Sports on Earth ranks Mike Conley as NBA's sixth-best point guard

By foxsports
Published

Mike Conley is pretty consistently referred to as the most underrated player in the NBA, enough that he may actually be on the way to becoming overrated just because he's mentioned as underrated so often.

Well, Conley is getting his respect at Sports on Earth, where Michael Pina, also of FOX Sports, has ranked him as the sixth-best point guard in the NBA. Here's more from Pina: 

The rest of Pina's top six makes sense: Kyrie Irving fifth, John Wall fourth, Russell Westbrook third, Chris Paul second and the reigning MVP Stephen Curry first.

Conley will be 28 years old at the start of this season and will hit free agency at the start of next summer. It's seeming more and more likely that he's bound for a max contract, especially if he puts up production this year that's on par with that he's done over the last couple.

Conley averaged 15.8 points and 5.4 assists per game last season. He's also rightfully known as one of the NBA's premier defensive 1s. 

(h/t Sports on Earth)

The "underrated" label has finally unglued itself from Mike Conley's forehead. Everyone knew Conley was really good before he shredded the Golden State Warriors with a broken face and busted foot in the playoffs. He's one of the toughest players in the league, a pass-first contortionist with a neat bag of floaters that allow survival once he ventures into NBA forestry.

Conley's per-game numbers don't leap off the page -- they were arguably worse than Teague's a year ago -- but he can shoot threes, run an offense and defend like a mad man. He doesn't take anything off the table, which is a skill in and of itself.