One of the most irritating habits among NBA fans is the desire to confine certain players’ games into a single positional label. That’s often pointless, and the Philadelphia 76ers have a few prime examples.
Every NBA fan grew up with the five-position setup: point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward and center. Each position had different attributes and archetypes it conformed to, and they helped us define certain roles around the league.
That setup, while still relevant, is starting to show it’s age. There are still natural centers who can’t play anywhere else and point guards who embody everything the position traditionally meant (we’re looking at you, Chris Paul), but in general, positional labels are becoming more and more outdated.
With more skill across the league and versatility at an all-time high, trying to peg certain players’ production into a single positional categorey can be a disservice more than anything else.
LeBron James has always been considered a small forward, but has spent lots of time playing the four on defense and single-handedly running the Cavs’ offense this year. Kevin Durant is another traditional small forward, yet has emerged as one of the league’s better shot blockers.
Philadelphia 76ers
There’s a certain malleability to some players’ games that can’t be defined by one position. That’s why it’s often better to narrow the titles down to three-ish categories, if using them at all: guard, forward and center — even though some names still straddle the line in both directions.
The Philadelphia 76ers are a good example of this. Ben Simmons has been called a power forward and a point guard his whole career, while neither side of that argument gaining much ground with the other.
His role this year has been that of a high-usage point guard, but he still spends a lot of time defending forwards and roaming on the defensive end. He also shares the floor with T.J. McConnell at times, theoretically shifting him out of his pure-point guard role.
So rather than getting up in arms over which position Simmons plays, look at him as a mixture of multiple positions in a league that’s centered around versatility. He has parts of point guard, small forward and power forward all mixed in.
That discussion is bound to affect Markelle Fultz as well, as he’ll being playing lots of off-guard when sharing the court with Simmons. Assuming his shot comes around, a good chunk of Fultz’s production will come from spot-up shooting and off-ball cutting.
Traditionally, that’s the role of a shooting guard.
Fultz is also a beyond-talented ball handler who can get penetration and make impressive reads as a passer on a consistent basis, though. He was the lead guard at Washington, and will bring many of those same benefits to what will hopefully become a more dynamic Sixers offense once he returns to full strength.
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He’s also strong and long enough to defend either guard spot, hovering around 6-foot-4 with a 6-foot-9 wingspan. Even defensively, it’ll be tough to peg him into any one position on every single play.
So instead of saying “Fultz is a point guard!” or vice versa, call him a guard. Someone who has different responsibilities that, perhaps 10 years ago, would have been split between a pair of more concrete positions.
Robert Covington, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, Jerryd Bayless and Dario Saric are all players who could be thrown into this conversation as well. That shows how rapidly the league (and the game) is changing.
Covington would play as a small-ball four for a lot of teams and can defend four positions. TLC’s role blends shooting guard and small forward quite a bit. Bayless is a natural point guard who has held anything but a lead guard role this season. Saric has the ball handling and playmaking touch that most power forwards didn’t have a generation or so ago.
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In short, positions don’t always tell the whole story — and the Sixers are a good example of the flaws that come with the five-position setup most analysts continue to use without context.