OakleyDokely wrote:If we were looking at this trend of smallball through the lenses of the moneyball approach, if the trend is small, undervalued assets in the market place would be bigs - acquiring bigs and playing big.
Playing small only works if you have versatile and GOOD small players.
Which bigs are undervalued, exactly? There really aren't all that many good bigs, to say nothing of good bigs that shoot, pass and defend. The Lakers currently have Roy Hibbert, Brandon Bass, Robert Sacre, Ryan Kelly and Julius Randle at PF/C. Honestly, Kobe is cooked, but if anybody is to blame here is Mitch Kupchak and the Jr Busses. Can you imagine if Roy Hibbert gets hurt and Julius Randle looks like a short-armed PF who fouls a lot, can't shoot and only goes left? What then?
I actually think a lot of this small ball stuff isn't so much coming from coaches trying to be avant-garde as it is from a total lack of PFs worth a damn coming up through the draft. Take a look at the PFs out there who are any good. Guys like Horford, Jefferson, Duncan, Aldridge, Dirk, Bosh, Millsap, Randolph, etc. are all either on the wrong side of 30, or very close to it. Where are the young guys coming up to take their places? Even Kevin Love turns 27 in September. It's Anthony Davis, and besides him you start looking at tweeners like Green, Mirotic, Markieff Morris, etc. Centers have seen a pretty significant resurgence, but power forwards are on the decline in the NBA, so rather than massively overpay for a better PF, killing their ability to add players at other positions, teams are doing what they can to adapt.
