Toronto's Jerryd Bayless was the highest rated former Arizona player in the NBA during the 2011-12 season according to one ESPN.com system

Arizona’s 2011-12 All-NBA first team, according to player-efficiency ratings (PER) conducted by ESPN.com’s John Hollinger, includes a decent lineup.

Hollinger’s top rated former Wildcat is Jerryd Bayless of Toronto, who would take the off-guard spot. The next rated player is wing player Andre Iguodala of Philadelphia.

According to Hollinger, the PER is a rating of a player’s per-minute productivity.

“To generate PER, I created formulas — outlined in tortuous detail in my book ‘Pro Basketball Forecast’ — that return a value for each of a player’s accomplishments,” Hollinger writes at ESPN.com. “That includes positive accomplishments such as field goals, free throws, 3-pointers, assists, rebounds, blocks and steals, and negative ones such as missed shots, turnovers and personal fouls.

“Two important things to remember about PER are that it’s per-minute and is pace-adjusted.”

He adjusts each player’s rating for his team’s pace, “so that players on a slow-paced team like Detroit aren’t penalized just because their team has fewer possessions than a fast-paced team such as Golden State,” he writes.

Bayless’ PER is 17.80, which ranks him 70th among NBA players who averaged at least 6.09 minutes per game. Iguodala’s rating is 17.59.

Rounding out Arizona’s 2011-12 All-NBA first team, by order of the ratings, are point guard Jason Terry (15.80, 111th among NBA players) of Dallas, post player Jordan Hill (15.80, 111th) of the Los Angeles Lakers and forward Channing Frye (14.92, 139th) of Phoenix. Houston’s Chase Budinger (14.92, 139th) had an equal player-efficiency rating as Frye, but Frye gets the nod for the first team because Budinger and Iguodala are basically at the same position.

The other former Wildcats who qualified for the ratings include Minnesota’s Derrick Williams (12.98, 215th), Golden State’s Richard Jefferson (11.15, 263rd) and New York’s Mike Bibby (7.82, 335th).

Those who did not qualify were Luke Walton of Cleveland and Gilbert Arenas of Memphis because of their lack of playing time.

Among players with at least 500 minutes in 2011-12, the highest rating was Miami’s LeBron James at 30.80. The lowest was Charlotte’s Cory Higgins at 4.41.

Former UA guard Mustafa Shakur played in his first NBA game on Jan. 22 this year, nearly four years after completing his Wildcat career (US Presswire photo/Rafael Suanes)

So Josiah Turner and Nick Johnson are Five-Star recruits as rated by Rivals.com in its most recent rankings released Wednesday. Is that good news or bad for UA coach Sean Miller?

Turner, a point guard from Sacramento who finished his season at Winston-Salem (N.C.) Quality Education Academy, and Johnson, a guard-wing from Henderson (Nev.) Findlay Prep, become the third Wildcat duo to be listed as Five-Star prospects in the same year.

In 2003, forward Ndudi Ebi of Houston was rated the No. 4 prospect overall and guard Mustafa Shakur was rated No. 12. In 2007, guard Jerryd Bayless of Phoenix was the No. 13 prospect and forward Jamelle Horne was rated No. 21.

Turner is rated No. 11 by Rivals.com in the Class of 2011 and Johnson is at No. 18. Generally, the top 25 or 26 recruits garner Five-Star status.

Bayless, who only played one season at Arizona, has enjoyed the most success in his career, compared to Ebi, Shakur and Horne.

Of course, these rankings are always suspect. Keep in mind that former UA forward Derrick Williams, a potential No. 1 NBA draft pick, was not among the Rivals.com Top 150 prospects in 2009.

Ebi never played for Arizona, opting for the NBA draft instead. He was the 26th overall pick in the 2003 draft but his career never flourished at Minnesota, which waived him after two seasons. He was subsequently waived by Dallas in the next preseason camp and has only played in Europe since.

Shakur started all but two of his games at Arizona during his four-year career, but he was not drafted by NBA clubs in 2007. A point guard with decent height at 6-4, Shakur was co-MVP of the 2003 EA Sports Roundball High School Classic. The other MVP? LeBron James.

Shakur toiled in Europe for a couple of years and played in the NBA Developmental League before signing a 10-day contract with Oklahoma City at the end of last season. He returned to the D-League this season, playing for Tulsa and Rio Grande, before Washington signed him to a 10-day contract on Jan. 22. He played in his first NBA game that day, almost four years after leaving Arizona.

He finished the season with the Wizards, averaging 7.2 minutes a game in 22 games.

