Who's the best point guard?

ESPN Insider's Chad Ford and Kevin Pelton return to provide the kind of discussions that are happening in front offices around the NBA -- where scouts and statistical experts are breaking down NBA draft prospects using their "eyes, ears and numbers."

Chad Ford's Top 100 | Big Board 6.0 | Mock Draft 2.0

1. Is Syracuse's Tyler Ennis the draft's best point guard?

Chad Ford: The biggest riser on our Big Board the past month has been Syracuse guard Tyler Ennis. The consensus from scouts in December was that while Ennis was off to a great start as a freshman, he lacked the upside of a top draft pick and probably needed another season or two at Syracuse before he was a sure-fire first-round pick. By early January, with the Orange still undefeated and Ennis sporting a nearly 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio, more and more scouts started to see him as a first-round prospect this year and we moved him to No. 21 on our Big Board. On Wednesday we moved Ennis up another 11 spots to No. 10.

Why? As more NBA teams have scouted and re-scouted Ennis, looked at his perfect blend of passing and scoring, watched him make big play after big play on both ends of the court and seen enough athletic ability to shirk the Mateen Cleaves and Kendall Marshall comparisons, a consensus has begun to emerge that he has the potential to be a Mike Conley-type point guard in the NBA. With several teams in the lottery looking for point guard help, it seems more likely that Ennis is going to hear his name called in the top 10.

Scouts seemed primarily concerned with his lack of elite quickness and explosiveness early in the season. But his ability to get anywhere he wants on the floor has teams hedging a bit. What do the numbers have to say?

Kevin Pelton: You don't need to sell me on Ennis. Right now -- with the caveat that things can and will change during the rest of the college season -- he has the best WARP projection of any freshman. You read that right. He's ahead of Joel Embiid, whom we highlighted a few weeks ago as potentially the best prospect in the draft.

Why does Ennis come out so well? Start with steal rate, the topic we touched on last week. Ennis' steal rate is 13th in the country. True point guards with high steal rates have historically performed very well in the NBA. Here's the list of players in my NCAA database with translated assist rates better than 7.0 percent (Ennis is at 7.3) and steal rates better than 2.0 percent (Ennis at 2.7):

Five of those guys went in the lottery, and Lawson and Nelson should have. So yeah, I'd say Ennis is a lottery pick.

2. Could Ennis be taken higher than Marcus Smart and Dante Exum?

Ford: OK, so he's a lottery pick whose statistical comps compare to Chris Paul, Kyrie Irving and Conley and he has a higher WARP projection than Embiid, Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker and Julius Randle.

Should we have him any higher? We have two point guards currently rated ahead of him -- Australia's Exum (No. 4 on our Big Board) and Oklahoma State's Smart (No. 6 on our Big Board).

I know it's tough to do anything with the numbers on Exum. He's being judged on his play at the Nike Hoop Summit and FIBA Under-19 Championships. Unless you have some cool tool for taking Australian high school stats and translating them into pro projections, we will have to leave him out of this.

So I guess the question is … is he a better prospect than Smart? I asked a number of scouts the past week what they thought. All of them but one had Smart ranked higher. He's bigger (6-foot-4, 220 pounds), stronger, more athletic and a more vocal leader. But Ennis (6-2, 180 pounds) is a much better shooter, much less turnover-prone and seems like a more prototypical NBA point guard.

I'm leaning Smart's direction as well -- even given his current slump.

Pelton: I have to agree with the scouts for a couple of reasons. First, Smart is the rare player against whom Ennis doesn't have an advantage in steal rate. He's slightly ahead this season, but Smart ranked fifth in the country in steal rate as a freshman. Second, Smart is a better defensive rebounder, and that has been a surprisingly important indicator for point guards. One last thing: We're considering Smart the more mature player because he's a sophomore. However, he's just five months older than Ennis. Age isn't the advantage for the latter that you'd think.

To me, the interesting comparison is between Ennis and his predecessor at Syracuse. Is it possible that he's a better point guard than Michael Carter-Williams, the likely NBA Rookie of the Year?

3. How does Ennis compare to Michael Carter-Williams?

Ford: I was just looking back at my Big Board and your final WARP projections for the 2013 NBA draft. I had C.J. McCollum, Trey Burke and Michael Carter-Williams ranked seventh, eighth and ninth on my final Big Board. It was essentially a dead heat for me. You had McCollum ranked fourth, Burke seventh and Carter-Williams ranked ninth.

McCollum has been injured most of the season and slowly is getting back into the swing of things. Burke and Carter-Williams have both been very good, but Carter-Williams appears to be running away with rookie of the year honors.

What's interesting is that scouts liked Carter-Williams for completely different reasons. He had great size for his position, was an elite athlete and had special court vision. Their concerns were about his shaky jumper and his tendency to play out of control. Ennis plays for the same team, same position, but has opposite strengths and weaknesses. He's a good shooter, is as steady as they come, but lacks elite size or athletic ability for his position.

The only thing they really have in common? Drum roll, please … is virtually identical steal rates. (An aside, how many prospects are reading Kevin's comments the past few weeks and going all out to start racking up steals? Randle picked up three on Monday!).

I have to believe Carter-Williams' size (currently 6-6, 185 pounds) and athletic advantages make him a better pro.

Pelton: I'd agree that the Carter-Williams who has been so effective as a rookie is a better prospect than Ennis, but I do think I can make a case that based strictly on college performance, Ennis is ahead of where Carter-Williams was a year ago.

The big edge for Ennis is efficiency. You mentioned his assist-to-turnover ratio earlier, and he's been one of the most sure-handed point guards in the country. Carter-Williams turned the ball over nearly twice as often. That difference is reflected in Syracuse's team stats. With virtually identical performances in each of the other Four Factors besides turnovers, the Orange have improved from the nation's 29th-best offense, per Ken Pomeroy, to No. 7 in the country. And that's fueled the undefeated start that will be tested Saturday when Duke comes to town.

Either way, the fact that we're even able to seriously compare Ennis to Carter-Williams suggests what a good prospect Ennis is. I don't think his rapid climb up the Big Board is quite finished yet.