When Will Fans and Draft Nerds Learn That Do-It-All Forwards Are More Valuable Than Point Guards?

[Warriorfan]

I'm just happy there are more do it all players.

[draftnightsuit]

You got it backwards. The nerds are the ones who figured out that versatile 2-way forwards are the future of the league. It’s the “old school” types who fall in love with flashy shoot first undersized scoring guards.

The league is currently dominated 3 types of players:

Skilled big man
Versatile 2-way wing
Big ball-handling guard

This is the future of the NBA.

No draft nerds are still in love with PGs, you see it all the time. People thought Jalen Suggs was better than Scottie Barnes when Jalen can't even get his own shot couldn't even get his own shot consistently. A point guard that can't get their own shot anytime they want is worthless on offense. Why would any rational coach, fan, analyst would want the player with the ball in their hand majority of the game, unable to score at will?

2-Way Forwards and Big Playmakers always been the the Queen on the Chess board, from Elgin Baylor to Big O to Dr.J to Magic Johnson to Larry Bird to Scottie Pippen to Kawhi to Lebron James to Luka Doncic.

They always were the best perimeter players players just like guards that can get buckets at will always are better than "True PGs".

It's just the 90s and 00s are anomalies about how basketball was played. It's slow and grind out, so of course some little guy that can pound the ball and run a set is valuable but most of the league history is dominated by big men and small forwards. It was either pound the paint with the big or you run and score with forwards.

Now we are back to running and gunning, but an entire generation was raised off of ugly iso ball of the 90s and 00s.

Basketball is a simple sport, you need a guard that can get buckets, forwards that can do a bit of everything and a big man to play big.

The 10 best players in league history are 6'6 and up for a reason and we still got people that act like PGs are like quarterbacks and they are not. They are like kickers, if your PG situation is the reason why your team sucks, then everything went to hell way before then. The kicker shouldn't be the reason why you lose the game.

I agree with everything you said and I’ve said this several times on this board. PGs don’t win championships, and all great teams go through dominant wings and bigs.

The only thing I disagree with is the role that the analytics nerds played in this. It was the analytics nerds who ditched the inefficient isoball, one-on-one chucking, and ball dominant guards and told players to spread the floor, move the ball, run PnR, and switch. This requires multiple versatile players to do, and makes the traditional PG pretty much useless. Draft nerds love wingspan.

The guys who complain about today’s are guys who grew up on ‘90s/2000s iso ball. And those are the guys who call themselves “old school”.

[bearadonisdna]

Point forwards and point centers have been established.

Even so , a teams point guard or 1 guard will relied to handle the ball a lot in a perimeter league . Do you want that player to be bad ? Think about it .

[falcolombardi]

this post has too much hyperbole, comparing guards to kickers is way too much, imagine telling kerr (curry) or d'antony (nash) that they messed up by running their goat level offenses through "kickers"

yes, bigger players are better in basketball all else being relatively equal, but this is too much old school dogma (that arguably was never true in the first place)

jumpshooting teams dont win championships, teams with point guard leading the offense dont win, you need a back to the basket game to win in the playoffs, etc

guards, for the most part have been some of the most valuable offensive players ever, Oscar, nash, curry
, chris Paul. in general the best offensive guards are better than. the best offensive bigs at offense (exception being someone like shaq and maybe jokic or kareem)

what more than anythingh else makes bigger players more valuable is defense rather than offense, 3 guard line ups are fairly succesful offensively after all and is only defense and rebounding concerns that makes them a rare option

sinilarly an contrary to what most think even today. multiple big line ups or two center lineups are still great defensively, is offense thst becomes a issue

wings can have the same offensive impact as guards with more defensive value, centers have the most defensive value but arguably the less offensive one

[DeBlazerRiddem]

OP has made the big mistake of only looking at non-busts. Yes, when a 2 way forward pans out they are worth more than a PG who pans out.


But that doesn't mean there will always be a 2 way forward that will pan out available to pick. They are some of the riskiest players to draft and the lottery draft history is littered with the corpses of wings and forwards who were taken on potential and went no-where.


So if you have a giant question-mark about a forward and feel pretty safe about the guard then often you will go with the more sure thing. Maybe they have a lower potential ceiling but are much more likely to be mid-level contributors.

