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Many of the fans in Denver have been happy with what Ty Lawson brings to the table. Although he's diminutive, he runs the offense like a well-oiled machine, creating easy looks for others and himself as an elite offensive player. He displays all the traits of a media friendly player, highlights, an elite skill (breathtaking speed), a winning team....oh wait, that was last year.

Sometimes I forget that this team had a record of 36-46 last year and became completely irrelevant in the eyes of the media. New teams like the Portland Trail Blazers, Washington Wizards and New Orleans Pelicans (Anthony Davis is apparently a God) have taken the place of the underdog Nuggets. This put the value of Nuggets players at a new low, and Lawson (and perhaps Gallinari) have been affected most of all. When referring to the top players at their respective positions, Gallinari's name is non-existent, and Lawson's name is rarely seen, and if anything it is at the bottom of the list at Ninth or Tenth on a list of top Point Guards. Being a Nuggets fan, this is incredibly disrespectful to me, but entirely understandable. Lawson is an elite player, but in a golden age of Point Guards, it is relatively easy for the media to disregard him as he is not on an elite team and doesn't make those "I can't believe he just did that" plays on a regular basis like Kyrie Irving, Russell Westbrook and John Wall. He doesn't score as many points as those guys, he doesn't play next to a superstar like LeBron James or Kevin Durant, and he doesn't have incredible highlights that showcase his athleticism (looking at the dunk squad of Blake Griffin, Westbrook, Wall and others that fly above the rim).

So is Ty Lawson still an elite player? Is he the 12th best PG or the 7th best PG? It's much easier to deduce whether he is or not through objective statistics. The statistics that I feel make a PG elite are PER, Assist Rate, Assist to Turnover Ratio and Points Accounted For. This creates a wide variety of statistics that should encompass different scenarios and traits to form a fairly unbiased ranking of Lawson and his peers. While there are no defensive statistics (Individual Defense is hard to measure anyway), defense out of a Point Guard remains few and far between. Patrick Beverly and Mike Conley might excel, but there aren't many others that do, so let's dive in and see what we can find regarding the other statistics.

(*All players on the list are starters, played 40+ games in 2013-14 and averaged 24+ MPG. Notable exclusions are Derrick Rose and Rajon Rondo)

Player Efficiency Rating (PER)

1. Chris Paul (25.98)

2. Russell Westbrook (24.74)

3. Steph Curry (24.13)

4. Isaiah Thomas (20.54)

5. Kyle Lowry (20.20)

6. Kyrie Irving (20.14)

7. Mike Conley (20.07)

8. Eric Bledsoe (19.62)

9. John Wall (19.61)

10. Ty Lawson (19.02)

11. Tony Parker (19.00)

12. Damian Lillard (18.69)

13. Deron Williams (17.69)

14. Jeff Teague (17.16)

15. Kemba Walker (16.82)

So, PER has Lawson as the 10th overall PG. Some notables on this list are Isaiah Thomas all the way up at 4th, John Wall as the 9th overall PG, and Tony Parker being 11th. PER is a very rough stat, however; players 4-11 are separated by 1.54 points so it is only really exclaiming how Paul, Westbrook and Curry have separated themselves as elite offensive players at the position. Still, it is a stat, and I am using it. Deal with it.

Assist Rate (Percentage of a player's plays that end in an assist)

1. Kendall Marshall (44.9)

2. Ricky Rubio (40.9)

3. Chris Paul (36.2)

4. Jameer Nelson (33.1)

5. Raymond Felton (31.6)

6. Ty Lawson (31.4)

7. Mario Chalmers (31.0)

8. Jose Calderon (30.0)

9. Deron Williams (29.1)

10. Brandon Jennings (29.0)

11. Kyle Lowry (28.9)

12. John Wall (28.5)

T-13. Trey Burke (26.9)

T-13. Jeff Teague (26.9)

15. Steph Curry (26.7)

This ranking is much kinder to Lawson as he falls 6th on the list. A couple oddities include the passers/can't shoot/if I shoot my teammates get mad category that is Marshall, Rubio, Felton and Chalmers near the top of the list. None of those guys are very good, but they know that passing is their only option for offense in Marshall's case or they know how to pass it to the stars/solid offensive players on their team in the case of the other three. Nelson is an interesting player as he has been forgotten in Orlando, but will now go to Dallas and be the likely starter there and could have a career renaissance, but still isn't the kind of player that Paul and Lawson (the other two top players) are. Lawson is shown to organize and distribute very well using this stat and it could be argued that he is a top five passer in the league as Felton is just awful. Other observations are that Steph Curry is 15th despite averaging a high number of assists, and Lawson's idealistic player (Tony Parker) isn't up there at all.

