A New Era of Positions in Basketball

This is part two of a two-part series on positions and archetypes in the NBA. Click here for part one.

As the NBA has experienced an evolution of dramatic pace over the last six years, there's never been more disagreement over how to define positions in basketball. As I touched on in the last blog post, the game has shifted towards a more "outside-in" rather than "inside-out" offensive style, placing a greater emphasis on versatility and skills like ball handling, shooting, slashing, passing, and so forth. Think about it: how many times have you heard it pointed out about some player 6'9 or taller that he has "guard skills" – quite frequently is the answer, so much so that it makes you wonder whether that should just be taken for granted at this point (Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, and Evan Mobley are a few notable names from the last couple of draft classes). The result is a muddying of the waters when we try to fit certain players into strictly defined positions with archaic views of basketball in mind – who are the guards on a team if 4 out of 5 guys in the lineup can play like guards and abound with guard skills?

Take LeBron James, for instance, a player whose position has sparked continued debate for the duration of his career. He's been listed as a forward for the bulk of his time in the NBA but that hasn't been enough to quiet debates over his actual position due to the fact that for almost two decades, he's controlled his team's entire offense like a true quarterback. But many older basketball fans simply refuse to conceive of James as a point guard, since that category almost always denoted smaller players who didn't score too much. So LeBron can't be a "true point guard", he's 6'9 and averages 30! And so, given that James is the size of a wing and attacks downhill in like manner, he's popularized the "point-foward" category, seen as essentially a hybrid between a scoring wing and a playmaking guard. Still though, this isn't an official position so confusion remains.

But this is seen as a "hybrid archetype" only through an outdated lens of what constitutes a "point guard" and a "wing": I hate to sound like a broken record, but versatility is expected from almost every player on the floor nowadays; wings who can facilitate at high volume are just far more common than they once were (think Jayson Tatum, Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, and so on). And like Steve Nash pointed out, the idea that a point guard shouldn't be expected to score at a high rate is a thing of the past: today's point guards are "out there to attack."

You are who you guard?

Many suggest that a player's position simply correspond to that of whoever they're tasked with guarding, but once again this concept is rooted in ideas about basketball that have become practically obsolete. It's precisely because "guard skills" are more common now that players might have a different position on offense than they do on defense. In the old NBA, with its slower pace and higher diet of post ups, the threat of conceding an open 3 was a much less pressing matter than it is today, and switching ball screens wasn't nearly as prevalent. What did preoccupy teams though was conceding a mismatch, or a size advantage, that could be exploited with the old back-to-the-basket game. As such, centers just stuck with centers, small forwards remained with their ilk, and the same was true for point guards. It was thus far easier to simply conclude that you are the position you guard. Now though, in the aftermath of the pace-and-space revolution, with the prevalence of switching and the diversity of skill that is so ubiquitous across every position, it's much less simple than the old dictum might suggest. So yes, even if a player like Luka Doncic is almost never guarding the other team's point, that doesn't mean he can't be a "real" point guard (whatever that even means now) – otherwise, who is the Mavs' point guard? Reggie Bullock who averages two dribbles per game?

Modern Offensive Archetypes

A new way of thinking about roles on the basketball floor is in order. Away with the strict old categories of point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center; instead, we should focus on archetypes that are based on role and responsibilities within a modern NBA offense. Think about it: in a league where both Zion Williamson and Cam Johnson play the same position, it's pretty clear the reductive label of "PF" isn't nearly sufficient to describe what they do.

Of course, I'm aware the lines are much more blurry between each category than the list below might suggest, and my intention isn't that we just popularize a bunch of buzz words. Archetypes can be seen as fluid, and many players transcend rigid categories. But as I see it, this is a much clearer way to think about what players do on the hardwood floor beyond traditional positions. Focusing on archetypes also helps us forecast the actual role – and maybe even upside – a draft prospect might eventually have on a championship team.

Below I've listed all the archetypes present in today's game that I could think of, along with some examples as well:

• Primary initiators: true all-around offensive engines – they control the largest share of their team's offense through a heavy on-ball scoring and playmaking load. Also called "lead guards" (e.g. Trae Young, Damian Lillard, Ja Morant)

• Big initiators: wing-sized offensive engines (e.g. LeBron James, Luka Doncic)

• Scoring engine: versatile high-volume scorers who can also create a large number of advantages for their teams (e.g. Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Jayson Tatum, Donovan Mitchell). What distinguishes them from primary initiators (true offensive engines), is that a much larger share of the offensive engine's impact is tilted towards playmaking/facilitating.

