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Pat Riley believes in position-less basketball

AlaskanAssassin

AlaskanAssassin

Well-Known Member
Thought this was interesting. Are we headed in a new direction of NBA Basketball?

"The game today is different than it was five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago," Riley said. "…It's sort of a position-less game. We don't talk about point guards anymore, two guards or shooting guards or power forwards. As a matter of fact, when the word power forward comes out, I want to eat some oatmeal."


https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/222401/Riley_Believes_League_Gravitating_Toward_Position_Less_Approach_To_Team_Building

This begs the question, are we headed in the right direction as far as player personnel goes? Are we versatile and "position-less?"
 
If the players truly understand their strengths and weaknesses then position-less basketball is great. It's when you have a big guy (usually) who thinks he has guard skills that ****s everything up. So in theory it works great, or if you can get lucky and actually have players whose skills cover all positions ala Lebron James, but other than that it is a difficult idea to make work.
 
Popavich runs a highly position-less system. You still have your bigs and wings but all pieces are theoretically interchangeable. Anyone on the team is supposed to be capable of filling the high or low post, the rest space.
 
Such a crock of ****...shocker that he believes this now that he has a Dream Team, and the one player more than any other who can play four positions and is the best player on the planet, thus creating awful mismatches...
 
Wes Mantooth said:
Such a crock of ****...shocker that he believes this now that he has a Dream Team, and the one player more than any other who can play four positions and is the best player on the planet, thus creating awful mismatches...
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Exactly what I was thinking. Another thing that is contributing to this idea is that the league is seriously lacking in quality big men right now. If Shaq or Hakeem were in their primes right now there is no way that the league would be looking to Miami's format as the prototype.
 
This is very similar to when John Wooden would always say he doesn't scout/prepare for the other team, he just wants to practice what his guys do best ..

easy to say when you have the best players, by a mile..
 
This is not a new concept. What's new is having three HOF-ers collude to **** and piss on the NBA. Being able to play basketball like this is a luxury he's been afforded an inordinate amount of times.
 
His idea is not new. The read and react offense uses positions minimally. As long as you put your players in the best position to score you're running a good offense. Granted, I don't know any pro teams that run this offense. Plenty of girl college teams and high school teams run this offense, however.

The Jazz also minimize positions. I remember Phil Johnson (Weber State Alum) mentioning on the radio that the "Bigs" and the "Wings" were interchangeable.

However, to be a true positionless team every player needs to be able to hold his own inside and outside. When Udonis Haslem starts taking the ball up the court and lifting threes then I'll buy into Riley's heat being "positionless".


Of course, it doesn't hurt when you have the clear advantage talent-wise. Lebron James is almost the definition of a position mismatch.
 
franklin said:
Calipari fellating alert.
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That was a knock on the coaches (incl Calipari) who act like theyve reinvented the game, when actually they've just got the better team. Cal, I.e, recruits with his dribble-drive offense .. The reality is they could have won last year running about any system .. With those players.
 
Let's see:

Mo can play the one or two
Hayward can play two, three, four
Marvin can play three, four
Millsap can play three, four
Favors can play four, five

Good start.
 
Well, Miami switches almost everything on defense. In fact, the game they lost in the Finals was the game they quit switching (because Ibaka made a few shots).
 
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