lilfishi22 wrote:bwgood77 wrote:lilfishi22 wrote:Was I wrong in remembering the narrative in college was that Ayton was forced to play an unnatural position (PF) because they started Ristic at the 5? The 5 absolutely makes sense for him because of his speed advantage there as opposed to the 4 where he's not as fast and not as skilled as NBA 4's
There was talk he wanted to play 4 and talk he HAD to play next to a 5 which limited him.
I don't think he wants to play 4 now.
Some guys his size do though. Duncan was basically a C, the exact same size as Ayton but wanted to play the 4. KG was 240, Dirk 245, etc.
Those are the guys he probably saw most of...not the older guys people compared him to.
In this day and age though KG would probably play C for most teams.
Then again, some teams are going very big, and play multiple bigs, like the Cavs, Lakers, Celtics, etc.
To me, the difference between the PF and C position is that you don't always need to be quick or have a wide skillset to play the 5 but it's hard to play the 4 without both attributes. Duncan, KG and Dirk played 4's because back in those days, they had the skillset and the quickness to be 4's while their 5's were truly lumbering giants, even though they did routinely play the 5 as well. These days, I think Duncan and Dirk potentially would be a little too slow to play the 4 since it's really more of a wing position now but prime KG certainly could still be a 4.
Ayton's inability to put the ball on the deck is the issue here. I don't think it's something he can learn.
He - and we, or whatever team he ends up on - needs to embrace who he is, which is the league's most (or nearly most) efficient post player.
