The Red Hot Wiz, winners of 4 of their last 6, steal one in Detroit.
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Iâm such a curse even when I go see the Pistons play the Wizards I canât get a win.
The Podcast That Shall Not Be Named did positional rankings today, and did the small forward position. I will admit to being confused as to how they classify the positions, because this one threw me for a loop (I think they base it on âwho do they guardâ than offensive role like âoffensive initiatorâ - I see the issue, Lukaâs teams generally still have to play two guards along with him in order to defend, same with a guy like Giddey even though they are the âpoint guardsâ of their offense). Anyway, they had Cade as the #5 small forward in the league (I was surprised to find him here, yes), behind Luka, Tatum, Lebron, and Durant (also surprised to find Luka here). They had a disagreement on Franz, who ranged from 7th to 12th between the people on the pod.
Cade talk was very positive - noted that heâs pushing the ball in transition, has improved his 3pt accuracy, is getting by guys as the lead creator more easily than in the past, and noted his help defense (rim protection metrics specifically). I think heâs here because they said the Pistons generally avoid having him play on-ball on defense, and he generally struggles there.
The Franz disagreement was basically based around whether he was a guy who was raising the floor of a horrific offense to âmediocreâ (âbad teams need points tooâ is their joking framing here) or if he was capable of driving good offense
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Interesting that they included him at SF and not PG. Same with Luka as you said. They have SF size, but are clearly the PGs for their teams. But yeah, neither guy is guarding the opposing PG so I guess you can put them in either position.
Cade hype has really been building up more and more as the season has progressed.
What sorts of players did they have ahead of Franz?
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Well the other guy that drove a mass amount of division in the rankings was Butler, so one of them had Butler over him. These guys generally talk âtiersâ, where if two guys are in the same tier but the order is different its a difference they donât really care to debate the gap
The unanimous group was:
Doncic, Tatum (these guys were ranked either first or second, with a split in the group) tier 1
tier 2 was Lebron and KD
tier 3 was Cade, Jalen Brown, Jalen Williams (I think Williams is similarly an interesting case as Cade as, depending on the shift, he can be a PG or a C or anywhere between). I think most had Williams over Cade and Cade over Brown, but some division. The Williams/Cade comp is tough because they have pretty distinct strengths
My thought personally was that there was an argument for all of tier 3 to be over tier 2
but largely
Tatum/Doncic
KD/Lebron
Cunningham/Brown/Williams/Butler (for some of them)
Franz/George/Butler (for others)
Kawhi mixed into that group, the most pessimistic on Franz mixed Anunoby and Amen Thompson ahead of Franz
No Ceilings just ran a series recapping how the NBA and the draft evaluation process have changed for each position over the past 5-10 years. To me, their position groups make more sense than the traditional positions that have become more and more obsolete over time. They did admit that the lines can still be blurred with how you view offensive and defensive roles, but they mostly view positions through the lens of what players do on offense. Thatâs how they landed on their position groups as guards, wings, forwards, and centers.
A general summary: guards are on-ball orchestrators that handle a large burden of the ball handling and playmaking duties for their team. Wings are players that are more of your hybrid 2/3 that split their time on and off the ball, with more of a focus on scoring. Forwards tend to be larger wings that are in the hybrid 3/4 mold. These are more of your classic play finishers that are mostly off-ball and typically better rebounders and provide more rim protection on defense compared to wings. Centers are post players and rim runners that spend most of their time in the paint on both sides of the floor.
Even from this perspective, it is difficult to fit some players into one of the categories. However, I find it more helpful than the traditional positions. Iâve heard a lot of NBA analysts call Luka a SF and I really struggle with that. I know that he probably guards a 3/4 in most cases bc of his lack of lateral athleticism on the defensive end, but he plays a heliocentric style of basketball on the offensive end where he was almost exclusively on-ball in Dallas. He has a SF body, but his skillset and playing style screams guard to me.
These exercises are still fun and I always take the traditional positions with a grain of salt as theyâre trying to compare players like Cade, Jalen Brown, and Jimmy Butler. All 3 guys fill vastly different roles for their teams and their playing styles arenât all that similar.
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Yeah, their purpose I guess is more when it comes to signing these guys to contracts and stuff, you can fall into a trap (I think itâs particularly prone to primary offensive engine types) of saying âBut he scored XX points and YY assists!â to justify the contract, which elides the fact that there are like 14 other guys with the same role that do that, so is that product THAT special?
For instance - Iâm positive the Bulls are about to give Coby White like $35 million a year - after all, he averages a 20/5! A 20/5 is good!
Then you forget that there are like 15 other guys in the role that do that or better, so is White a star, or is he just a starting caliber PG? Is he worth the financial commitment?
I do think their positional categories are weird - their rational for Doncic/Cade at SF is defensive role, but then they said they moved Amen Thompson from PG last year to SF this year because he doesnât play with the ball, so I think its sort of vibes?
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Not sure I find it clarifying to go from 5 positions to 4. The thing being captured either way is that going from 1 to 5 means going from offensive and esp. on ball impact to more defensive and esp. rim protection impact. The categories are fluid bc so many players do some of both and the best players tend to break categorization by defn. But itâs not like people were confused that Magic Johnson functioned as a point guard on offense in the 80s.
I kinda like some of the work thatâs been done with e.g. LEBRON where theyâre doing like K-means or PCA (I dk exactly how they do it) into groups of like players and have some sense of the value of those groups.
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Yeah, IMO you play a position/role (shouldnât be numbered, should be based on what you do) on offense and then you can guard certain position/roles.
It makes no sense to group guys by their defensive ability when the best defenders are able to guard multiple roles/positions whatever you want to call it.
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I definitely agree that there being 4 vs 5 positions/groups is not that much of a clarification. I find it most helpful in that it helps me mentally group players by role rather than traditional position. As you mentioned with improving player metrics, what a player does in their role is far more valuable in evaluating players than saying âthis guy is a small forward on my teamâ as if they simply fill a spot in a depth chart because theyâre 6â7" or 6â8".
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I think thatâs why Point Forward fits Luka. The basketball position naming convention is outdated. As you said SF does not describe Lukaâs game at all.
Smarter people have classify players into role bucket and then go from there. Like Joker is a point center so you donât need a traditional PG on the roster.
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Cade ejected. Referees have lost all control
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Refs losing control in this pistons thunder game. Cade ejected. Stones down 14 after 3.
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Thunder are a great team. They donât need the help from the referees
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Caruso has flopped 4 times in 2 minutes disgusting
No Chet or Jalen Williams either . Beef stew playing like a madman!
Did I just see OKC take a five second violation on purpose with only .3 seconds left on the shot clock? To avoid a Detroit run out opportunity after a failed lob? Never seen that before
Bickerstaff eviscerating the officials in post game presser. Go off, coach!
âTonight was a disgusting display of disrespect!â While pounding the table.
Apparently the crew drove up from Indy after the Michigan game and took it to the next level.
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