Positionless Basketball Reigns Supreme
It was May 8, and the Cleveland Cavaliers had just suffered a devastating loss in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Chicago Bulls. They were down 2–1, suddenly fearing for their elimination.
The immediate cause of their loss that Friday night was obvious: Derrick Rose had hit a ridiculous game-winning shot, a desperate, off-balance banker that somehow went in to break a 96–96 deadlock. The underlying cause was similarly easy to suss out: the Cavs’ defense allowed the Bulls to score 99 points in just 88 possessions, including 30 from Rose and 20 from Jimmy Butler. Chicago went to the free throw line 29 times and converted 25 tries.
And yet the most memorable question from that night’s Cavs postgame presser had nothing to do with any of the above. Instead, it concerned the way Cleveland managed the game offensively. Here’s the question that Mark Schwarz of ESPN directed at the podium, to the totally-offended-but-doing-their-best-not-to-show-it duo of LeBron James and Kyrie Irving:
“LeBron, early in November, there was a game in Utah, a tight game. Kyrie had 34 points, but he had no assists. You let him know that that’s just not acceptable. Tonight, again, he had no assists. Does he get a pass, though, for tonight, because of the circumstances?”
Schwarz was convicted in the court of public opinion for being gauche. If you want to ask a question, that’s fine, but there are certain unwritten rules about when and where you do the asking, and this was a clear violation. The crime was a misdemeanor — basically, a failure to follow protocol.
The problem was that we ignored the real problem. All this criticism of the “how” was justified, but it obfuscated the more important debate about the “what.” We spent so long ragging on this reporter for the impolite way in which he asked a question, which was, all things considered, a pretty small deal. We overlooked the bigger deal — that the question itself was misguided.
It was so because it ignored years of basketball evolution and presupposed an idea that’s long since been disproven — namely, the idea that adhering to positional conventions is the only way to succeed on the hardwood. Decades ago, we were beholden to a primitive way of thinking about the game, trapped in the narrow-minded belief that big guys are supposed to block shots and get rebounds, little guys are supposed to stand on the perimeter and pass, and there can be no gray area in the middle. We’ve moved past that now, though, and the 2014–15 Cavaliers are a shining beacon of proof.
Basketball convention holds that every team has a five-man starting group, the shortest of the five is necessarily “the point guard,” and that man must lead the team in assists now and forever. The Cavs, however, use Irving as a perimeter scoring weapon and James as a 6-foot-8, 200-and-whatever-pound point forward. James averaged 7.4 assists per game this season, while Irving tallied just 5.2. To call this a bug instead of a feature would be positively loony — the two superstars played 1,810 minutes together this season and outscored opponents by 11.0 points per 100 possessions all the while. Obviously, what the Cavs are doing is working.
While virtually all the best teams in today’s NBA have at least one key player who defies positional conventions, there’s certainly no one guy who epitomizes the idea better than LeBron James. In fact, he’s been at the center of this movement for several years now. The phrase “positionless basketball” first began to gain traction at the start of Miami training camp in 2012, when LeBron and his then-coach, Erik Spoelstra, began bandying it around.
The Heat had just won a championship largely because they had guys like LeBron, who could play inside and out and guard all five positions, and Chris Bosh, a stretch four who also showed exceptional skill as a conventional big man. Underratedly, they also thrived because of Shane Battier’s role as a 3-point shooter and defender at the “power forward” spot. Fresh off his first title, Spoelstra knew he had a little more cachet and creative license, so he began talking up the idea of a more positionless game.
ESPN’s Tom Haberstroh, covering Heat training camp that fall, wrote that “Battier isn’t supposed to say the words ‘power forward’” because“Spoelstra has stricken the use of conventional position labels from the team’s vocabulary.” Everyone on Spo’s roster, from the stars like LeBron to the lesser role players, bought in:
The idea is simple: The traditional labels don’t apply to the Heat’s roster, so they won’t play that way. If the Heat employed Dwight Howard or Chris Paul, things might be different. But they use a fleet of chameleons in James, Battier, Dwyane Wade and Bosh, plus Ray Allen and Mike Miller.
“All the versatility we have on our team allows Spoelstra to say that,” James said of positionless basketball. “If we had conventional guys, we wouldn’t be able to have a positionless team. We have ball-handlers; we have guys that set screens, that spot up and shoot. Guys know their roles. That’s just the team we have.”
In 2012, this idea seemed a little bit more radical than it does today. Though even then, the model had already proven to work, and not just in South Beach. The Mavericks had won a title in 2011 led by Dirk Nowitzki, a power forward who stretched the floor by shooting like a wing; Jason Kidd, a point guard who freelanced on the wing and feasted on open jumpers; and Shawn Marion, an all-purpose wing guy who guarded just about everyone under the sun, regardless of position.
Then came the Heat, and after that came a title-winning Spurs team anchored by Tim Duncan, a guy who’s always blurred the lines between the four and five. And now it’s 2015. In a “changing of the guard” season, with all the old incumbents knocked out and a group of fresh-faced newcomers vying for the NBA championship, it’s notable that the last four teams left have found success by building around versatile players. LeBron is the most obvious example here, but he’s far from the only one.
