I rather have players playing their true position. C playing C, Pf playing Pf etc. Have more strategic setups to utilize each player's strengths rather than smallball or tallball nonsense. C's and PFs have forgotten their role to play solid defense and offensive rebounding these days and all of them want to just score.
Inheritly it's about athleticism. I don't care about size but these days PFs to PGs need to defend on the perimeter. If you're 7 foot like Davis/Giannis but can guard a PG That's preferable
Do true positions even exist anymore? I've seen Lebron play virtually every position during his career. And what is Ben Simmons? Or Giannis? That dude is built like Shawn Kemp but brings the ball down the court as often as he doesn't. Is Jokic a center or a point guard? And what the hell is Zion? Hell, Luka is big enough to play power forward but plays point guard. And James Harden entered the league a shooting guard, converted to playing point guard and primarily guards centers and power forwards on defense. So I just don't know that positions matter anymore and I'm starting to wonder if they ever should have. How many Draymond Green's fell out of the NBA because they didn't meet coaches expectations of what a traditional power forward or small forward should be and were dismissed as a tweener?
I am hoping that the Rockets can go into next season with Evan Mobley, Charles Bassey, Christian Wood and Kelly Olynyk at the 4/5. Each one of those guys is tall and long and each can switch everything passably well as well as be a threat shooting from the outside. The 4/5 positions would be set for some time with that group.
Long wings who can shoot decently as support are far more important than small / tall ball. The reason our first year with CP3 went so well (outside of CP3 being healthy) was because we had a merry-go-round of long, athletic players to revolve against the other team, making an awesome defense that could shoot and slash. Ariza wanted to get paid, Luc never recovered from injuries, and it all fell apart. Now in terms of a small or tall ball oriented style, it all depends on ONE thing; sustainability. Small ball worked last season when our players weren't run ragged. If we had Roco and Tucker and then added 2 more 6'8 or 6'9 3&D players, it would have worked. Same thing applies for "tall ball". Without that same support on the wing, the tall players would just get run ragged on the perimeter instead of getting run ragged trying to play prevent D for the paint.
I see nothing wrong with playing bigs it's even better if they are skilled big like Mobley and Woods to go along with a couple of shooters and cutter can make for a lot of fun to watch.
You are talking about all the exceptional players. These type of players also existed in the past like Magic, Nowitzki, Pippen, Jordan etc who could play multiple positions. My specific issue is with players that are of not that caliber. For example I rather see coach draw up plays for Wood to excel with his inside game in the paint or take more mid-range shots because he has a nice release. He either hit 3s or highly depended on guards to find him at alley-oops or lob passes. Same issue was when Rockets had Ryno who also had a solid mid-range game but was forced to park himself at 3pt line like a guard. These days plays are drawn up for guards to play iso and PF/C to depend more on guards ability to execute rather than using their size and position to play their true potential. Shaq, Dream, Duncan, Robinson, Malone, Garnet etc played their true position and were great at it. Nothing against versatile players that can play multiple positions but most are not cut out to be of such caliber.
In 2018, we excelled because Warriors was the best at that time. They were perimeter oriented. They did not have an "inside" player. That's why the 2018 team excelled because our long wings can switch anyone and all those screens or picks were not that effective. When we lost to the Lakers, we had good wings even if Westbrook is not a wing. CP3 was not a wing too. but we were bullied inside in offense and defense. AD and Lebron can post and draws the defense and fouls. it is pretty rare that you have 2 or more shooters in a team that has a greater percentage outside than posting inside. Posting up smalls will give you a higher FG percentage, more attraction to fouls, wears up the opponent. But small ball in essence will still exist in that setup because the bigs can shoot. you can't achieve tall ball if one can't shoot. Yes a big can't guard some quicker players in switches but what we'll do is live with them shooting outside shots. We'll sag for them to shoot outside shots and hope they have a lower FG compared with us hopefully doing more post up and wear them down in switches. Our opponent will probably double and we kick out. In this setup, we won't have a problem with rebounding hopefully and a better interior defense. In short, we are trading for less drives, more outside shots, more ISO from our opponent and us doing more post ups, better rebounding, wearing down smalls, drawing more fouls, more open 3 pt shoots instead of ISO shots and other benefits. but the post up will only apply on the switches, not a big on a big. If you have 2 or 3 bigs on the court all the time, even if our opponent has good long wings, they won't have as many bigs compared to us IF we do this route. We'll just overwhelm with size and live with them shooting long shots more
Small ball is essentially, “when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.” With small ball you are going to try an exhaust the other team out, you are going to try and out shoot them, your going to need to have extremely better ball handling. And a small ball team has to exceed expectations if they want to be a top team. An all big team will only work if you have an efficient way to get the ball to them, typically the taller you are the less elite dribbling skill. And the shooting efficiency needs to be through the roof, because big men don’t shoot 3 pointers or FT nearly as well as your guards. 33 3-pat’s is nearly equal to 50 2-pt’s. But of course, I’d much rather have a tall team than a short team. Granted that skill sets are appropriate in the context of NBA talent levels.
https://rocketswire.usatoday.com/20...-has-hilarious-reaction-to-tall-ball-nuggets/ " There was a article on this back last year, should of traded everyone for that lineup you see in tweet at the time.
Do you realize that unless he's right at the rim, Wood's inside game isn't very good. This year he's averaging 0.87 points per possession on postups. Last season he averaged 0.8. To give a comparison, this year Dwight Howard is averaging 0.91 ppp on postups. Wood's midrange game has been awful this year. He's shooting 28.6% from midrange. Why would you want him to shoot more midrange? As for Anderson, his midrange has never been great. With the Rockets in '17 and '18 he shot 33.7% and 44.9% from midrange. In all his prior seasons in the league his midrange numbers were similar. 34.7, 46.5, 42.4, 31.7, 28.0, 35.1 and 41.4. Anderson shooting the three is much more efficient than him shooting midrange.
our defense aint good anyway. our guards keep fighting screens and there will be an open shot if the ball is moved around. if we do switches, we'll just live with a big guarding a small and let him do isolations. it is better if they do isolations with outside shots than getting an open shot. feed the post to Wood, Olynyk, Tate and another potential future big.
A couple of points. - looking at FG% is pointless when such a large percentage of shots nowdays are threes. You have to account for the fact that shots count 50% more from behind the arc. 35% (which is below league average) from three is more efficient than 50% on postups. To make them equivalent, take the players 3pt% and multiply by 1.5 and then compare. Once you adjust for the difference in points per shot, there's tons of players who are more efficient from 3 than on postups. -you seem to be assuming that when a big gets switched to guarding a quicker smaller player that the result is an outside shot. That's not true. The quick guys get the mismatch on the perimeter and then simply drive past the bigger player. Harden, CP3, WB and Gordon feasted on driving past bugs while they were with the Rockets.
