Is point-guard most overrated position in the NBA?

[Brendan]

PG in the "I want a true point guard" manner - yes.

A true point guard compliments other players - but may or may not be a transcendent scorer himself. Isiah and Magic could play the role of facilitator, but also take over. Rondo's offense is over rated, because even though he's ELITE at the "true PG" role, he cannot take over with his scoring.

[BballTim]

PG in the "I want a true point guard" manner - yes.

A true point guard compliments other players - but may or may not be a transcendent scorer himself. Isiah and Magic could play the role of facilitator, but also take over. Rondo's offense is over rated, because even though he's ELITE at the "true PG" role, he cannot take over with his scoring.

  Except for the games where he has, right?

  He's also taken over games with his rebounding, he's taken over games with his passing, and don't forget his defense. Obviously if he takes over games in these ways it doesn't really count, because he's a bad jump shooter. But it helps the team win nonetheless.

[Who]

I think positions in general are overrated.  It is about talent and ability. 

Agreed

[guava_wrench]

As the Heat's success has reiterated this post-season, it's all about who has the best 2-3 players.

Exactly. There just hasn't been any great point guards in recent history who have had the luxury of playing with a couple other great players. If they had, I'm sure they would have titles. Stockton, Payton, Kidd, Paul, williams, etc, really haven't gotten a chance to play with great players at the pinnacle of their careers.

Apart from the Malone oversight (how could anyone think of Stockton and forget Malone), the truth is the older guys in the list made it to the finals but lost to better teams. The Jazz couldn't get past Jordan, nor could the Sonics with a ridiculous Kemp in his pre-depressive prime. Kidd managed to take the Spurs to 6 games (in his second trip to the finals).

I suppose Payton's ring with Miami shouldn't really count at that point in his career.

[action781]

I think positions in general are overrated.  It is about talent and ability.  Although size is a big part of that. 

What I think you will find is that success is not dictated by a certain position.  Instead, it is driven by great players on balanced rosters...and most great players have good to great size for their positions. 

Lebron, Kobe, KG, Duncan, Jordan, Hakeem, Bird, Magic. 

All of these guys were at least ideal size, if not big for their positions.  It didn't matter what position they played, just that they were the best player on the court and able to dominate the players forced to cover them. 

I agree.

I think the reason why the OP is bringing this up is because it is far more frequent you hear teams complain about "needing a point guard" whether it be a "true point guard", "steady point guard", etc.  You rarely hear a team say, "man, we need a very good small forward, that's what this team is missing".  People often are open to considering their SG/SF/PF/C be role players (depending on where their superstars are positioned), but rarely glad to have a player like Derek Fisher as point guard unless you are winning championships.  Otherwise, fans think they need a better PG who can make all the other positional players better players.

But I agree that the position is overrated in that sense.

[action781]

I think I've figured out why.  I think the answer is defense.

Great wings with size can defend and lock down opposing wings, plus provide help defense to a penetrating PG.  Great bigs with size can defend and lock down opposing bigs, plus provide help defense to driving wings or PGs.

Great PGs can never really lock down a great opposing PG.  When has it ever been done?  All PGs are really too fast for anybody to be able to pressure tightly without getting burned, so you can't really lock down a fast PG with a good jumper.  If you are helping on them, they are great passers so can make you pay by dishing out to open teammates.  So, you can never really lock down a very good opposing PG and usually PGs (Magic aside) are too small and out of position on the floor to play effective help defense.

Perhaps this is why investing too much in a great PG will never be the recipe for a title. 

[Casperian]

I think positions in general are overrated.  It is about talent and ability. 

Agreed

I think the general strengths one associates with a "pure PG" (vision, facilitating, making players around you better etc.) are full of diminishing returns at the highest level. Noone can make his teammates that much better. To expect a single player in your offense to be that guy is a flawed philosphy, great in theory but not applicable on a regular basis.

Bird was great because he was a great scorer, but also because he was a great passer and facilitator. Olajuwon was a fantastic Center, but he wasn´t that dominant until he learned to pass out of the post. LeBron is a great athlete and scorer, but what really sets him apart is his passing ability.

The ability to facilitate is very important, but it is flawed to think you can build around a guy who can only do that, it´s only really valuable for your first option on offense, in my opinion.
If he can shoot, drive and dish: great, that makes him unpredictable, and thus, (the whole team) hard to guard. If he can only do two of the things well, he´s not a first option and not the guy to build your offense around.

So, I agree, positions are overrated, just like the "floor general" tag.

[Eja117]

No.  Nowadays it's center seeing as how all the good big men play power forward now, which is just stupid.  There. I said it

[bdm860]

I think some people might be looking at this the wrong way.  Like some have said, you can take any position and it doesn't seem that important to a championship team.

But how many good teams have above average point guards? Probably most of them.

How many bad teams have above average point guards (not on a rookie deal), not many.

Although you may be able to say that about any position, I think about the All-Star teams.  Many times you'll have guys make the team, guys like Kevin Love, Chris Bosh (Toronto), David Lee, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, etc. who make the All-Star game but their team sucks.  If you're a point guard on the All-Star team, your team is probably pretty good.

