MyUniBroDavis wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:parsnips33 wrote:The greatest PG of all time takes more 3s off the dribble than anybody. Nothing wrong with playing that way if you can pull it off
Presuming you're talking about Curry, I'd object to calling him a "point guard" when he plays like this. If "point guard" simply means the smallest guy in your lineup, then it doesn't mean anything at all.
None of this to say that Curry wasn't a superstar-level point guard when he played like a point guard, but what he right now is something I would call a "rover", and while basketball folks don't think about "rover" as a position, they should and every coach should be asking himself "Why don't I have at least one rover out there?" from here on out.
If you mean off ball offensive movement type Curry still does too much on ball I think for it to be invalid to call him a PG I think.
I think a more buddy hield/klay type when I think of movement shooters
Fair enough. I'll acknowledge that he doesn't play only one way, and that he has more time playing on-ball than a pure rover would, but I think the APG comparison with Draymond is telling. While Curry still averaged more than double the APG of Green in Kerr's first year, we're now firmly into the era where Draymond is the guy racking up more assists (at least per minute) than Curry.
In general I think this is a good line of demarcation: If you're not your team's leading assister when you play, then you probably shouldn't be thought of primarily with the "point guard" label. It's one thing if you're super-on-ball and just really, really, really bad at passing - then you're effectively playing point guard...while being bad at playmaking for others, but if someone else is getting more assists than you because that's the scheme, then I wouldn't call your role "point guard".
Maybe you can think of example situations where this demarcation doesn't seem right, but calling Draymond the "point" of the Warrior system sure seems right to me. Similarly for a Jokic situation - I don't think it's really meaningful to say that Jokic plays with "point guards" even if he plays with guys capable of playing point guard.
Last note, as far as I know, the traditional way to refer to guards who are don't fit as "point guards" or the close cousin "lead guard" is "off guard". I tend to think of Derek Fisher in this capacity next to Kobe. I think "off guard" is still a good label to use for guys like Klay and Buddy, but it doesn't really capture someone like Steph to me because it implies that the player in question is not the primary focus of the defense.
Hence while you could Klay, Buddy & Steph in the "rover" category, it's only really Steph that seems to require this new category.