Assist to Turnover Ratio (Number of Assists per One Turnover)

1. Chris Paul (4.57)

2. Jose Calderon (3.66)

3. Kendall Marshall (3.18)

4. Ricky Rubio (3.17)

T-5. Trey Burke (3.02)

T-5. Kyle Lowry (3.02)

7. Mike Conley (2.94)

8. George Hill (2.88)

9. Jameer Nelson (2.87)

T-10. Brandon Jennings (2.83)

T-10. Raymond Felton (2.83)

12. Deron Williams (2.74)

13. Ty Lawson (2.72)

14. Kemba Walker (2.64)

15. Tony Parker (2.57)

Yikes. Ty Lawson is decidedly average among starters in this category at 13th. "He averaged 8.8 assists per game last year though!" you say. Well he also averaged 3.2 turnovers per game, which qualifies as 39th out of 43 players (Westbrook, Curry, Wall and Carter-Williams averaged more turnovers). I know he handles the ball a lot, but for people to truly respect his game as a point guard, he needs to improve this number. Be that as it may, the only players that can be considered at his level on this list are Paul, Lowry, Conley and Parker, so maybe the media perception is a little twisted to be featuring guys like Wall, Westbrook, Curry because they create highlights, even though the fundamentals are not sound. Nevertheless, the stat is counted for the end ranking.

Points Accounted For per Game (Personal Points per game + Points via Assist per game)

1. Chris Paul (19.1 + 24.5 = 43.6)

2. Steph Curry (24.0 + 19.2 = 43.2)

3. John Wall (19.3 + 21.3 = 40.6)

4. Ty Lawson (17.6 + 21.0 = 38.6)

5. Russell Westbrook (21.8 + 16.4 = 38.2)

6. Kyle Lowry (17.9 + 17.3 = 35.2)

7. Isaiah Thomas (20.3 + 14.5 = 34.8)

8. Kyrie Irving (20.8 + 13.9 = 34.7)

9. Damian Lillard (20.7 + 13.5 = 34.2)

10. Jeff Teague (16.5 + 16.1 = 32.6)

11. Brandon Jennings (15.5 + 17.0 = 32.5)

12. Kemba Walker (17.7 + 14.0 = 31.7)

13. Michael Carter-Williams (16.7 + 14.9 = 31.6)

14. Eric Bledsoe (17.7 + 13.2 = 30.9)

15. Mike Conley (17.2 + 13.6 = 30.8)

Wow. Quite an interesting list that features our own Lawson at 4th. I like this stat. It shows the complete effectiveness on offense and knocks down players like Ricky Rubio that only average a measly 9.5 points per game. Lawson does a great job at getting into the lane and A) Finishing at the rim and B) Dishing to the teammates within the paint or on the perimeter. This shows up well in this stat. Other notables include Conley all the way down at 15, Parker being excluded, and big scorers Irving and Lillard falling down the list due to their lack of creation for teammates. Good for Lawson.

Okay. Now that those four statistics have been measured, lets add up the totals and see where our guy falls. If a player is ranked 1st in a category, he receives 15 points, 2nd receives 14, all the way down to 15th receiving 1 point and all players outside the top 15 receiving zero points. For the sake of the final ranking, I am going to weight PER double of what the other categories are to take into account shooting percentages and other aspects that my statistics don't touch on, meaning the top guy receives 30 points instead of 15. Let's see what happens:

Cumulative Ranking of NBA Point Guards

Isn't this an interesting table? I think so. It tells me that ESPN really likes big cities, tradition, highlights (duh), and that the formula that I used to create this ranking is incredibly flawed. For example, Kyle Lowry is incredibly underrated, maybe even more so than Ty Lawson. Only Paul, Lowry and Lawson show up on every single list, meaning they are the biggest threats to a defense at the PG position because they are equally gifted at scoring and passing the ball. Steph Curry, Russ Westbrook and Isaiah Thomas are guys that thrive on scoring, and the stats don't lie, even Curry struggles to pass the ball well even though his raw stats (APG) say otherwise. Other observations include the absence of Eric Bledsoe, Damian Lillard, and Tony Parker. They finished ranked 15th, 18th, and 21st respectively. The stats aren't kind to any of them, especially Parker. This could be attributed to the Spurs' offense and that he's not asked to do too much, but I'd say that it's more of a decline that Coach Pop is able to mask in his schemes. Lillard is a poor passer and has always been more of a scorer, but because he doesn't score the ball as efficiently as players like Curry, Westbrook and Thomas, he is penalized.

Now obviously, this is a flawed ranking system. Not enough emphasis is put on defense, or shooting efficiency/location, or even shooting volume which would help Irving, Lillard and others. Be that as it may, it highlights the decision making skills a player has between passing, shooting, and controlling turnovers. Maybe it could be referred to as the "Dual-Decision" Rating. A point guard has to effectively balance his personal need for scoring while effectively distributing the ball to his teammates. The players above do this well, including Lawson.

But what does this mean for our diminutive Point Guard? He is ranked 5th up above when factoring in these important statistics, and I believe that this is closer to his true ranking than where most of the league currently has him. Given his strong offensive play (yet defensive shortcomings) as well as the likely possibility of a flawed statistic, I would rank him 6th behind Paul, Westbrook, Curry, Wall, and the surprise player in Kyle Lowry. Lillard and Parker are shown to be overrated, Thomas is underrated but doesn't pass it well enough to be in the top 6, while Irving and Conley are accurately rated.

What say you Stiffs? How did I do?