Hypothetically, if you were an owner of a new franchise and were told that for the entire future of your franchise, you could only give max salaries to two positions (or position groups), without obviously knowing anything about the future (players, rule changes, etc...), and your choices were the following, which would you choose? A. PG + Wing B. PG + Big C. Wing + Big Wing = SG or SF Big = PF or C Yea, I framed the question in a weird way but what I'm trying to determine is which two positions are of greatest importance, in general. I think that people continually overrate the importance of the PG position. At the end of the day, the PG is usually the smallest guy on the court in a sport where size is of fundamental value due to the very nature of the game. On top of that, elite wings usually have PG skills in terms of being able to handle the ball and create for others in addition to themselves so they, in effect, become PGs. On the other hand, PGs typically don't have natural SG or SF skills and characteristics, starting with height and length. If you look throughout history, elite PGs don't seem to be part of the optimal formula. Think Kobe + Shaq, Kobe + Gasol, Wade + Shaq, Bird + McHale, Jordan + Pippen. Hakeem + whoever. It seems like only a matter of time before LeBron wins a few championships and I'm guessing that the next most important player on his team won't be a PG. Mo Williams acts mostly as a SG on that team. LeBron is the point man. Of course there are exceptions, like the recent Pistons, who really just had a wonderfully balanced team but I'll just say that Billups was one of their two most important players. You could also argue the Spurs unless you consider Ginobili to be their second best player of the last few championships. Plus, Parker's most valuable skill is his scoring. Magic Johnson was a freak at 6'9-6'10 but he was also an exception. He had the size of a wing. There was Isiah but those Pistons teams, much like the recent ones, were very well balanced from top to bottom. Oscar Robertson, maybe the best PG of all-time in terms of ability, couldn't win until he was old and playing with Kareem (or Alcindor, whatever). He was also a physical freak, probably 6'6" by today's standards. Do the recent perimeter rule changes mean that building around a PG + Big or PG + Wing is the new best formula? Did guys like Kobe and Jordan (and possibly LeBron in the near future) just make it appear that wings were so much more important than PGs? They always seemed to trump the best PGs of their day. My answer would be C (Wing + Big). Your thoughts?
A wing man that is a max salary player and a big man. I would rather have a playmaking and scoring wing then a point guard. He can most likely do more things on the floor because he would be a lot taller and more athletic.
I went with PG and Big. Todays game is a PG's league. I just think you can get more from a PG + Big in this day and age.
Put it this way... Throughout history, you can find examples of championship teams that were carried by a dominant big man but nobody else at an elite level. You can find at least one example of a dynasty that was built around 2 elite wings. Could Jordan have won any championships without Pippen? That's a separate discussion but the second best player on those teams was Pippen. Horace Grant was 3rd, a big man. Can you find a single example of a team that was carried by an elite PG and no other elite players? Most of the top PGs in today's game haven't won a title starting with Kidd, Nash, Paul and Williams. Paul and Williams are young so time will tell. Parker is an exception as discussed earlier but his biggest weapon is scoring. You could also make a good argument that Ginobili was the 2nd most important player despite Parker's finals MVP. Duncan, a big, has obviously always been the cornerstone. Billups played on a phenomenally balanced team that had very good (not quite elite) players at several positions. Rondo had the Big 3. He's awesome but what happens if he's only has 1 of those 3 other guys and is your second highest paid player?
What about the fact that the elite wings typically act as your PG? Why pay max or near max to a PG when the best wings, should your franchise be lucky enough to land one, pretty much carry out PG duties on top of all their other skills and physical advantages? Think Jordan, Wade, Kobe, LeBron possibly...
If Franchise A goes with the Wing + Big combo and Franchise B is given the same option and chooses either of the other combos, I would bet on Franchise A being more successful and having as many or more championships after 50 years just based on the belief that Franchise A has a better combination of core player types.
PG and a wing wouldn't work as well as the other 2. Both would need the basketball in order to be effective.
Based on the choices, it's clear that everybody agrees about the importance of a Big. That means people are choosing between PG or Wing to join their Big. Here's another way to look at it... Over the last 3 or 4 decades, who was the best perimeter player at any given point in time? How often was that player a PG? How often was that player a Wing? I'm pretty sure that it was a Wing the vast majority of the time. Even when Nash won his MVPs, did you think that he was better than Kobe or Wade or LeBron? He sure didn't win a ring, let alone even get to the finals. Was Magic once the best perimeter player? If so, would he have been if he didn't have the size of a Wing?
All I'm trying to get at with this whole discussion is that some of the people that often say "we need a PG upgrade" seem to be overstating the importance of it. There are some that make good points but a lot of times people just seem to be hooked on the concept without much good reasoning. Look what happened to Rafer Alston (who was Public Enemy #1 around here to a lot of people, including myself) when he ended up in Orlando. He got all the way to the finals. Was he suddenly a better player after leaving the Rockets? I doubt it. His numbers were pretty much the same. Playing in the East was certainly a factor but the point is that he clearly didn't keep that team from getting to the finals while starting in place of Nelson. They didn't even need their starting PG to make it to the finals. For months and years, the GARM was filled with "we need an upgrade at PG" type arguments, and I was leading the way at times. Looking back, I think that what we really needed was a better Wing + Big combination and maybe a couple of better role players.
It doesn't matter. Unless you have a lebron, duncan, shaq, kobe, or someone of that ilk you don't have much of chance except once in a blue moon (detroit).
I have seen almost nothing of Turner other than a few clips but if people think that he has the potential to be an elite wing at the next level, I'd go with him, regardless of who is considered the better of the two at the moment.
I think this is the key. While it's true that most elite PGs haven't won a title, that's also true about the majority of elite wings and big guys because so few teams have actually won titles. Outside of two rare examples (Detroit, Boston) which were a collection of all-stars, the last 20 or so championships have been won by Kobe, Shaq, Duncan, Jordan, or Hakeem - all of which are all-time great players. So the true method to winning a title in the NBA is to have a transcendent talent. Assuming you're not lucky enough to have that, you better have a whole bunch of next-tier players at basically every position. Both Boston and Detroit had a collection of good talent including all-star level PGs to manage all that talent. (on a side note - I don't know much about the Isiah Thomas Pistons, but that would probably be the closest example of a PG-led championship team, I would think.)
Major, that still begs the question though as to why the most transcendent of transcendent talents always seem to be something other than PGs. The best PGs of the game almost always seem to get beaten by teams with elite players at other positions in the end. Now, it could be sample size because like you said, there have only been so many championships won but I sort of feel that the real reason is that elite wings typically have enough PG skills in addition to their natural advantages that it makes it a more important position in terms of building a championship team. It sounds stupid but on a very fundamental level and generally speaking, the fact that PGs are typically the smallest player on the court makes them less valuable despite typically having more speed, ballhandling and passing ability. With the worldwide size of the talent pool, I feel that at any given time, the best Wing will always trump the best PG because of his size advantage and that he will be multi-skilled enough to effectively be the PG.
To me. PGs and a BIG make other players better. . . . in theory A wing can as well .. but not to the same extent. I picked PG and Big but . . .I am not 100% on it Almost like saying Good QB and Good Receiver Good QB and Good Running Back Good Running Back and Good Receiver. Which to choose. . . Rocket River