Is it time to kill the small ball myth?

[nickagneta]

Elite talent wins championships. Not size. Been that way for a long time.

Elite talent that also happens to be big, wins more championships.

I don't think anyone thinks the Celtics can win with Bass as a center but when given lemons, you have to make lemonade, which is what Doc did. Its a nyth that Doc is in love with small ball. He simply had no choice given that his most talented players, except KG, are not big people.

And please, enough with the "Why didn't Shav and White get any run". They got run in the regular season and showed they couldn't handle playing the type of defense needed for this team to win. A couple of high rebound games by Shav aside, the China Three were not very impressive or even good.

[CelticG1]

Who's the thunders big man? Ibaka?

You can poimt to pretty much everytjing that a team needs, a scorer, a shooter, a rebounder , a "big" (apparently 6' 9" or higher)

There are plenty of bigs whose teams suck and plenty whove done well.

I really dont see a strong correlation

[Chris]

I honestly didn't know there was a small ball myth.  I think everyone knows that bigger is better. 

However, there is one major issue, which has led to more smallball...and that is a dearth of talented big men.  And when it comes down to it, talent trumps size. 

So, it goes like this:

Great big man is better than a great little man.

However, a GOOD big man, is not better than a great little man. 

But then you have the entire team angle.  If you have good players at every position, including good big men, then you may beat a team with a great little man, but bad big men. 

And as always, none of this is as simple as we make it out to be.  There are so many levels.  You need to take into account styles, and chemistry, and all of that.

But where "small ball" comes from is when teams that are not lucky enough to have great big men decide that they would still like to win games.  So, they try to make up for their lack of a great big man, but getting as much talent on the floor with smaller guys as possible.  And, sometimes, that can work.

[badshar]

Ive been hoping we kill the small idea for a long time now... Gotta get an inside presence on both side of the floor. KG is a defensive master but he allergic to posting up and layups. Putting a big banger alongside of him would help immensely.

Cough Darko Cough... Oh what could have been.

If you have ever played basketball as a big man, you would realize that posting up and playing down low takes a ton of energy.

So do you want KG to waste all his energy as soon as he steps on the court and then suck for the next 5 minutes?

Additionally, Celtics are a jump shooting team. They are not a team that plays inside-out.

KG posts up and plays down low whenever the team needs him to be.

[fairweatherfan]

Small ball has always included high-quality bigs.  It's the switch from 2 "pure" big men to 1, with 4 primary perimeter guys instead of 3, and (sometimes) the shift of traditional PFs to the center position that's the big change in the small-ball paradigm.

It seems like the OP is "killing" small ball by redefining it out of existence.  If playing small ball now means having no high-level bigs of any kind, then yeah, it doesn't work, but basically nobody's really played it or advocated for it.

[D.o.s.]

I think your definition of “elite” is way too generous just for the purpose of fitting your thesis.

If Horace Grant and Tyson Chandler are “elite”, I want to know what your definition of “elite” is, because right now it really comes off as whoever you want it to be. 

I have a feeling if Golden State was winning, you’d suddenly consider David Lee (2x All-Star) or Bogut “elite.”

Dennis Rodman grows to 6’9” to fit your definition of big, while basketball-reference and nba.com list him as 6’7”, and he’ll tell you he’s 6’6”. 

And you can’t take a snap shot of the 4 teams that look like they’ll be in the Conference Finals and say that proves a point.  Because then that point dies when you have teams like OKC (oh wait, is Ibaka “elite” level now?)  who made the Finals last year, and was a favorite to contend this year, before Westbrook went down.

And yet why do all these other teams with “elite” level bigs still lose, often to teams with lesser “elite” bigs?

Or teams with “elite” level bigs perform much worse when their “elite" level guard is injured (LAL, Chicago).

Or we could point to the failures of teams that drafted for size instead of best player available (Bowie, Olowokandi, O’Bryant, Swift: Robert or Stromile, Thabeet, etc.).  You think Philly would have made a Finals had they drafted Camby (who I guess is “elite” since Chandler is) over Iverson in ‘96?  What if Chicago went with Beasley over Rose in search of that elite big?  You think they'd be better off?

Has Atlanta ever looked good with their two "elite" level bigs?