• Wing-Big hybrid: large wings whose offense revolves around downhill attack and finishing around the basket with occasional play in the post. This constant downhill pressure frees up their teammates for open shots on the perimeter (e.g. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Zion Williamson)

• Modern post big: bigs with heavy post up volume. Since the pick-and-roll is so prevalent nowadays and building a post-centric offense isn't in vogue, they usually have to be good rollers as well. The more elite ones have also incorporated some perimeter game to their arsenals. Due to the relative inefficiency of the post up, only a select few – the historically outstanding – can be the true centerpiece of a championship offense (e.g. Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid). Other ones (e.g. Nikola Vucevic, Jonas Valanciunas) are at the far lower end of the spectrum.

• Secondary creator: shot-creators who can both operate off-ball next to higher-end offensive talent (such as a primary initiator or scoring engine) while also bearing some of the on-ball creation load (e.g. Kyrie Irving, Paul George, Brandon Ingram, Khris Middleton)

• Facilitators: Highly skilled passers, they're complimentary offensive weapons with reduced scoring volume. They can initiate some pick-and-roll, distribute the ball to movement shooters, and exploit gaps in the defense. They're not great advantage creators, but they're often shooting threats, which enhances their value next to high-end advantage creators like scoring engines (e.g. Jrue Holiday, De'Angelo Russell, Tyrese Haliburton)

• Connectors: off-ball guards or wings who can maintain advantages or finish them by shooting, cutting and attacking the middle of the floor (e.g., Mikal Bridges, Jaden McDaniels)

• Rim runners: play finishing bigs (lob threats). Almost none of their scoring output is self-created (e.g., Rudy Gobert, Jarrett Allen, Clint Capela)

• Stretch bigs: play-finishing bigs with shooting talent. At times they may also be good rollers due to their length (e.g. Kristaps Porzingis, Brook Lopez)

• Versatile bigs: jack of all trades type-bigs. They have multi-faceted skills which can include driving, passing, rolling, some shooting and posting up at times (e.g. Wendell Carter Jr, Bam Adebayo)

• Three-Point movement threats: highly skilled 3-point shooters frequently in off-ball motion. Screening plays are run for them throughout the game to get them open looks since they're usually not great self creators. Along with providing great spacing value, their half-court movement along with the threat of their shooting can cause the defense to scramble and result in open looks for their teammates (e.g. Klay Thompson, Desmond Bane, Duncan Robinson)

• Spot-up shooters: good but limited shooting ability, can't really hit shots off of movement so they're restricted to spotting up in the corner (e.g. PJ Tucker, Dorian Finney-Smith, Grant Williams)

For each archetype there are a number of sub-archetypes (for brevity's sake I won't delve into all of these). For instance, both Ja Morant and Damian Lillard are primary initiators but each one's M.O. differs quite a bit from the other. Morant's attack principally takes the form of aggressive and explosive rim attacks while Lillard's game is much more perimeter oriented (of course, that's not to say Lillard isn't also a great slasher or that Morant just doesn't launch from downtown) .

Similarly, players may either fit multiple archetypes and have secondary or tertiary ones. Jokic for instance is one of the most versatile bigs ever, and can fit the categories of post big, versatile big, and stretch big. Antetokounmpo and Williamson at times look like big initiators. Lord knows which bill Ben Simmons fits. So things aren't clear cut all the time; a player can have a primary archetype as well as secondary and tertiary ones. Others are so historically unique they're difficult to constrain under one catch-all term, like Stephen Curry who probably toes the line between a hybrid scoring engine and primary initiator. Neither are these categories mutually exclusive; primary initiators (i.e., on-ball offensive engines) have to be good scoring engines in order for them to playmake at such heavy volume for their team (the much weightier on-ball playmaking responsibility they bear is what separates them from "scoring engines" here).

All this is to say that categories aren't black and white, neatly distinguished all the time; in fact, there's quite a bit of grey area. The paradigm above is only intended to simplify things to a certain extent and provide a better understanding of basketball roles than the outdated conceptions of each position might tell us.

What all this does entail though is that many players have been wrongly associated with a certain position, and along with that all the ways with which a position is conceptualized. One of the clearest examples of this to me is James Harden, who's been branded a shooting guard and is consistently ranked among shooting guards historically despite having always been the primary playmaker and offensive engine for his team. To me, Harden is clearly what people think of as a "point guard" in the modern game; Dwyane Wade at his peak functioned very similarly as well. But, again, due to outdated views on basketball – that a point guard shouldn't really be averaging 30 – Harden oddly remains among the ranks of history's shooting guards in fan perception.