I'd take DJ Augustin over Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and D'Angelo Russell over Justise Winslow.

There's no hard fast rule in the NBA.

Exactly

[Lockdown504090]

I think the thing is paying little guards all the money thinking they can be the offesive driver of a title team. The issue i see is that unless they are really good off the ball like steph, its too easy to take the ball out of their hands and making a lesser paid guy try to kill you. teams just trap these guards until they try to isolate, then have them isolate against a bigger defensive wing, which forces them to take hard shots or drive where there will be help... resulting in them getting rid of the ball. Whereas a guys like tatum..... while he might not be as good of a scorer depending on your opinion, he can get that pullup off whenever he wants, the sucess just depends on the talent of the wing player. makes sense.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

Do it all forwards? Scottie Barnes won't pass the basketball. He became a big time scorer when he entered the nba after showing nothing in college. Is he even playing above average defence? He's a scoring/rebounding beast and that's it!!! Show me someone else like that in college who comes to the nba and does what Barnes is doing. I wonder if he'll pass the basketball next game.

[HotelVitale]

I am not impressed with point guards, they are the smallest player on the court and yield the least amount of value unless they are transcendent. Unless you are getting Chris Paul, Ja Morant, Trae Young type of prospect, I don't see why you would draft one over the Do-It-All Forward. If a 6'8 player becomes a Gordon Hayward-level player, that's pretty good as long as you don't give them the max thinking they are gonna lead a team anywhere. Even the average Do-It-All Forward like Nic Batum is a good glue guy on a championship squad.

But the mid-level to average guard? What is that, a Mike Conley to Ricky Rubio to Derek Fisher, do you really need those kind of players on your team if you can get Do-It-All Forwards? If I can't get Damian Lillard at PG, I rather have Gordon Hayward as my main ball handler with Joe Ingles and Kawhi to help. You can put Joe Ingles out there, he'll do better than 90 percent of the guards in the NBA.

When Scottie Barnes was picked over Jalen Suggs, it was a no brainer to me. Jayson Tatum over Markelle Fultz was a no-brainer, even if Markelle never malfunctioned, he wasn't doing anything that was greater than what Jayson Tatum was doing if we look at the tape and stats. You pick the taller player that displays court sense, BB IQ, touch, feel, unless the smaller guy is a damn video game like Ja and Trae as prospects. Rant over. Fans and "analysts" still think Ricky Rubio and Rondo are good players just because they pass more than they score and can get a team into "offense".

There might be a good point in here somewhere deep, but it's pretty incoherent as is. First it seems like you're most excited when listing out a series of 'Do-It-All-Forwards' who are simply much better overall players than the point guards you mention--Gordon Hayward has been a far superior player (regardless of position) to someone like Rubio or Fisher, Kawhi is obviously not even worth comparing with anyone who's not also a perennial MVP candidate. Same thing with Tatum over Fultz--Tatum ended up being better and developing better than even his most strenuous supporters thought, and Fultz ended up being worse than anyone could've realistically imagined. (Note that Fultz was a better shooter in college than Tatum, and Fultz was also 6'5 combo guard with a 7' wingspan so definitely not a small dude). And so far Barnes simply looks like a much better player than Suggs.

More importantly, while you make some more subtle points in here, your conclusion is clear and it's ludicrously wrong: "You pick the taller player that displays court sense, BB IQ, touch, feel, unless the smaller guy is a damn video game like Ja and Trae as prospects." There's nothing easier than picking this apart: you just gave a perfect description of Deni Avdija as a prospect, while Lamelo Ball was defintely not seen as a savant scorer-passer like Trae or CP3--he was a very faulty PG prospect with a shaky shot and no interest in defense, and he's turned out to be a far far better pick than Avdija. (You could even throw T Halliburton in place of him). Point forward Josh Jackson went way before tiny Donovan Mitchell (and D Fox), high-IQ multi-tool guys like Justise Winslow and Denzel Valentine consistently bust too. If a player is a better version of a PG than a player is of the Big-Forward type, he's going to be a better pick.

Maybe the simplest way to critique this is via your point about Joe Ingles: if Donovan Mitchell goes down tomorrow, are you really going to say the Jazz are better off since Joe Ingles will take his touches? That's obviously goofy, but it's what you're telling us to beleive here.