I think it’s more of a myth that there’s some magic formula for building a championship team.

Although that being said, I would think it’s common sense, that the game of basketball, where the goal is to get the ball into a 10 foot hoop while keeping your opponents from doing the same, that a team with strength and size would likely have the best chance of doing that.  And I don’t particularly like next year’s Celtics chances without Garnett either, or with him for that matter.

I just don’t think your point, and the evidence you provided really proves anything.

Yes a team without a lot of good players usually won't win, and as LooseCannon pointed out there's only 5 positions, so good teams will usually have elite players at every position, especially when you basically narrow it down to 3 positions of big, guard, and wing that get to be filled by 5 players.

Small ball has always included high-quality bigs.  It's the switch from 2 "pure" big men to 1, with 4 primary perimeter guys instead of 3, and (sometimes) the shift of traditional PFs to the center position that's the big change in the small-ball paradigm.

It seems like the OP is "killing" small ball by redefining it out of existence.  If playing small ball now means having no high-level bigs of any kind, then yeah, it doesn't work, but basically nobody's really played it or advocated for it.

I agree with both of these. When I think of small ball, I generally think of Nellie Ball, especially Run-TMC in particular, with 6'7" Rod Higgins at the 5... and I don't see any of that in the NBA today.

[Roy H.]

It's probably time to kill the myth that Miami is a "small ball" team.

Their front-line is 6'10", 6'9", and 6'8".  That's not particularly small, and Lebron and Battier are at least as strong as the average player at their position.  Chris Bosh is more of a finesse guy, but in today's NBA how many guys overpower him?

[pearljammer10]

Ive been hoping we kill the small idea for a long time now... Gotta get an inside presence on both side of the floor. KG is a defensive master but he allergic to posting up and layups. Putting a big banger alongside of him would help immensely.

Cough Darko Cough... Oh what could have been.

If you have ever played basketball as a big man, you would realize that posting up and playing down low takes a ton of energy.

So do you want KG to waste all his energy as soon as he steps on the court and then suck for the next 5 minutes?

Additionally, Celtics are a jump shooting team. They are not a team that plays inside-out.

KG posts up and plays down low whenever the team needs him to be.

I have played basketball as a big man because I am a big man in terms of the team that I play for.

Of course it exerts a lot of energy but thats the position he plays and if he isnt going to exert the energy to play his position thats just going to hurt the team. Thats like telling Jordan to stop shooting jump shots because jumping over and over exerts too much energy.

As far as the wasting all his energy and sucking for the next five minutes, I dont really see where you are going with it. His job is to be the big man on this team, if he cant exert the energy to do a simple post up, resulting in him sucking for 5 straight minutes, then I dont think he should be playing NBA basketball any longer. Me thinks KG is a little more in shape than that.

And yes, the Celtics are a jump shooting team. And that is one of the main reasons we dont play as well as we could. When we take jumper after jumper the motion of our system completely stops. Everything becomes stagnant, we stop attacking the basket and completely lose our aggression. They dont really play inside out because of the fact KG is allergic to the paint and if they did, they would be a much more effective team.

And back to my original point. If we get an inside banger to put alongside KG, then we could allow KG to play his back to the basket and fade away game from outside the paint where he is more comfortable especially at his age. So no, I dont want KG to waste his energy and suck for five minutes, I want to put an inside presence next to KG so that we can better improve the team overall.

[CelticG1]

I didn't realize kg, bass, green and Pierce was small ball. Seems pretty big to me.

Maybe we should try some small ball

[wdleehi]

I didn't realize kg, bass, green and Pierce was small ball. Seems pretty big to me.

Maybe we should try some small ball

Bass is a PF that plays small.


And more to the point, when KG goes to the bench, who is the big man out there?

[CelticG1]

I didn't realize kg, bass, green and Pierce was small ball. Seems pretty big to me.

Maybe we should try some small ball

Bass is a PF that plays small.


And more to the point, when KG goes to the bench, who is the big man out there?

I just think the whole small ball thing is such an overblown myth and completely subjective.

