmelo Anthony down, Galloway even played his way into 41 starts.

The two players are on similar career trajectories, and seem destined for mention in the same sentence until they shirk the dreaded “young guy” image. Galloway is overshadowed by an aging, score-first vet on his last legs with a young superstar developing in the background. Clarkson has the worst of both worlds, with Kobe Bryant on his Farewell Tour and lottery picks D’Angelo Russell and Julius Randle developing behind him. He has been treated like a veteran in his second season, earning a consistent rotation spot within Byron Scott’s game-to-game juggling act. Galloway’s arc is pointing in the opposite direction. He hasn’t played more than twenty minutes in a couple weeks after playing near-starter minutes in the first two months of the season.

RealGM’s Cameron Schott had this to say about Galloway going into his call-up last season:

"If he can shoot it well enough and defend at a high level, Galloway could find a niche with the Knicks. There’s still some rough edges, as Galloway is still developing as an overall point guard, but there’s some potential."

Considering he had earned the spot instead of being drafted into it and the scouting report is written with an atrocious team in mind, it seems a little more optimistic than one might normally be for an undrafted combo guard. The consensus seemed to be at the time that Galloway had to be play the point with his size, but had to improve his shooting to succeed around Melo in the triangle.

So, again, this shooting improvement is paramount to his ability to stay in the league and earn a multi-year contract this summer. Last year, his two most common lineups were with another point guard, usually Shane Larkin or Jose Calderon, per Basketball Reference. This year, he plays most often in bench units where he shares ball-handling duties with Jerian Grant or with the starters as an off guard on the floor with Calderon. He rarely occupies the floor as the dominant ball-handler, and a 13.8 percent assist ratio this season (down from 17.6 percent last year) backs that up.

If those are the lineups coach Derek Fisher prefers he play in, then the jump from league average (35.2 percent) to league leaders (among the best around 40.0 percent) in long-distance shooting is a necessary improvement from a player still finding his way.

Clarkson most often plays alongside Russell or Lou Williams and splits ball-handling duties on the possessions that are not dominated by Bryant’s inefficient escapades in the half court. He has started each of the 39 games he has played, and has become something of a rock for the Lakers this season. He has maintained his level of play from last year, the only surface differences being the foray into league-average 3-point efficiency and a drop in assists (both ratio and per game), probably both a direct result of the kind of work he has to put in playing off the ball more frequently.

While the spotlight is always on the teams in Los Angeles and Manhattan, the attention often drifts toward the stars in those cities, both young and old. There’s a reason you were following Kristaps Porzingis extended cold streak more closely than Trey Lyles’ minutes jump in Utah. But without guys like Clarkson and Galloway, the Lakers and Knicks will be left with rosters dangerously close to those they’ve had in years past even after Bryant and Anthony are gone — ones with a star or two and little else.

Considering the possible dearth of talent in the 2016 free agent crop and the expected salary cap jump, it may turn out that whoever signs Galloway and Clarkson will be forced to pay a restricted free agency premium no matter what comes of the rest of their season.

But if their teams hope to parlay qualitatively better play from guys they might not have expected it from into cheap rotation parts, they would do well now to take notice of the improvements their young guards have made this year, and the ones they still need to make. A rotation player on a team-friendly contract is among the most valuable pieces of teambuilding, a starter on the same type of deal is a gift-wrapped package.

If, in three years, we see Porzingis vs. Russell and Randle on the NBA Finals marquee, it will have more to do with their respective teams’ ability to retain the young assets around them than the max-contract superstars themselves. Two guys shooting much better from deep is merely a start, but when it happens in America’s favorite cities, it should be national news.