[gojoorange]

Do it all forwards? Scottie Barnes won't pass the basketball. He became a big time scorer when he entered the nba after showing nothing in college. Is he even playing above average defence? He's a scoring/rebounding beast and that's it!!! Show me someone else like that in college who comes to the nba and does what Barnes is doing. I wonder if he'll pass the basketball next game.

Sarcasm? Scottie is a pass first player who is second on the team in potential assists. Teams are letting him go 1 on 1 right now so he's scoring with high efficiency. Once they start sending more help his passing will be more obvious. Granted that his teammates make the shots.

[K3nny Pow3rs]

This doesn't really make sense because these positions don't really exist. Do it all forwards ARE the point guards. Lebron, Giannis, Luka is the future. They are both do-it-all forwards AND point guards.

Your argument becomes "draft the tall playmaker over a small one".

Doncic has nothing to do with LeBron and Giannis.
LeBron and Giannis are 2-way players, and superb athletes, while Doncic is the opposite.
Elite defenders like Ben Simmons are too much for Doncic.

[Buzzard]

To much of a generalization on all points. As fans we are stuck with who our team drafts. Most teams draft is far removed from being the best strategy every season. The Hawks have invested #4, #10, and #19 picks in three multi skilled wings/forwards. You can probably add pick #20, Jalen Johnson, to that list now. Their best player is still Trae Young and its not close.

To me finding a starting point guard seems a lot harder than finding a starting forward. All star level and higher though for all positions are equally tough to find. There is no magic formula. As a fan I have to hope my teams talent evaluators are lucky, good, or a combination of both.

[Jakay]

Kawhi to help. Gordon Hayward.

You bring him off the bench in spot minutes to give Gordon a break from bringing the ball up.

[Eric Bieniemy]

The Hawks had the same mindstate back in the day. Billy Knight drafted guys like Josh Smith, Afro Josh Childress, Boris Diaw, and they took Marvin Williams over Chris Paul because he very clearly shared the same mentality as the OP.

The OP said except for transcendent PGs you should always take the swiss army forward, but he never explained how you can tell when a PG is transcendent. I remember thinking prospects like Kenny Anderson, Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, Kyrie Irving and Jay Williams were transcendent coming out of college.

[Buzzard]

The Hawks had the same mindstate back in the day. Billy Knight drafted guys like Josh Smith, Afro Josh Childress, Boris Diaw, and they took Marvin Williams over Chris Paul because he very clearly shared the same mentality as the OP.

The OP said except for transcendent PGs you should always take the swiss army forward, but he never explained how you can tell when a PG is transcendent. I remember thinking prospects like Kenny Anderson, Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, Kyrie Irving and Jay Williams were transcendent coming out of college.

There are still some hardcore Hawks fans ( a very small group ) who think Knight was ahead of his time. For me, he was just a horrible talent evaluator. If it was not for the Horford pick and JJ free agency, Atl of that time frame would be very comparable to some of the most hapless teams in NBA history.

Edit: lets not forget the #5 pick promise to 6'9" Shelden Williams either.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

They probably should tbh. Short of Barnes pulling a MCW, I would be shocked if Suggs turns out to be the better player. Barnes just looks much better than Suggs at virtually ever basketball skill at this point, aside from defense where I think they are actually comparable. Barnes has better vision, better playmaking, better athleticism, he’s faster and stronger, has a better handle, is a better shooter, has a much better post game.

It would honestly be crazy for Suggs to turn out to be the better player at this point. People will chime in with small sample size which is fair, but I defy those people to tell me one basketball skill Suggs has demonstrated to be better at than Barnes.

lol at barnes being a better shooter than suggs... just check their shooting mechanics

Seems like you’re the one who needs to check their shooting mechanics, friend. Scottie is regularly coming down and hitting 10-18 foot pull up jumpers off the dribble at more than twice the efficiency Suggs is right now. He’s completely altered his shot from college and has solid mechanics now, if a little stiff. He’s sinking way more mid range shots than Suggs.

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/jalen-suggs-shot-chart

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/scottie-barnes-shot-chart-this-season

This post is a joke, the season is 5 games old and we have way more data than data about these guys.