Bayless’ only season at Arizona in 2007-08 was tumultuous personally as he felt let down when Lute Olson took a leave of absence and was replaced by interim coach Kevin O’Neill. The 2007 McDonald’s All-American still averaged 19.7 points and four assists per game in the Wildcats’ 18-13 season. He was the 11th pick overall in the 2008 NBA draft, taken by Indiana, which traded his rights to Portland.

The Blazers traded him to New Orleans in October, and a month later, he was shipped to Toronto in a five-player trade.

Olson was openly disappointed that Bayless did not stay in Tucson for at least two years. Olson ultimately retired, however, in what would have been Bayless’ second season. When I asked Bayless during the 2009 NBA Summer League if he would attend Olson’s retirement ceremony that August, Bayless, with disdain on his face, shook his head and told me “Nope.”

“Jerryd said all along he wanted to stay here two years,” Olson said at the time. “But then you get the agents working on the kids and parents all year. You might have the kid in your controlled environment for some time, but when (outsiders are) on the parents, you have no idea what’s going on.”

Horne completed his four-year career at Arizona last month, struggling to find his niche during most of his time in Tucson. He ultimately became a bench player as a senior, relinquishing his starting role to junior-college transfer Jesse Perry. Horne will likely go undrafted by the NBA in June, but will probably have a chance to play overseas.

Arizona’s other Rivals.com Five-Star recruits last decade did not flourish in Tucson as they expected.

Jawann McClellan (2004) went undrafted after suffering through personal problems and injuries during his four-year career. J.P. Prince (2005) transferred to Tennessee after his freshman season. Chase Budinger (2006) left for the NBA after three years but was not selected until the second round.

Brandon Jennings (2008) signed a national letter of intent but never qualified academically. He played in Italy for a season before being selected in the first round of the 2009 NBA draft

NOTES: Kentucky is the only school with four signees ranked in Rivals’ top 25, and only two other programs have more than one. Arizona has Johnson and Turner. North Carolina also has two (No. 8, forward James McAdoo; No. 13, forward P.J. Hairston). … Other UA recruits Angelo Chol of San Diego Hoover and Sidiki Johnson, who finished the school year at Brooklyn (N.Y.) Wadleigh, are Four-Star prospects by Rival. Chol is rated No. 73 overall in the Class of 2011 and Sidiki Johnson is at No. 84.

Arizona players, such as Kevin Parrom, have Derrick Williams to lean on when the going gets tough like Thursday in the Wildcats' narrow 73-71 over Cal at McKale Center (US Presswire photo/Chris Morrison)

Arizona may rely too much on sophomore forward sensation Derrick Williams, but the Wildcats are 13-3 overall and 2-1 in the Pac-10.

Of course, 16-0 and 3-0 would be much better for some Arizona fans, but the current record is something to build on, considering all the “hot button” topics involved with the Wildcats, as second-year coach Sean Miller calls them.

One of those buttons is the heavy reliance on Williams, who acknowledged Thursday night that, “I put the team on my shoulders,” in Arizona’s 73-71 victory escape against a feisty, yet average 7-7 California team, at McKale Center.

Williams scored a career-high 31 points (42.4 percent of the Wildcats’ scoring) behind a school-record 22 free-throw attempts (he made 16).

It was written in this space last week that Arizona is practically “Derrick Williams and the 12 Dwarfs” (the UA has 13 players under scholarship, including Williams). That’s taking it to the extreme, perhaps a bit unfair to the others.

After all, other prolific-scoring players in Arizona basketball history have carried more of a scoring load for their team, believe it or not. This is a fact despite Williams currently averaging 19.4 points a game, with the next highest teammate (Solomon Hill) at 8.3.

After Thursday night’s game, Williams accounts for 24.8 percent of his team’s scoring (the Wildcats average 78.2 points a game).

Just two years ago, Chase Budinger of “Three Amigos” fame with Jordan Hill and Nic Wise, accounted for 24.9 percent of the UA’s scoring. He averaged 18 of Arizona’s 72.3 points a game under interim coach Russ Pennell.

The year before that (2007-08), under interim coach Kevin O’Neill, freshman guard Jerryd Bayless averaged 19.7 points a game, which was 27.4 percent of Arizona’s 71.9 average. That ranks as the highest mark since the Lute Olson era started in 1983-84.

