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Head to Head: Which Position is Best to Build a Team Around?

Which position is best to build a team around? Our experts discuss.

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Which position is the best to build a team around? Jessica Camerato, Ben Dowsett and Eric Pincus discuss in this week’s Head to Head:

Small Forward

Point guards get hyped for their flashy ball-handling. Bigs get attention for their physical domination. Somewhere in between fall small forwards, the first position I would address when building a team.

Small forwards are versatile weapons that can be the difference between an easily-defendable team and one that is challenging to stop. Threes spread the floor, knock down long range shots and attack the basket as well. They are mixed bags of talent with a depth of offensive weapons that can stifle opponents.

The lineup of small forwards in the NBA is daunting. League MVPs. NBA Finals MVPs. Annual All-Stars.

LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony and Paul George are, when healthy, dominating stars. Behind them are veterans like Paul Pierce and Joe Johnson who can still change a game with one basket, and young talents such as Kawhi Leonard and Andrew Wiggins are heading up the next wave. That doesn’t even include those who play more than one position, such as Draymond Green.

Defensively, small forwards are key as perimeter defenders. Just as they can lead on the scoreboard, they are also tasked with limiting their counterparts each night. Use a small forward against a dangerous shooting guard, and the defense often has a size advantage. Think swing-men like Tony Allen and Andre Iguodala.

With five positions to choose from, the small forward can impact the most areas with a single player.

– Jessica Camerato

Guards

Much of any answer to the question of ground-up team-building by position is highly contextual. The changing nature of the game makes it tough to even pigeonhole many guys into a single traditional position, and even if one is able to do so effectively, in many cases the question comes down in large part to who else a given team is able to surround their foundational star with.

Lumping much of this context into a more general ball, though, it’s tough to argue against the small forward and center positions being “most important” in the current league. The world’s two best players when healthy, LeBron James and Kevin Durant, play small forward, and in one of the few elements of the game that has remained relatively constant over essentially its entire history, true centers remain the most impactful defensive players on the floor. Small forwards who can shift up a position and stretch the floor for their teams, or vice versa, are in incredibly high demand, as are big men who can both defend and shoot the ball.

It may not always be this way, however. Another large and ever-fluctuating factor that influences the “most important” argument is the makeup of the league’s talent, and in this regard, the scales may be beginning to tip ever so slightly in the direction of guards. Stephen Curry and James Harden lead the MVP discussion as the year winds down, and an influx of talent at both guard positions over the last several years, plus the eventual decline of guys like LeBron, may give way to a whole new pecking order.

What will be at the crux of this shift, in ways similar to the forward slots, is versatility, particularly defensively. In a league that’s developed such a heavy emphasis on exploiting matchups and hammering weak points until a given opponent is forced to adapt (tactics that are only heightened during the playoffs), guys with the chops to defend multiple types of players on the perimeter are of paramount importance. Jimmy Butler and Klay Thompson are max-level players due in large part to their ability to clamp down on virtually any opponent’s top perimeter option in a pinch, an invaluable ace in the hole for their coaches. It doesn’t hurt that both are legitimate offensive weapons in their own right as well, but even slightly less well-rounded guys like Khris Middleton, Danny Green, or pre-injury Wesley Matthews fit the mold and are becoming a more valued commodity as a result.

These types, along with the true elite like Curry, Harden, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Damian Lillard, John Wall and Kyrie Irving, are threatening to shift the balance of positional importance. The league loves drive-and-kick play with as much shooting as humanly possible, and all of these top guys have some combination of top shelf skills herein. They’re also examples of the way the game has gotten smarter; with more complex schemes on both ends of the floor, having a given team’s most frequent ball-handlers operating at a high level of basketball IQ is becoming more and more vital.

Looking even further down the line, one can see the outlines of a guard-driven league. Many of those listed above are still very young, and the next group of potential stars – including three from the 2014 draft in Dante Exum, Marcus Smart and Elfrid Payton – check many of the above boxes already. A guy like Exum, for instance, is already a pesky and remarkably high-ceiling defender at multiple positions with his length and speed combination, one who could become his own new breed of a two-way mismatch nightmare if he puts everything together offensively. And to stretch things even more, a 2015 draft class including potential superstars such as D’Angelo Russell and Emmanuel Mudiay could add even more talent to the growing crop.

As the game continues to evolve at a breakneck pace, so will the positional constructs therein. But given the current direction and the various talent pools, down the line it’s easy to see a league dominated by smart, adaptable, versatile ball-handlers who can play both ends of the court at a high level.

– Ben Dowsett

Center

In 2012, the NBA removed the center position from the All-Star ballot, switching the format to two categories of frontcourt and backcourt players.

The dearth of star-caliber centers in the league only emphasizes how important it can be to have one.

The modern era of point-guard dominated play hasn’t exactly resulted in many titles.  Tony Parker and Chauncey Billups are the lone NBA Finals MVP winners since Isiah Thomas in 1990.

Of course not many centers have that honor, with Shaquille O’Neal and Hakeem Olajuwon the standouts –  although some would claim Tim Duncan is indeed the center for the San Antonio Spurs.

Size is key in the NBA.  Jahlil Okafor could be the top pick in this year’s draft.

Rudy Gobert has turned the Utah Jazz into one of the best teams in the league since the All-Star break.

Hassan Whiteside has helped Miami stay afloat without Chris Bosh (pulmonary embolism), turning the team in a potential playoff spoiler.

The Clippers didn’t miss much of a beat without Blake Griffin, with DeAndre Jordan knocking out 20-20 games while his All-Star teammate recovered from surgery on his elbow to remove a staph infection.

If that center can score and defend?  That’s how you want to start a basketball team.

– Eric Pincus

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