Ben wrote:
Touché, hats off to you for digging around and finding that.
For my part, here's a chart of his playing time, with 0% at the 4, and none of Miami's 5-main rotations list Martin at the 4. Which could just mean that, as I wrote, they're playing multiple wings and switching things around.
Again, tip of the hat for finding that, and while the charts say that Martin didn't play PF-- and while I maintain that he's not any kind of solution for us against teams with bigger 4s-- the fair rejoinder to me would be that Martin should know better than I what position he's played. Like this interchange from Seinfeld, with me playing Kramer:
Jerry: I think I know when my birthday is!
Kramer: You'd think so, but you'd be wrong.
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[EDIT: I just realized that the SI article you linked was from 2022. 82games.com lists Martin as having played a small % of his time at PF in 2022, and I acknowledged in my original post to you that "He might have played a little 4 in 2022-23, but not well at all." I think I was pretty gracious in my response, above, but you weren't really playing fair. Miami apparently experimented a *little* in 2022 when they were short-handed, and apparently didn't like the experiment well enough to do it again the following year. The article that you linked states that one reason for Martin's very short-lived period at the 4 was because "the Heat need it with so many players sidelined because of injuries." Apparently, once the injured player came back the team didn't keep using Martin at the 4.
And as I wrote initially, Martin has wing measurements all the way. If he can be a starting PF on a good team, any wing can. And I really don't think that it works that way.]
If you play a wing-heavy rotation, the defensive matchups for positions 2-3-4 tend to shift throughout the game. For example, in the Mavs vs. Clippers series, Paul George might start at power forward matched up against PJ Washington, but he often ends up defending players like Doncic and Kyrie as the game progresses.
A good analogy is Tobias Harris. He struggles at small forward because defenders are as quick as he is, so he prefers playing power forward where he has a speed advantage. Doc Rivers and Harris often talk about pushing the pace or encouraging Harris to think less. At power forward, Harris can exploit his speed advantage in transition scoring.
My point is that the 2-3-4 positions are very fluid. Some forwards use their size to their advantage, and we can place Paul George against them. When facing quicker forwards, we can put Caleb Martin at power forward. If we need more offense, Caleb Martin and Kelly Oubre can take on most of George’s defensive load, allowing George to conserve energy for offense.
I don’t see any major issues with the power forward position given our team’s construction. The toughest matchups would be against players like Zion or Giannis, and in those cases, we can use strategies like shading, "wall" defense, or running a zone.