The list of Olson-recruited players who equaled or accounted for more percentage of their team’s scoring than Williams’ current 24.8 mark:

1. Bayless (19.7 points per game — 27.4 percent of UA’s 71.9 points per game)
2. Khalid Reeves (24.2 points per game — 27.1 percent of UA’s 89.3 points per game in 1993-94).
3. Damon Stoudamire (22.8 points per game — 26.9 percent of UA’s 84.9 points per game in 1994-95).
4. Jason Terry (21.9 points per game — 26.6 percent of UA’s 82.2 points per game in 1998-99).
5. Sean Elliott (22.2 points per game — 26.3 percent of UA’s 84.5 points per game in 1988-89)
6. Elliott (19.3 points per game — 25.6 percent of UA’s 75.6 points per game in 1986-87)
7. Budinger (18 points per game — 24.9 percent of UA’s 72.3 points per game)
8. Jason Gardner (20.4 points per game — 24.8 percent of UA’s 82.1 points per game in 2001-02).

Other players from the Fred Snowden era and beyond produced more of a percentage of Arizona’s overall points than Bayless’ mark. Bob Elliott‘s 23.3 scoring average in 1974-75 accounted for 28.4 percent of the Wildcats’ 82.1 average.

That percentage failed to pass the 29.6 mark produced by Coniel Norman in 1972-73. Norman averaged 24 points a game, while the Wildcats averaged 81.2.

More impressive: Ernie McCray‘s 34-percent production of the UA’s scoring in 1959-60. He averaged 23.8 points a game. Arizona averaged 70 as a team.

The best percentage in Arizona history belongs to “Jumping” Jack Raffety (or was it “Jolting?”) in 1930-31. He averaged 10.9 of the Wildcats’ 29.4 points a game (37.1 percent).

In all of these examples, the players (at least in the modern era) were not ball hogs, just reliable scorers given the green light by their respective coaches. Williams described himself as an unselfish player after Thursday’s game.

How could he be selfish if he only had 14 field-goal attempts in his previous three games before Thursday? If anything, Arizona must do a better job of getting him the ball more. He took 12 shots Thursday, making seven.

“It’s not my personality to be selfish,” he said, “but I have to be more aggressive and call for the ball more. We have to play to our strengths.”

Nic Wise is home in Houston while 54 rookie point guards show their skills in front of NBA and international scouts in Las Vegas (US Presswire photo/Steve Mitchell)

LAS VEGAS — Approximately 70 point guards comprise the 22 NBA teams that are fielding a roster in the 2010 Summer League at Thomas & Mack over the next week.

Of that lot, 54 are rookies. Breaking it down further, nine of the 70 or so point guards are listed under 6-feet tall (meaning a diminutive size is not a deterrent). Seven of those nine are rookies.

Not one of them is Nic Wise.

The former 5-10, 180 playmaker for Arizona is at home in Houston. Jeremy Wise (no relation), a 6-1 rookie point guard from Southern Mississippi, is here with the Golden State Warriors. But not Nic Wise.

NBA scouts like it that a player performed at the highest level, such as Wise did at Arizona in the Pac-10 and in the NCAA tournament before his senior season. However, looking at the NBA Summer League rosters indicates that high-level experience is equal in worth to a LeBron James Cavaliers jersey right now.

Undrafted rookie point guards are here from programs such as Portland (Pooh Jeter, 5-11, Cavaliers), Illinois-Chicago (Josh Mayo, 6-0, Mavericks), College of Charleston (Dontaye Draper, 5-11, Nuggets), Wright State (Dashaun Wood, 5-11, Clippers) and Utah State (Jaycee Carroll, 6-1, Knicks).

In the initial NBA Summer League game between Denver and Dallas, Mayo and Draper were on the court along with Harvard rookie point guard Jeremy Lin with the Mavericks. Draper (who had three steals in the first half) and Lin (four points on 2-of-4 shooting) are credible, but Mayo looks out of his element.

The Suns, who interviewed and treated Wise to dinner the week of the NBA draft last month, have four rookie point guards on their summer-league roster. San Diego’s Brandon Johnson, 6-0, and Northeastern’s Matt Janning, 6-4, are among them.

Wise has been through a lot more pressure-filled games on national television and filled arenas than this sample of mid-major guards who are in Las Vegas. None of these guys can claim they averaged 21.3 points a game in a three-game NCAA Tournament run, like Wise did in 2009. But Wise is not here.

Why?

Some rumblings among NBA scouts and front-office personnel include Wise lacking in size, decision-making skills, finishing ability and health in his knees. The 54 rookie point guards here apparently do not have similar concerns.