I think it's more likely you'll build a good team around a good point guard, then around any other position.

Has a great point guard in their prime ever missed the playoffs?
I can think of Steve Nash on the downward slope winning 46 games and missing the playoffs in 2009.  I can think of Deron Williams being traded and missing this year, but that's all that really comes to mind. (I'm talking traditional point guard, not the shoot first Iverson/Marbury type).

But I can think of Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce, missing the playoffs in their prime.

I think a point guard is usually important to be a good team (though you can be a good team without a great pg), and is probably the most important of any position.  But it doesn't mean you can't win without one.

It's harder to be bad with a good pg, then with any other position.

[BballTim]

I think positions in general are overrated.  It is about talent and ability. 

Agreed

I think the general strengths one associates with a "pure PG" (vision, facilitating, making players around you better etc.) are full of diminishing returns at the highest level. Noone can make his teammates that much better. To expect a single player in your offense to be that guy is a flawed philosphy, great in theory but not applicable on a regular basis.

Bird was great because he was a great scorer, but also because he was a great passer and facilitator. Olajuwon was a fantastic Center, but he wasn´t that dominant until he learned to pass out of the post. LeBron is a great athlete and scorer, but what really sets him apart is his passing ability.

The ability to facilitate is very important, but it is flawed to think you can build around a guy who can only do that, it´s only really valuable for your first option on offense, in my opinion.
If he can shoot, drive and dish: great, that makes him unpredictable, and thus, (the whole team) hard to guard. If he can only do two of the things well, he´s not a first option and not the guy to build your offense around.

So, I agree, positions are overrated, just like the "floor general" tag.

  I think that the "build around" claim is vastly overused. You can build around that guy, you can't build around this guy. What do people really think that means? You get a great player and generally build around them by acquiring very good players to fill a couple of the other spots in the lineup. It's not a real designation. The Lakers built around Kobe by getting Gasol. But the Celts didn't build the title team around Pierce, they brought in a top 3 big man and *added* to Pierce.

[Fan from VT]

To expand a little bit:

I do not think it's overrated historically. As others have said, position is secondary to being a "great player." if you look at the last 30 years, you have about 5 laker titles, 2 detroit ones, and a later detroit one where the one could very strongly argue that the key player was a PG. Obviously it's very wishy-washy, but some of this can be balanced by the fact that Tony Parker won some finals MVPs, but i'm not counting him at all, so there's some gray area. Additionally, there's some further gray area when things that probably "should" have happened didn't; for example, Joe Johnson's devastating eye injury and the ridiculous suspensions of Amare/Diaw after the Horry cheap shot derailed the very likely NBA champion Suns twice.

So that's 8 titles, approximately, in 30 years led by PGs. Even if we drop it to 6 titles led by pgs, that would be exactly 20% of titles led by PGs. PG is one of 5 positions on the floor, or 20%. So in terms of just titles, I don't think position matters; transcendent talent matters, and that has generally been: Magic (PG), Moses (C), Bird (SF), Isiah (PG), Shaq (C), Duncan (PF), Jordan (SG), Pippen (SF), Olajuwan (C), Wade (SG), Kobe (SG), Garnett (PF), and Nowitzki/James (PF/SF). I see a fairly random spread there.



However, I do think that PG is the most overrated position RIGHT NOW. I think that either there's a talent bubble, or the rule changes have allowed small, quick guys to thrive both by allowing such players to drive without having to worry about bigger guards grabbing them AND having their defensive size disadvantages mitigated by players not being able to use perimeter size/strength advantages as they could in the past. As such, the number of PGs that can put up great numbers and seem like Great players has exploded.

As such, there's a weird era of uncertainty right now. For a while, there was the mantra of "never pass up size," which ended up failing when huge stiffs started being signed way before smaller guys who could play. But now the mantra is "always take the talent," and I really think that there's about to be a reversal of that mindset as it's very easy now to see that some random PG is, in pure thought, a better "player" than many big guys, but such PGs are becoming dime-a-dozen, while talent at some other positions is not increasing at the same rate. If you look back through the recent drafts, you'll see what i mean, and i think a lot of teams will be making big mistakes signing "productive" pg's to big deals when they can get 90% of said production each year in the draft for 10% of the cost and use that money to lock up relatively better (to other players in the league) but "objectively" lesser talent at bigger positions.

Sorry if that is confusing. In other words, yes, you could lock up Rondo at 10 million per year (which i think went from being risky, to bargain, now to hopefully "fair" since there are so many productive PGs), or you could keep cycling in Aaron Brooks, Darren COllision, Jrue Holiday, Ty Lawson types and spend that 50 million on a scarcer position.

