Guard league my ***

That only applies to the outliers Embiid Giannis Jokic and AD.

A star guard can carry a weak supporting cast much further than a star big.

For example Harden vs AD.

The Suns are built around Booker not Ayton.

 

Good seeing PJ Tucker
Not playing starting center

 

this

 

Pretty much this.

The small ball contingent will conveniently forget that for the past 20 years every championship team featured an all-star caliber big....AND an all-star perimeter player too. You need great players, period, and it's preferable if those great players are playing different positions and not redundant...like Portland has had with CJ and Dame.

It's a team game but for some reason, a lot of fans have been trying to downplay contributions that bigs have made for their teams and giving most if not all of the credit to whoever is the best guard or forward on the team.

Skills matter in the NBA, always...but as one scout put it when talking about this very draft. Size matters too. If Lebron was 6'3 he'd just be an all-star point guard....Lebron at 6'9"? Well, now we're talking about a guy that can playmaker AND anchor a team defensively AND shut down perimeter players.

Size matters.

 

scott foster plays more like a guard

 

All those players you listed are alot closer to a guard than they are to Mobley. He is a center not a single player on your list is a center with maybe ad being an exception. AD also didn't do squat until he teamed up with lebron

 

This thread and your post made me think about Wade and how dominant he was in his first title run.

For the part which you put in bold. Shaq was an All-Star caliber big for sure albeit an older and past his prime one.

Last paragraph…. Wade at 6’4 was THAT GUY though.

 

Sure but also remember star guard teams never go anywhere in the end and get owned. Using your example, Harden and now Booker PHX about to go down in flames.

Majority of champ teams actually dont have a star guard, they have Lebron, Kawhi and KD who are forwards not guards. OTH pretty much every champ team has had a star big man whether that's Bosh, Love, Lebron, AD etc.

The irony here is everybody who wants to use history or precedent as argument should be team Mobley rather than team Green.

Going by history and precedent, Cade, Mobley or Scottie Barnes are the 3 dudes who may be part of a champ team. Suggs and Green are gonna part of good regular season teams and may even be top 2 seeds but they wont win a ring in the end.

 

Why do so many on this board act like Mobley’s some lumbering center who plants himself at the post? That’s literally the opposite of his game. The thrives in spacing and while rolling in from the parameter.

 

Alot of things have to happen if you want a 7 footer with handling skills due to so many years of bad AAU coaching (center camping).
1. The center must want to dominate, killer instinct
2. He has to have a work ethic to build those guard skills
3. Coach has to trust that process and let him develop
4. Take steroids and gain 70 pounds of muscle.

 

Put down the liquor and delete Draymond and AD from this post. It's a perimeter player's league; there is no doubt about it.

Or have you already forgotten that a severely hobbled Nets almost beat the Bucks?

 

Don't draft by position. Rule No. 1.

If so, make sure it's an undersized PF. Rule No. 2.

Rule 3: aim for the 14th pick.

 

You can win with any great player and the right combination of support. There’s no must have formula.

 

i think i got dumber reading this thread.

does mobley have blackmail on your families or something? got damn

 

Draymond wtf

 

Lol having Draymond in that group makes me want to throw up...

How are you going to come up with some list of impactful players leading to winning rings and add Draymond before Durant and Curry. I mean, even adding AD before gaurds who haven't won a ring, but didn't have LeBron on their team feels wrong.

 

Good post

 

This is simplifying things. Teams need good scoring from guards/wings and good center/pf play to contend for a championship. However, I think these are the two scenarios for a rebuild.

First scenario
1.) Rebuild
2.) Get superstar guards/wings and start making noise in the playoffs. Free agents potentially see the team as an up-and-coming contender. Front office can visualize the steps they need to take for the next push and have the confidence to go "all in."
3.) Get high quality big men to make the push for championship contender

Second scenario
1.) Rebuild
2.) Get superstar big man with lower quality guards/wings. Fizzle. Don't go anywhere. No one want to come play with your terrible team. Front office is unwilling to go "all in" since your team isn't really showing any signs of being competitive in making the playoffs, much less winning a championship.
3.) Rebuild eventually fails, so start over (see New Orleans)

Some other factors:
1.) Worry more about big men getting injured than guards
2.) I believe it's more likely to still compete for a championship with middle of the pack big men and a superstar guard than a superstar big man and middle of the pack guards. So, even if you can fill out a full mix of superstar small and big man like you'd like, there's still a chance you could compete for a championship. I don't think the other way around is even a possibility.

So yeah, I'm not even going to argue whether guard or center play is more important than the other for contending for a championship. I simply think the order in which you build your team in today's NBA is more likely to succeed if you solidify your backcourt/wings first than the other way around. It's just playing the odds. This can all be thrown out the window for those once-in-a-lifetime prospects, but I don't think that will exists in this draft with the #2 pick.

 

you listed a bunch of forwards. When you say bigs and lost forwards … that are the 2nd or 3rd best player on those teams behind other outside in players… not sure what point you’re trying to make. It can’t be that it’s a center league as that’s clearly not the case.

absolutely it’s a forward driven league first. Hence the Rockets trying to get Cade.

Moreover if the Rockets get a sweet deal to move back and are guaranteed Barnes and multiple extra lotto picks… I’d for sure consider that.

At the moment I just don’t see Mobley as a wing/forward. I get it… he absolutely CAN dribble, pass and hit the occasional 3. He’s more advanced than Ayton in terms of offensive versatility. But he’s no AD or KAT offensively, both of whom are very advanced offensively and can occasionally play outside in but I still wound be hesitant to describe as wings. PFs at times but then again the 2nd best type player on a great team with a true wing/guard type ahead of them.

that’s not to say Mobley can’t be more Giannis esque as a “true wing” and oh btw one that can shoot then occasional 3 and hit FTs.

many of us on the greengang aren’t so entrenched as to see Mobley might be very very good also.

however… at the moment, the difference to me is the projection. I think it’s going to be easier for and significantly enough more likely form Green to turn into Booker or Beal than it will be for Mobley to turn into AD, Giannis or even a Bosh type. This is partly mentality, partly fluidity, etc.

It has very little to do with what type of league were in. Booker, Beal, Giannis, Bosh, Ad … alll their teams sucked until they got a lot more talent around them. Even the all time HOFer offensive system guys - Kobe, Harden types… still needed a quality 2nd and solid role players to make any playoff push. Kobe getting to the playoffs those scrub years sure is impressive but it’s not like they did much beyond that.

whomever they draft… there’s a lot more work to do. And sadly much of that work will come in the form of getting a star forward…

UNLESS they magically get Cade (fingers crossed!)

 

So many people, myself included, cherry pick stats to confirm their preconceived notion. The truth is that great players surrounded by good players playing a scheme that maximizes all of their abilities result in great teams. Sure Middleton might be the guy taking the final shot but Giannis' 32 points put the Bucks in position to win. Ayton might be locking down the paint and scoring an efficient 25 but without Booker/Paul the paint would be so clogged he would wear himself out getting an inefficient 15 and play poorer defense.

The one thing I will say is that perimeter players are often the conduit for getting bigs the ball in position to score. As we saw with yao, sometimes the best defense against a big is pressuring the entry passer. A big being able to receive the ball on the perimeter can allieviate that but unless the big is bringing the ball up he will always rely on a perimeter teammate to some degree.