Wise’s career is not over. He will likely sign with a professional team overseas. He is about to embark on a similar path as the two regular starting point guards who played before him at Arizona — Jason Gardner and Mustafa Shakur.

The last regular starting point guard for Arizona — which is dubbed “Point Guard U” — to sustain an NBA career is Jason Terry, who was drafted in 1999 and will be in his 12th NBA season in 2010-11. Jerryd Bayless is transitioning into playing point guard now in the NBA after playing mostly at the off-guard position at Arizona and in his rookie season with Portland in 2008-09.

Gardner and Shakur are still ticking. With the way Shakur has played in Orlando’s summer league, he is in position to be a backup guard in Oklahoma City or elsewhere next season. Gardner, a standout in the German professional league, is reportedly competing in the Indy Pro-Am league that runs into August.

Expect Wise to follow the lead of Gardner and Shakur and keep his NBA dream alive for as long as he works toward that goal.

UA recruit Daniel Bejarano, in the middle of celerating North fans, yells toward the roof at Wells Fargo Arena (Photo by Michael Chow, Arizona Repulic)

Phoenix North guard Daniel Bejarano played his last high school basketball game Wednesday night and can now prepare for his Arizona career.

The workouts might have to wait a day or two while Bejarano celebrates a repeat state title with the Mustangs. North defeated Laveen Cesar Chavez 71-66 for the Class 5A Division I boys basketball title at ASU’s Wells Fargo Arena, a place where he hopes to win more games as a Wildcat.

The Arizona Republic reports that Bejarano looked up into the rafters and pointed his finger as gesture to his father, who was shot and killed last year.

“I look up at the sky every chance I have because I know my dad is there for me,” Bejarano told the Republic. He finished with 19 points, 10 in the fourth quarter. He did not score in the game until 18 seconds were left before halftime. At that point, he hit a three-pointer to give North a 34-33 lead.

With four starters returning — Bejarano has told me that he grew up in the same neighborhood with his teammates — North wanted to prove it could repeat as state champion. This time, however it was a Class 5A Division I title. Last year it was a Division II championship.

“It feels great to come back and repeat,” Bejarano told the Republic. “It’s history.”

Bejarano, a 6-5 shooting guard, is rated a Four-Star recruit and the No. 57 prospect overall by Rivals.com. He averaged 21.5 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 2.1 steals per game this season.

He is the fifth high-profile Phoenix-area recruit to sign with Arizona since Lute Olson coached the Wildcats. Here’s how the others fared in their senior seasons:

• Mike Bibby — Averaged 34.3 points, 8 assists and four steals for in 1996 for Shadow Mountain, which won the Class 5A state championship that season.
• Richard Jefferson — Led Moon Valley to a Class 4A state title as a senior in 1998, averaging 24 points, 9.8 rebounds and 4.4 blocked shots a game.
• Channing Frye — Led St. Mary’s to a Class 5A state title in 2001, its first state title in 22 years. He averaged 22 points and 15 rebounds as an overlooked senior by other programs.
• Jerryd Bayless — Lost in the 2007 Class 5A state championship game with St. Mary’s, which was beaten by Mesa Mountain View and current UA sophomore guard Brendon Lavender. He averaged 37.9 points, 8 rebounds, 7.4 assists and 3.2 steals per game.

Bibby, Jefferson, Frye and Bayless became NBA lottery picks after their UA careers.

Class of 2003 recruit Ndudi Ebi decided to chase his NBA dreams rather than honor his commitment to Arizona. Minnesota drafted him in the first round (26th pick overall) but his NBA career never fluorished (Fan photo taken in Italy)

The end of the decade is almost two weeks from now, and when it comes to UA hoops recruiting, many fans are looking forward to changing the page to the next decade with UA coach Sean Miller establishing his program with his own players.

Former UA coach Lute Olson had his triumphs in the decade, including discovering before the 1999-2000 season diamond-in-the-rough player Gilbert Arenas, who later became an NBA All-Star. However, the decade ended on a particularly sour note as top-flight recruits abandoned the program in the wake of Olson’s leave of absence and sudden retirement.

Arenas arguably is the best least-sought recruit to attend Arizona, topping Steve Kerr, who was only recruited by Gonzaga (not a similar power at the time) other than Arizona, and Jordan Hill, who chose the Cats over Clemson, Georgia State, South Florida and Vanderbilt.