[Chelm]

For fun, I went through and tallied up the NBA finals MVPs by position since 1980.  Now this is somewhat skewed because often the best player on the team doesn't win (and, of course, Jordan's 6 skews it even more significantly), but I think it gives an interesting take on the importance of positions:

C  7
PF 4
SF 4
SG 10
PG 6

[nickagneta]

To expand a little bit:

I do not think it's overrated historically. As others have said, position is secondary to being a "great player." if you look at the last 30 years, you have about 5 laker titles, 2 detroit ones, and a later detroit one where the one could very strongly argue that the key player was a PG. Obviously it's very wishy-washy, but some of this can be balanced by the fact that Tony Parker won some finals MVPs, but i'm not counting him at all, so there's some gray area. Additionally, there's some further gray area when things that probably "should" have happened didn't; for example, Joe Johnson's devastating eye injury and the ridiculous suspensions of Amare/Diaw after the Horry cheap shot derailed the very likely NBA champion Suns twice.

So that's 8 titles, approximately, in 30 years led by PGs. Even if we drop it to 6 titles led by pgs, that would be exactly 20% of titles led by PGs. PG is one of 5 positions on the floor, or 20%. So in terms of just titles, I don't think position matters; transcendent talent matters, and that has generally been: Magic (PG), Moses (C), Bird (SF), Isiah (PG), Shaq (C), Duncan (PF), Jordan (SG), Pippen (SF), Olajuwan (C), Wade (SG), Kobe (SG), Garnett (PF), and Nowitzki/James (PF/SF). I see a fairly random spread there.



However, I do think that PG is the most overrated position RIGHT NOW. I think that either there's a talent bubble, or the rule changes have allowed small, quick guys to thrive both by allowing such players to drive without having to worry about bigger guards grabbing them AND having their defensive size disadvantages mitigated by players not being able to use perimeter size/strength advantages as they could in the past. As such, the number of PGs that can put up great numbers and seem like Great players has exploded.

As such, there's a weird era of uncertainty right now. For a while, there was the mantra of "never pass up size," which ended up failing when huge stiffs started being signed way before smaller guys who could play. But now the mantra is "always take the talent," and I really think that there's about to be a reversal of that mindset as it's very easy now to see that some random PG is, in pure thought, a better "player" than many big guys, but such PGs are becoming dime-a-dozen, while talent at some other positions is not increasing at the same rate. If you look back through the recent drafts, you'll see what i mean, and i think a lot of teams will be making big mistakes signing "productive" pg's to big deals when they can get 90% of said production each year in the draft for 10% of the cost and use that money to lock up relatively better (to other players in the league) but "objectively" lesser talent at bigger positions.

Sorry if that is confusing. In other words, yes, you could lock up Rondo at 10 million per year (which i think went from being risky, to bargain, now to hopefully "fair" since there are so many productive PGs), or you could keep cycling in Aaron Brooks, Darren COllision, Jrue Holiday, Ty Lawson types and spend that 50 million on a scarcer position.

TP4U...exactly the points I was trying to make only not expressing myself nearly as clear and concise as you have.

[Casperian]

I think positions in general are overrated.  It is about talent and ability.  

Agreed

I think the general strengths one associates with a "pure PG" (vision, facilitating, making players around you better etc.) are full of diminishing returns at the highest level. Noone can make his teammates that much better. To expect a single player in your offense to be that guy is a flawed philosphy, great in theory but not applicable on a regular basis.

Bird was great because he was a great scorer, but also because he was a great passer and facilitator. Olajuwon was a fantastic Center, but he wasn´t that dominant until he learned to pass out of the post. LeBron is a great athlete and scorer, but what really sets him apart is his passing ability.

The ability to facilitate is very important, but it is flawed to think you can build around a guy who can only do that, it´s only really valuable for your first option on offense, in my opinion.
If he can shoot, drive and dish: great, that makes him unpredictable, and thus, (the whole team) hard to guard. If he can only do two of the things well, he´s not a first option and not the guy to build your offense around.

So, I agree, positions are overrated, just like the "floor general" tag.

  I think that the "build around" claim is vastly overused. You can build around that guy, you can't build around this guy. What do people really think that means? You get a great player and generally build around them by acquiring very good players to fill a couple of the other spots in the lineup. It's not a real designation. The Lakers built around Kobe by getting Gasol. But the Celts didn't build the title team around Pierce, they brought in a top 3 big man and *added* to Pierce.

Maybe you´re right, maybe nobody builds a team in the NBA anymore, simply because the trade rules restrict them too much. It´s just about getting the best players together on a team. However, that doesn´t mean that you can completely neglect how certain players work with each other on the court.

It´s about maximizing the strengths of your best player. It´s what people mean when they say they want guys to run with Rondo, or why Rondo is not a good fit for the big three anymore. Just look at last season, and how bad the duo of KG and Rasheed was, offensively. The theory was that two big men with range would create a lot of space for our guards, when exactly the opposite happened.

...

In other words, size plus talent is rarer than just talent, no matter if it´s 1950 or 2011.

[BballTim]

It´s about maximizing the strengths of your best player. It´s what people mean when they say they want guys to run with Rondo, or why Rondo is not a good fit for the big three anymore. Just look at last season, and how bad the duo of KG and Rasheed was, offensively. The theory was that two big men with range would create a lot of space for our guards, when exactly the opposite happened.

  Rondo's a great fit with the big three. They'd be less effective without him.