CoachD wrote:jamaalstar21 wrote:people who want to nitpick positional designation are boring.
literally who cares. The positions aren't law, they're guidelines that were made up once upon a time to help explain what was going on on the court. We still use them but they aren't always helpful. Great players can be hard to define. Most of the best players these days can play multiple positions, so it's about what other limited players are put next to them. I'm sure Kawhi is perfectly capable at the 2-3-4, but what lesser players are next to him and what kind of roles should they have to help the team win. Giannis could be a 3-4-5, but he's best surrounded by shooters, and the Bucks got a shooting 5, so Giannis plays the 4.
If you want to call those guys combo guards, go for it. But like... who cares? Is it helpful to call Jordan a combo guard? tbh I think you chose bad examples because Jordan and Kobe were maniacal scorers who did their best when they were confined to a shooting guard role in an offense (the triangle to be specific). Jordan and especially Kobe, when running the offense, took too many tough shots and stalled the offense.. So Phil Jackson managed the offense through Scottie Pippen and Shaq/Pau Gasol, freeing his all-time scorers to do what they did best. Jordan was a pretty elite creator, but Kobe (although he had the passing ability) was a famously reluctant passer. D-Wade is a sort of good example. He definitely spent some time playing a point guard like role... but he was a sneaky awful dribbler. He commanded enough respect that guys let him dribble, but it seemed like when he'd get pressured he'd turn the ball over a LOT. Dribbled the ball off his foot more than he'd like to admit. At the end of the day, even though he played a lot of lead guard, Wade was more like a small forward in the way he dominated post matchups and used his physicality, length, athleticism and strength to dominate.
imho combo guard is a backhanded compliment. They are point guard sized players who you don't love to have running your offense because they more so look for their own shot and usually can't guard anyone.
That's a huge over simplification
Players are defined at position by their strongest skill sets and who they are able to defend.
Kashi is nowhere near as effective guarding post up bigs as he is perimeter players.
Positions weren't made to just explain what was happening....
They were designed to provide an order a methodology
i said a half dozen things, so... are they all a "huge over simplification" or perhaps a series of huge over simplifications?
I agree that players are definied by their strongest skill set and who they are able to defend (which is why Kobe and Jordan and Wade are shooting guards). But there's lots of players that are so juiced up with strong skill sets that they have positional flexibility.
Never said anything about Kawhi guarding post up bigs. I said 4s. Giannis, Tobias Harris, Draymond, Aaron Gordon were his power forward potential matchups throughout the playoffs and none of them did a ton of posting up. Post up 4s are rare on good teams. I can't even think of one on a good team right now. Does Millsap still post up? Blake still does a little bit, but Detroit isn't a good team. I also disagree that Kawhi is less effective at guarding 4s. Everytime I've seen him defend the post, he's a strong, long armed, huge handed monster. If what his team needed was for him to lock down a post-up 4, I think he'd do it as well as almost anyone (maybe anyone?). He annihilated Giannis when switched on to him.
Sure, positions we made to "provide an order a methodology" or whatever. But when we as fans assess positions, we are perceiving, NOT structuring. So all we can talk about is how a player was used, by our perception. Good coaches maximize groups of skill sets together, and if that means having a wing tandem defend the rim while a big contains the pick & roll (the Heatles) or letting your Jokic center run the offense while the guards play as cutters, then that's what happens, positions be damned. Positions are sometimes helpful to talk about, and sometimes they're boring when fans insist on them. You know like when you're ranking players by positions and a few positionally ambiguous players get moved around so the ranking feels the best? Sometimes position stuff is generated by coaching, but sometimes we as fans "like" to see certain players as certain positions and that is when I think it becomes boring and silly.