Two of Olson’s five Pac-10 Freshman of the Year winners were signed during the decade — Salim Stoudamire in 2001 and Chase Budinger in 2006. However, that number should have at least been three. Somehow Arenas and backcourt mate Jason Gardner were not selected the Pac-10 Freshman of the Year following the 1999-2000 season. Gardner, meanwhile, was chosen a national freshman of the year by three media outlets, including the U.S. Basketball Writers Association.

Casey Jacobsen of Stanford and Jason Kapono of UCLA were the Pac-10′s co-freshmen of the year that season. They were on the Pac-10′s all-freshman team along with Arenas, Gardner and Oregon State’s Brian Jackson.

Olson had other recruiting victories in the decade, such as Phoenix’s Channing Frye (who in 2001 continued the trend of the state’s best talent attending Arizona) and Andre Iguodala (who attended the UA after gaining a release from his 2002 letter of intent at Arkansas following the Nolan Richardson buyout).

As Olson’s career came to a turbulent end, the UA’s recruiting identity faltered as well. Talented players like Brandon Jennings and Abdul Gaddy (Washington) opted to play somewhere else. In Jennings’ case, his travels took him to Italy, where he would play professionally instead honoring his signed letter of intent.

Jerryd Bayless, a Rivals.com 5-star recruit in 2007, played one season at UA under interim coach Kevin O’Neill and then bolted to the NBA. Olson returned from his leave of absence saying he would no longer go after one-and-done players like Bayless. As it turned out, Olson would not recruit anybody because his Hall of Fame career came to an end.

Arizona’s five-star recruits in the decade never really materialized to their recruiting hype. The best of the bunch turned out to be Budinger (2006). However, after capturing the Pac-10 freshman of the year honors, Budinger’s UA career became stagnant (in conjunction with Olson’s leave of absence and retirement) until he declared for the NBA draft after his junior season. He failed to become the lottery pick he envisioned, lasting until the 44th pick overall in the second round by Detroit (which traded his rights to Houston).

The following is a list of the top UA recruiting developments of the decade (1999-2000 season to the recruitment of the Class of 2009). Which one do you think is the most significant development? (The picks are listed in relation to the description provided):

1. Gilbert Arenas signs with Arizona, which beats only Kansas State and DePaul for his services, and he averages 15.4 points a game as a freshman in 1999-2000. He also is the second UA freshman to score at least 500 points (Coniel Norman was the first in ’72-73).

2. Jason Gardner, a heralded point guard recruited out of Indianapolis, captures the 1999-2000 national freshman of the year honors from Basketball Times, ESPN.com and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association.

3. UA coach Lute Olson inks Salim Stoudamire, who follows in his cousin Damon’s footsteps by attending Arizona, and is selected the Pac-10 Freshman of the Year following the 2001-02 season.

4. Ndudi Ebi, a Class of 2003 forward-center recruit who was rated No. 4 overall by Rivals.com, opts for the NBA draft and is selected by Minnesota late in the first round. His NBA career never pans out. He currently averages 14.6 points and 13.8 rebounds for Riviera Solare Crabs Rimini of the Italian professional league.

5. The only five-star recruits to sign with UA in the decade — Ebi (2003), Mustafa Shakur (2003), Jawann McClellan (2004), J.P. Prince (2005), Chase Budinger (2006), Jerryd Bayless (2007), Jamelle Horne (2007) and Brandon Jennings (2008) — generally had unfulfilled careers at Arizona. Horne is a junior, so he might buck this trend, but not in this decade.

6. Chase Budinger is praised by Olson as the best recruit he’s signed and the standout from San Diego promptly wins Pac-10 Freshman of the Year honors after averaging 15.6 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. Olson did not coach him again and Budinger struggled accordingly his sophomore and junior seasons.

7. Olson’s leave of absence in 2007-08 and abrupt retirement before the 2008-09 sets recruiting back for Arizona. High profile recruits Jennings (Italy), Jeff Withey (transfer to Kansas), Emmanuel Negedu (Tennessee), Abdul Gaddy (Washington), Mike Moser (UCLA) and Solomon Hill (USC) changed their minds about attending Arizona. Hill switched back to UA following Sean Miller’s hiring.

8. Jennings, the No. 4 prospect in the country out of the prestigious Oak Hill Academy, commits to Arizona in June 2007 and eventually signs a national letter of intent. However, Jennings causes a national story after his senior season when he decides to play professionally in Italy instead of await his SAT score.

9. Miller, who is hired in April 2009 as Olson’s permanent replacement, is lauded by recruiting experts for his first class, which comprises of five players: Lamont “MoMo” Jones, Derrick Williams, Kyryl Natyazhko, Solomon Hill and Kevin Parrom.