A player who can score and pile up the points for his team is definitely high on a basketball coach’s list. Defense, as always, is given a very huge emphasis in order to have that desirable all-around player in your squad.

But rarely does a guy, especially a point guard who makes such a huge impact on his team despite failing to possess a consistent and potent outside shooting, becomes the squad’s primary offensive option and leading scorer.

Such is the interesting case of 2010 NBA Rookie of the Year Tyreke Evans of the Sacramento Kings.

The 6-foot-6 guard out of Memphis has played tremendous basketball in only his first year in the league, and thus was the hands-down choice for the most impressive player in last year’s rookie class. He finished with a 20-5-5 average in points, rebounds, and assists but fell short of leading his team to much greater heights with the lack of help he was getting from his teammates.

The departure of Sacramento’s former scoring threat Kevin Martin (who went to play for the Houston Rockets midway into the previous season) gave Evans the chance and the freedom to do whatever he wants, as head coach Paul Westphal gave him the green light on the offensive end.

Despite finishing with a 25-57 win-loss slate last season, Westphal and the Kings have seen the tremendous upside of Evans. What seemed to be a puzzling stat in the 20-year old’s game is how he managed to put the points for the team despite shooting very poorly from afar — a rare observation considering the position he plays and the positives he brings on the table for the Kings.

“According to HoopData, on shots that weren't at the rim, Evans hit on just a third of his jumpers,“ Trey Kerby of Yahoo! Sports blog “Balls Don’t Lie.”

“Not great for a guard. Heck, not even good for a guard. Barely passable, really. But still, Evans finished the season shooting .458 from the floor, mostly because he can get to the rim and convert at a 60 percent rate. Considering defenses would routinely sag off him, daring him to shoot a jumper, that's impressive. But just imagine if he could, and would, actually shoot from outside.”

“Evans will certainly be asked to evolve, to improve his point guard skills and become a more vocal and responsible leader,” NBA writer Sam Amick notes. “His attacking game will remain his go-to offensive weapon and his shot, in truth, is not the top priority when it comes to his development. But it is the most mysterious of his many skills, if only because of the way it vanished.”

People close to Evans primarily blame his former college coach John Calipari, who has refused to encourage the explosive guard to drain shots from the perimeter.

“As they see it, the then-Memphis coach scared the confidence right out of Evans, gnawing on his ear every time the he dared to shoot a jumper instead of blowing by the line of helpless defenders,” Amick writes. “The style worked just fine for the Tigers, who went 33-4 and lost to Missouri in the third round of the NCAA Championships in Evans' one season.”

And so, wanting to prove that he has really stepped up his game a notch higher, Tyreke Evans may have to get those shots going in. The biggest names in the sport have lived and thrived in winning games with their perimeter game. Kobe Bryant has done it, LeBron James has done it, and so do Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul. For him to be able to rise into that elite group, he must first train himself to make the money shot and keep those wins coming in for Sacramento.