[dhsilv2]

Today I learned someone thinks analytics users think RONDO is a great players and that Mike Conley is on the level of Derk Fisher.

[draftnightsuit]

The Hawks had the same mindstate back in the day. Billy Knight drafted guys like Josh Smith, Afro Josh Childress, Boris Diaw, and they took Marvin Williams over Chris Paul because he very clearly shared the same mentality as the OP.

The OP said except for transcendent PGs you should always take the swiss army forward, but he never explained how you can tell when a PG is transcendent. I remember thinking prospects like Kenny Anderson, Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, Kyrie Irving and Jay Williams were transcendent coming out of college.

Billy Knight had no rhyme or reason to what he was doing. He wasn’t a visionary, he was just constantly picking the wrong players. The players that he picked just so happened to be forwards

He drafted Acie Law in 2007, so he wasn’t averse to drafting PGs. He just drafted the wrong one.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

The Hawks had the same mindstate back in the day. Billy Knight drafted guys like Josh Smith, Afro Josh Childress, Boris Diaw, and they took Marvin Williams over Chris Paul because he very clearly shared the same mentality as the OP.

The OP said except for transcendent PGs you should always take the swiss army forward, but he never explained how you can tell when a PG is transcendent. I remember thinking prospects like Kenny Anderson, Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, Kyrie Irving and Jay Williams were transcendent coming out of college.

He had the right plan, wrong execution.

[Pennebaker]

I am not impressed with point guards, they are the smallest player on the court and yield the least amount of value unless they are transcendent.

Unless you are getting Chris Paul, Ja Morant, Trae Young type of prospect, I don't see why you would draft one over the Do-It-All Forward. If a 6'8 player becomes a Gordon Hayward-level player, that's pretty good as long as you don't give them the max thinking they are gonna lead a team anywhere. Even the average Do-It-All Forward like Nic Batum is a good glue guy on a championship squad.

But the mid-level to average guard? What is that, a Mike Conley to Ricky Rubio to Derek Fisher, do you really need those kind of players on your team if you can get Do-It-All Forwards? If I can't get Damian Lillard at PG, I rather have Gordon Hayward as my main ball handler with Joe Ingles and Kawhi to help. You can put Joe Ingles out there, he'll do better than 90 percent of the guards in the NBA.

When Scottie Barnes was picked over Jalen Suggs, it was a no brainer to me. Jayson Tatum over Markelle Fultz was a no-brainer, even if Markelle never malfunctioned, he wasn't doing anything that was greater than what Jayson Tatum was doing if we look at the tape and stats. You pick the taller player that displays court sense, BB IQ, touch, feel, unless the smaller guy is a damn video game like Ja and Trae as prospects.

Rant over.

Fans and "analysts" still think Ricky Rubio and Rondo are good players just because they pass more than they score and can get a team into "offense".

Give me a break.

Yikes. Classic low IQ post right here.

[QingJames]

lol at barnes being a better shooter than suggs... just check their shooting mechanics

Seems like you’re the one who needs to check their shooting mechanics, friend. Scottie is regularly coming down and hitting 10-18 foot pull up jumpers off the dribble at more than twice the efficiency Suggs is right now. He’s completely altered his shot from college and has solid mechanics now, if a little stiff. He’s sinking way more mid range shots than Suggs.

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/jalen-suggs-shot-chart

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/scottie-barnes-shot-chart-this-season

this is actually stupid. barnes hasnt been a shooter his whole career and cant shoot from outside 16 feet reliably yet. suggs been pulling from the logo and getting more defensive attention from the perimiter, been a great shooter his whole life. also shooting almost 87 poercent from the foul line.... davis bertans is struggling is barnes better than him at shooting too?

Suggs has most definitely not been a great shooter his whole life, wtf are you talking about? His shooting ability was less than impressive in college and one of the biggest question marks surrounding him coming into the league. You're just talking straight out of your ass. He shot 75% from the line in college and 33% from 3. His 3 point shot is better than Barnes but not even league average, so it's not like he's some sharpshooter, and a 3 point shot is literally the easiest shot to develop in the NBA.

People really revisioning Suggs as a great shooter now, smh