To me Its an absurd arguement. First it was "you need a dominant center to win" now its "you need a dominant 6' 9" guy or higher to win"

What you need is talent. You need all stars in any way shape or form. Theres only one champion every year and generally you just need a lot of good/great players

[Celtics18]

I didn't realize kg, bass, green and Pierce was small ball. Seems pretty big to me.

Maybe we should try some small ball

Good point.

I was among those who actually thought that starting a smaller lineup of two guards, Pierce at the 3, Jeff at the 4, and KG in the middle would have been a better lineup for matching up with the Knicks than the "big" lineup Doc went with. 

Looking back at that series, it seem to me that we were missing penetrators and shot creators (as well as shot makers) more than we were missing interior defense and rebounding.  KG and Brandon did their jobs defensively and on the glass.  Unfortunately, there was nobody to create easy offensive opportunities for them. 

In the end, without Rondo, I doubt that going smaller would have made much difference.  I feel pretty confident in saying, though, that I don't think more Shav Randolph or Chris Wilcox would have turned that series in our favor. 

[CelticG1]

And to add to that you need good rebounders not tall people or staying away from short people.

If green rebounding like lebron and bass rebounded like Kenneth Farried would we be talking about tall guys and small guys? I don't think so.

The problem is we haven't picked up good rebounders. Bass and Green were known for being poor rebounders.

[wdleehi]

I didn't realize kg, bass, green and Pierce was small ball. Seems pretty big to me.

Maybe we should try some small ball

Bass is a PF that plays small.


And more to the point, when KG goes to the bench, who is the big man out there?

I just think the whole small ball thing is such an overblown myth and completely subjective.

To me Its an absurd arguement. First it was "you need a dominant center to win" now its "you need a dominant 6' 9" guy or higher to win"

What you need is talent. You need all stars in any way shape or form. Theres only one champion every year and generally you just need a lot of good/great players

If you look through history, you will see most champs have good to great big men. 



Miami had Bosh and Lebron. 

Dallas had Dirk and Chandler
 
LA had Gasol and Bynum

Celtics had KG and Perk (who played elite lever defense on Gasol)

Spurs had Duncan

LA had Shaq

Detroit had the two Wallaces

Spurs had Duncan and Robinson

The Jordon Bulls are the exception (though Rodman plays like an elite big man defender/rebounder)

Rockets had the Dream

Pistons (exception)

LA had Kareem

Boston had Mchale and Parrish

76ers had Moses.

[Celtics18]

I didn't realize kg, bass, green and Pierce was small ball. Seems pretty big to me.

Maybe we should try some small ball

Bass is a PF that plays small.


And more to the point, when KG goes to the bench, who is the big man out there?

I just think the whole small ball thing is such an overblown myth and completely subjective.

To me Its an absurd arguement. First it was "you need a dominant center to win" now its "you need a dominant 6' 9" guy or higher to win"

What you need is talent. You need all stars in any way shape or form. Theres only one champion every year and generally you just need a lot of good/great players

If you look through history, you will see most champs have good to great big men. 



Miami had Bosh and Lebron. 

Dallas had Dirk and Chandler
 
LA had Gasol and Bynum

Celtics had KG and Perk (who played elite lever defense on Gasol)

Spurs had Duncan

LA had Shaq

Detroit had the two Wallaces

Spurs had Duncan and Robinson

The Jordon Bulls are the exception (though Rodman plays like an elite big man defender/rebounder)

Rockets had the Dream

Pistons (exception)

LA had Kareem

Boston had Mchale and Parrish

76ers had Moses.

Fair enough, but you also need elite guards and/or wings to win titles.

Miami:  James and Wade.

Dallas:  Kidd and Terry (this will clearly be seen as an exception, but those guys' contributions to that miraculous run by the Mavs were bigger than they are often credited for.  Anyway, we are allowed one or two exceptions here, right?)

Lakers:  Bryant

Boston:  Pierce and Allen (and tadpole Rondo)

San Antonio:  Parker and Ginobili

Pistons:  Billups, (Hamilton) (Exception number two?  Kind of, but Chauncey Billups was the soul of that Pistons squad).

Rockets:  Clyde Drexler, (Kenny Smith)

Bulls:  Jordan

Pistons:  Thomas, Dumars

Lakers:  Magic

Celtics:  Bird