The secret to the Cavaliers’ success this season is they’ve found an unbeatable formula: put the ball in LeBron’s hands, surround him with capable shooters, and trust the game’s best playmaker to make the correct play. Time and time and time again, it’s worked. Here’s a great example from early in Game 1 in Atlanta:
LeBron controls the ball the entire length of the floor here, even getting a Tristan Thompson screen 75 feet from the basket to help him bring the ball up unscathed. Once he’s crossed halfcourt, he appears intent on taking DeMarre Carroll into the post, a terrifying proposition for the Hawks. This basically causes the Hawks’ entire team to collapse on LeBron — including Irving’s man, Dennis Schroder. LeBron responds with an easy kickout to Irving in the corner for a 3. There was no assist on the play for Irving — if anything, he acted like a “small forward” on this possession, with James as the “point guard.” Yet somehow, it worked. Credit LeBron, Irving and the Cavs for making the most of their unique skill sets.
The Hawks also enjoyed a great deal of success this season playing in unconventional ways. Jeff Teague is a somewhat traditional point guard and their wings are conventional wings, but Atlanta’s big men — Al Horford in particular — thrived because they’re comfortable doing non-big man things. The Hawks were arguably at their best (and their most aesthetically pleasing to boot) when they played a five-out offense. Everyone’s on the perimeter, and everyone’s moving both the ball and themselves. It works because Horford — who’s listed on Atlanta’s lineup card as a center — is able to adapt his game. See here:
This play begins like a million Hawks possessions we’ve seen before — Teague has the ball at the top, and Kyle Korver is running around a Paul Millsap screen in search of an open jumper. Typical stuff. But watch what Horford’s doing meanwhile. He begins the play trying to sneak into the paint, but he gets tangled up with Timofey Mozgov, rendering him ineffective. So instead of banging with Mozzy down low, Horford instead cheats out to the perimeter, and with :06 on the shot clock, he’s handling the ball at the top of the key like a point guard. This pulls Mozgov out to 18 feet from the basket, far beyond his comfort zone, and it gives Horford plenty of space to get creative and freelance. The result is a beautiful fadeaway jumper in the paint.
Not every “center” is comfortable making a play like that. Horford is. It’s one of the reasons the Hawks have come this far.
Meanwhile, out West, you had a pair of teams that have similarly made the most of their unusually skilled personnel. Let’s start with the Rockets, who have had a miracle run this season because their MVP runner-up, James Harden, has been a magnificent shooting guard all year.
Or is he a magnificent point guard? Sometimes, it’s hard to say.
Plays like the one you see above have become incredibly common for the Rockets this season. There isn’t even any pretense of Jason Terry or anyone else running the offense for Houston. It’s Harden, all the way. Terry is currently listed as the team’s point guard, because that’s the convention when you’ve got one guard who’s giving up three inches and 40 pounds to the other. But Harden, despite being built like a wing, has played the point as well as anyone in this postseason. The pick-and-roll between Harden and Clint Capela — call it a 1–4 pick and roll, call it a 2–4, call it what you will — is effective regardless of nomenclature. It’s a beauty because of Harden’s playmaking ability.
For the Warriors, the challenge became one of defending against a uniquely skilled guard. Which brings us to their own perimeter chameleon: Draymond Green.
Green is listed as the Dubs’ starter at power forward. In fact, this listing is a frequent talking point for pundits looking to find a weakness in Golden State’s defense. How can the Warriors guard a big power forward like Zach Randolph, for example, if they’re saddled with an undersized guy like Draymond at the four?
The truth, of course, is that Draymond is incredibly malleable. He’s equally comfortable guarding the two as he is the four. Watch him here against Harden:
The Rockets begin this possession with a screen to create a mismatch for Harden — it’s Josh Smith, who plays the four, screening Andre Iguodala and causing a switch. Many times this season, the move has been successful, as Harden can use his quickness to destroy big, lumbering power forwards in one-on-one play. If the man guarding Smith were, say, Randolph, Harden would score easily.
With Green, however, the Warriors have nothing to worry about. He has the awareness and lateral quickness to stick with Harden for the full 24 seconds. Green stays with Harden, backs off of him a bit to avoid fouling, and stays in front of him sufficiently to make sure any shot he attempts is a tough, contested one. It works. Harden misses a fadeaway.
The Warriors are brilliant defensively because they’ve made plays like this countless times all season, because they have Green and other similarly constructed guys. Switching a 2–4 pick-and-roll means nothing to them. What’s a two-guard, anyway? What’s a power forward? When you can guard any position in any situation with a long, quick, smart defender, the labels lose all meaning.
Truth be told, whether in Golden State or elsewhere, the labels have been wearing off for years now. At least with the good teams they have been. In 2015, the teams that succeed in the NBA are the ones that throw positional assignments in the recycle bin and rely on versatility. In the old days, we demanded assists from our little guys and blocks from our bigs, but that era is now long over.
This, more than anything, is the takeaway we can glean from the 2015 playoffs. These last six weeks haven’t always been compelling — we’ve had our share of anti-climactic series and injury-riddled teams with no hope — but what we have gotten is a postseason rich with tactical innovation and crafty play. The postseason was built to show off the modern game for the world to see, and this is that game. Positionless basketball is a thing, and it’s here to stay.
Source: http://bit.ly/1JvMbgW
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