Papi_swav wrote:MrDollarBills wrote:TheNetsFan wrote:"Small Ball" is a terrible misnomer. Bosh was 6'11". Lebron is 6'9" and built like a truck. That's playing big men with traditionally small men skills, not playing small men at big man positions.
Thank you!!
Even saying that the Lakers "went small" is false. AD and Lebron are big as hell. Robert Covington and PJ Tucker were getting mauled out there.
Playing your 5 most skilled guys to close out the 4th is fine. Playing undersized for 4 quarters is a losing strategy. All you're doing is allowing for the opponent to get lay ups and offensive rebounds.
Everyone should have seen Houston get taken to 7 games by OKC and known what was coming.
It is not a terrible misnomer. Around 2010 almost every team had 2 big men that played back to the basket ball. Lakers had the twin towers Pau and Bynum and then Dwight. Celtics had KG and Perkins etc... These were the typical types of big men each team had. Bosh was a PF his whole career than was converted into playing center in miami and Lebron was a 3 playing the 4 or Shane batter was a 3 playing the 4. This wasn't typical at that time which is why I believe they started the trend of small ball.
It's not just about height. Doesn't matter how tall Bosh is/was , he wasn't big or strong enough to bang around with guys like Bynum, Perkins, Chandler at first. I remember around that time he had to gain alot of weight in the summer to handle the 5. Lebron just happen to be a freak that can play every position like Magic Johnson. You guys are just thinking about the Rockets taking it to the extreme and ya think that's the only definition of small ball but it's not.
GS had KD playing the 4 or 5 as a 7 footer and that was/is still considered small ball. Doesn't matter how tall he is, would you want KD playing the 5 the whole game? Exactly. But if he played the 5 for one minute you would consider that being small ball.
EDIT: Now that I think of it, I think the D'Atoni's Suns might have actually started this trend. Remember the Suns had Stoudemire playing the 5 and Marion playing the 4. STAT was 6'11 which is a typical center height in todays game but at the time everybody called it small ball because he was a natural PF for that time. Matrix was about 6'8 SF playing the 4 , it sounds like a typical height for the 4 now but at that time it wasn't, hence playing small.
And then after them I guess you can consider the Van Gundy Orlando Magics. Dwight was a legit center at 6'11. But Rashard lewis was a SF his whole career and Van Gundy converted him to PF. I wouldn't call this small ball really but the idea of a stretch 4 started trending shortly after, and now here we are. These teams played a part of why the NBA is the way it is today.
Yes there are "small ball" line ups where you put your 5 most skilled players on the floor at different points of a game, i.e. Golden State Warriors' death line ups and our soon to be death line ups when we let KD run the 5 in a 5 out.
Then there is playing small by having PJ Tucker playing center at 6'5 because your GM was dumb enough to get rid of all bigs on the roster because D'Antoni doesn't know how to use traditional centers.
But you still need size. You still need that guy that can disrupt the middle and protect the defensive glass. Chandler/Nowitzski, Bosh/Lebron, Duncan/Leonard, Bogut/Green, McGee/Green, Thompson/Love, Gasol/Siakam etc. NBA Champions always have size up front.
