athleticism vs fundamentals: which is more successful?

Geez, Charvo...at least you made an EFFORT to disguise your last Steve bashing thread in NBA dish.

 

John Stockton, all fundamentals - one of the greatest PGs in NBA history.

Harold Minor, all athleticism - huge bust.

 

You have to have athletes to compete in professional sports. Not everyone has to be athletic, but you can't get away with a totally non athletic team.

 

You can think of counterxamples that go both ways.

Thomas Hill-- fundamentally rock solid, Mike Kryzezwski's favorite Duke player, no NBA career to speak of.

J.R. Rider, -- all around jerk, quick first step and good shooting stroke, not much of a defender, 16.7 ppg over 10 NBA seasons


BTW, it's not like John Stockton was a bad athlete, the dude was pretty damned quick, was a decent shooter, and had hand-eye coordination that you could only dream of. Just becuase he couldn't jump through the roof doesn't make him a bad athlete.

 

That's the other point I was going to make, Kevin Mchale by most standards wouldn't be consider athletic, but someone of his size had incredible touch around the basket, and incredible footwork, which was probably mostly natural talent.

 

I wonder if it was Hakeem's fundamentals that won the Rockets two titles. I wonder if it was Hakeem's fundamentals or his athleticism that allowed him to get a fingertip on Starks's potential series winning jumper in 1994. Or how about how he decimated the little mermaid in '95?

It's not just about athleticism or fundamentals, it's about a good mix of the two. Which one is more important? Probably fundamentals. If you don't have the athletic players that can swat shots, hit fadeaway jumpers, and run fast breaks, however, it negates the pick and rolls and backscreens that your fundamentally sound players are running.

For example, let's say that you have fundamentally sound center in the low post and athletic guard on the wing. Athletic guard tosses the ball to fundamentally sound center and immediately cuts to the basket, where fundamentally sound center drops it off to him on the baseline for a perfectly executed give and go. But, the center for the other team flashes in front of the basket to try and block the shot right before athletic guard takes off. Athletic guard squeezes past him on the baseline and goes up for the reverse lay-up. Without the guard's athleticism, the fundamentally sound play wouldn't have resulted in a basket.

To use a cooking analogy, fundamentals are the ingredients in a cake, and athleticism is the heat that cooks the cake.

...and to call Peja unathletic is simply insulting to him...

 

Why, is he not a "typical Euro player", as you call it?

 

Actually it is more about smarts than fundamentals.

Or more poinently the ability to make quick and accurate decisions.

DD

 

The Kings are very athletic - Divac and Miller both move extremely well for 7-footers. Christie is a tremendous athlete. As for Bibby, you don't get drafted #2 without being a great athlete.

I'd say being good is most important of all.

 

...oh, the fun of misquoting people!

If you're referring to THIS THREAD, I didn't call Dirk a "typical Euro player", I called him a "classic" Euro player. Most European players are slim when they come to the NBA. Of course, I'm not sure if you're trying to say that classic Euro players aren't athletic, because they are

 

Athleticism any day.
You can learn fundamentals, but not athleticism.

There's a 100 thousand high schoolers w/ fundamentals who don't play for colleges. Just because Stockton was a little white guy doesn't mean he wasn't a good athlete. Maybe he didn't have a 40" vertical, but he was sufficient. He's more of an exception than the rule though.

If it's one or the other, it's athleticism. Obviously it's a little of both but not equal.

 

Peja is certainly less athletic and more fundamentally sound than Shawn Marion, Eddie Robinson, or Darius Miles. I think the number one skill to guarantee a long career in the NBA is the ability to shoot the ball. If you are a good shooter and a passable athlete, you can play in the NBA (at least as a bench warmer) for years.

 

Peja's a pretty good athlete. I can't say being a good shooter is the number one skill because there are tons and tons of people who can shoot well. I guess by passable athlete, you mean better than the average European or D1 player...which is pretty good actually. There's a combination of necessary things for each position. People like Chris Dudley and Kevin Willis have long careers for various reasons.

 

You have to look at position, too. Point guard is the only real cerebral position, (court vision, play-making), then center (passing out of double teams), then power forward (proper boxing out for rebounds)...small forward and shooting guard require the least amount of fundamentals, as they're often the same position...The point guard is probably the only position in which you need a significantly greater amount of smarts than athleticism...

 

Maybe is not athleticism vs fundamentals but a difference in style of play. Street vs Team. You take Steve's/Stephon style which is one on one and try to put it to his opponent against somebody like Kidd/Nash who would try to find the open man first before shooting. I think that a team oriented team will win 3 out of 4 times against a one on one oriented ball team.

How many times have we been playing ball and just decide to stay on the defensive side of the court because your teammates are going one on one or just throwing it up...