When people talk about positions on a basketball team, they generally refer to a point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center. People generally refer to these positions as if the roles they are associated with are as clearly defined as the roles on, say, a baseball team, where a second baseman is responsible for a different part of the field than a shortstop. Unlike in baseball, however, the differences between some of the positions are not clear – at least they aren’t clear to me.

Can anyone tell me the difference between a shooting guard and a small forward? Some people have tried to, but none have been able to. (I’m also looking to learn what the difference is between a power forward and a center, but I won’t go there for now.) Whenever I have the conversation with someone, the closest I come to getting an answer is that shooting guards are generally good at shooting, and that small forwards are generally good at driving to the basket.

That answer would suffice, if it were accurate. Consider a few specific players, to bring the discussion into focus. Rip Hamilton is generally thought of as a shooting guard (for what it’s worth, his player page on nba.com lists him as a guard). I guess Hamilton is the prototypical shooting guard: he shoots well from the outside, and is not much of a threat to attack off the dribble. In contrast, Gerald Wallace is generally thought of as a small forward (and his player page on nba.com lists him as a forward). I guess he is a prototypical forward: he is a capable scorer, but not a pure “shooter”; nobody expects to see Wallace in the 3-point shootout anytime soon. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that Hamilton is a shooting guard and Wallace is a small forward.

The problem is that it makes no sense to define positions by what players can’t do; it makes no sense to say that a shooting guard is a guy who can’t drive and a small forward is a guy who can’t shoot, because it doesn’t help explain what a shooting guard does differently than a small forward. If I’m an NBA GM trying to build a championship team, I’m not going to want to build my team around one guy who can’t shoot and one guy who can’t drive. Consider a few other players, who can shoot and drive: Paul Pierce. Is he a shooting guard or a small forward? Kobe Bryant. Which one is he? Tracy McGrady? For what it’s worth, nba.com lists Kobe as a guard, Pierce as a forward, and McGrady as a guard-forward. If someone can explain those classifications to me, I’ll be impressed.

I won’t ramble on about this point until I see what people have to say in the responses. For now, I’ll leave it at this: I think it makes much more sense to talk about the standard 5-man-starting lineup as containing one point guard, two wing players, and two post players than it does to talk about shooting guards, small forwards, power forwards, and centers. Even if we talk about it as a point guard, two wing players, and two post players, there will be some players who defy classification (Jordan, for example, did plenty of damage from the post). But, to me, that would at least be more descriptive than continuing to use the terms “shooting guard” and “small forward.”

I look forward to reading your comments.

I’ve been a hoops fan for as long as I can remember. I started to have some clue what was going on in the mid-80’s. I remember watching Magic’s Lakers, Bird’s Celtics, Isiah’s Pistons, and Jordan’s Bulls. Throughout that time, I was rooting for the Knicks.  Around the time I started to have a clue, they were Louis Orr’s Knicks.  They had Pat Cummings, Rory Sparrow, Trent Tucker, Eddie Lee Wilkins, and, if they were lucky, Bernard King.  Then they got Patrick Ewing, and my entire Knicks-fan-experience changed (not a moment too soon, either… I was starting to get to be too old to walk around crying because my favorite basketball team lost another game).

Anyway, the point is that I grew up watching hoops in the 80’s, and  I was generally able to appreciate that it was a special era for the game.  In my opinion, the game became less interesting in the late ‘90s, early ‘00s. I don’t know why.  Maybe it was the void left after Jordan retired. Maybe it had something to do with the Pistons-Pacers brawl that spilled into the stands, or maybe the league over-expanded. (Does anyone really need the Bobcats?) Personally, I blame lots of it on the fact that one of the teams in the league had Barney on its jerseys, but I recognize that there are other contributing factors.

Well, whatever made the game less interesting in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s is behind us now. The NBA is fun to watch again. There are genuine superstars playing the game these days, a bunch of well-balanced teams, and a slew of excellent players who are either winding down or beginning their careers.

Let’s start with the superstars. As I see it, there are four: Kobe, D-Wade, LeBron, and Chris Paul. When is the last time there were four guys either in their primes or entering their primes who were this good? I think it must have been when Jordan was young, Magic and Larry were still doing their thing, and Olajuwon was one of the “Twin Towers” in Houston. The league doesn’t only have super superstars these days, but it also has a bunch of solid teams. Even the East is good. The top team from last year has added Shaq. The Celtics have three Hall-of-Famers, and a collection of young talent. The Magic are loaded. Even the Hawks could be good, if they weren’t the Hawks – dress those guys up in some Bulls uniforms, and you have a contender.

Out West, the Lakers and Spurs both have firepower, play D, and have championship pedigrees. The Mavericks have added Shawn Merion, the Blazers might be on the verge of a breakthrough, and the Nuggets showed that they can beat teams a number of different ways. A team with Steve Nash, Amare Stoudamaire, and Grant Hill might not even make the playoffs. Again.

The point of all this rambling is just to say that the top 9 or 10 teams are about as good as I remember the top 9 or 10 teams being for a long time. I Love This Game!

The flip side of the coin is that there are some teams that are just pathetic. I understand how the salary cap works, and I understand that teams would rather have a real chance to be good in the future rather than remain mediocre for a while. The problem is that some of the teams that just cleared a whole bunch of “cap space” aren’t going to get one of the main guys in 2010, and then they’re going to be horrible for a few years in a row. I’m thinking of the Bucks, the Nets, the Knicks, and the Suns.  Then there are the Kings, who haven’t really been dumping good players to create cap space, and, yet, are terrible.  These guys all think they’re getting LeBron and Bosh to sign with them in 2010?  A few of them are going to get nobody, and are going to have 3 or 4 years of winning 25-35 games. I’ll address that in a separate posting. For now, my only point is that the NBA is compelling again.  So compelling that I decided to start a blog about it.