McBubbles wrote:I think I care less about portability now than I did before. Elgee was my gateway into high level basketball analysis and so I just internalised a lot of what he valued as gospel, but portability often seems to punish players for dominance or things that in reality wouldn't change much. I think portability might actually be a more important for role players than stars.
For example , Shaq has the least versatile scoring arsenal of any ATG center. His inability to hit shots outside of 8ft means he can only be utilised deep in the paint with no exceptions. However, Shaq is a monster in the paint and the most dominant inside finisher of all time. Even if Shaq shot 45% from mid-range, why on earth would I take him off the block in order to make him take a shot that his role players would hit at a better rate than him anyway? The benefit you'd get from taking a center away from the basket would arguably be offset by the downside of taking Shaq away from the basket, and it's not like shooters are hard to find (unless you're the LeBron AD Lakers).
LeBron is another example. Despite the fact he's an ATG scorer, ATG playmaker, and acceptable shooter, he is often contrasted to players like KD or Kawhi as an example of a player that isn't portable on account of his reliance on a clear paint scoring and ball dominance. Thing is though, in this instance KD and Kawhi are more portable than LeBron because they're literally not capable of doing as much. They're vastly inferior playmakers and so are incapable of dominating the ball to the extent they would be considered unportable. So despite the fact LeBron has led GOAT level offences and won 4 championships, he's dinged for his reluctance to be less ball dominant when his ball dominance has been proven time and time again to work.
Magic Johnson v Larry Bird is also another example of the allegedly less portable player getting better results.
The reverse example of this is KG. He has a good mid-range game, is a good ball handler and passer and isn't a high volume scorer, and so can fit in with several other play styles, especially other high volume scorers. Problem is, he's not a volume scorer because relative to other ATG's he's **** at it lol. If he was capable of ATG volume scoring he would have done it, and he would have taken shots from his teammates in the process, thereby making him more ball dominant, less portable but also a better player, only to get dinged by Elgee and the like for being too ball dominant. How does that work? If you can simultaneously be a better player and less portable than portability is irrelevant imo.
Same with Curry. The poster boy for portability got his egalitarian pass heavy offences stifled significantly in 2015, 2016 and 2019. If he was a better on ball playmaker, a play style associated with less portability, he'd have had more resilient offences.
Tangentially related to portability is to the point about players that rely on inside scoring being quoted as "needing spacing to thrive" a very frequent criticism of LeBron (which isn't even entirely true in his case), Giannis, Wade, Westbrook, Shaq, etc. Thing is though, who the **** DOESN'T thrive with spacing? Spacing is ubiquitously beneficial to every player ever. Dinging resilient playoff scorers for "needing spacing" makes no sense.
I don't think too many people care about the portability of the most dominant players of all time. At a level that high, your dominance is essentially portable. On any team, with any players, if one of them is Shaq, him getting deep post position is going to be better than anything else possible, so you really don't care if you're technically losing some spacing. Same with letting Magic handle the ball. Analysing portability, imagining how they'd fit with other good players, is just another function to celebrate special parts of certain players game.
No one is giving KG extra points for being a B+ scorer instead of an A+ scorer. It's a notable weakness in his game and he gets dinged for it all the time. Hard to be a skinny big in a post-up offense. That doesn't mean KG shouldn't be given credit for all the things he's good at, and better at, than other players. I think your treating "portability as a good thing" in a bit of a reductive way. We should criticize KG's lack of high-end scoring, and we should criticize players who struggle without the ball in their hands. We should also celebrate being useful without the ball, and being extremly useful with the ball.
I'm pretty sure ElGee called Shaq pretty portable, due to his proclivity for duck ins functioning as a high-level off-ball game. I think it's perfectly fair to point out that Kobe and MJ might have not brought the best out of each other (even if they might still just win every game lol), or that Larry Bird or KD might be easier to slot in next to a ball-dominant player than Lebron or Magic. Essentially, I don't think it's damning to be less portable when you're the best player in the league.
