NBA veteran explains why the 'small ball' craze is taking over the NBA

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nba-veteran-explains-why-small-150134453.html



NBA veteran explains why the 'small ball' craze is taking over the NBA
Business Insider By Scott Davis
2 hours ago






"Small ball" has become the biggest craze in the NBA.
Teams have started realizing that taking a wing player or forward and sliding them up one position gives the offense extra space, spreads a defense thin, and potentially allows for more versatility on defense.

Though the style has been around for a few years, the Golden State Warriors perhaps best popularized the movement last season when they played 6'6" Draymond Green at power forward and center and rode the style to a championship.

Jared Dudley, an eight-year NBA veteran now on the Washington Wizards, went on Zach Lowe's podcast "The Lowe Post" and discussed more teams switching to small ball, noting "Draymond Green is the blueprint. Is he unique? Yes. But it can be done, and maybe us [power forwards] can't do it as long as he can, but you can do spot minutes."

Dudley, though he's just 6'7", has gradually moved to power forward, or the "four" in small-ball lineups, creating space on offense and using his versatility to defend bigger players or switch onto guards when necessary.

Few teams commit entirely to small ball, using it more as a weapon in spot minutes, as Dudley notes. However, there are numerous benefits on offense, particularly for the players who slide up a position and suddenly have an athletic advantage over bigger opponents.

Dudley explained to Lowe that seeing Green benefit from the open space he received next to Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson encouraged him to embrace small-ball.

"He's going to get the ball in pick-and-rolls in space," Dudley explained. "So he's getting the ball, coming downhill, open threes, he's a great passer, he's got a great feel for the game. And I saw that, and that made me wanna play a little four."

"And my success, my three-point percentage went up when I went to the four. I mean, you get more wide open shots. Let's just be honest, bigs are not as smart as wings when it comes to defensively. They're lazier... they get tired faster. That's a fact. So, I mean, would you wanna have LeBron guard you, or would you wanna have Kevin Love guard you? Would you wanna have DeMarre Carroll guard you or Paul Millsap guard you?"

The bigger question for small-ball comes defensively. Though the traditional, low-post, physical big man is rare, some people wonder whether it's more physically taxing to put a smaller player at power forward or center where they may face true centers.

Lowe noted that last season in the playoffs, the Bucks, Dudley's former team, went small against the Chicago Bulls and put a smaller player on Joakim Noah, who isn't an offensive threat. Dudley told Lowe that the physical demand of playing against a bigger player is legitimate.

"Yes, there definitely is. 100%," Dudley said. "Noah is gonna bang you. He's going to keep coming to the boards, he's going to hit you in your back, he's going to put pressure on you."

Dudley noted that Paul George of the Indiana Pacers, a traditional small forward who will be asked to play power forward this season, will feel the physicality of playing up, saying, "It will be taxing to his body because they're going to bang him. He's going to have to box out every possession, because every four is going to rebound on him."

Not every team has embraced small ball, and much of it still has to do with roster fit. Teams like the Bulls still thrive with two traditional big men, and in some cases, size still plays to a team's advantage.

However, teams are beginning to flock to the movement. Versatile players who can slide up and play another position have become the biggest demand in the league, and after the Warriors demonstrated how deadly of a weapon going small can be, this coming NBA season could see the craze hit new heights.



bob
MY NOTE: Not sure I understand why this is on Yahoo's Business Insider. I can already see the vein throbbing in Cowens' head. Mine too...


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styles of play come and go.....GS won with smaller players ,though to be honest they did have Bogut , Speights and Festus who played a total of 3294 minutes uut of 3950 or so for the year.

not sure how much "small ball " they realy played this past season in reality. all three of those players are over 6-10.

so we're left with Draymond Green listed at 6-7 and 230# at PF. not exaclty playing 6-4 Marcus smart at PF are they?

in fact lets look at who played the most minutes at each postion to see just how "small" GS was last year:

C- Bogut (7-0)-1583 min
PF- Green (6-7)-2490
SF- Barnes (6-- 2318
SG- Thompson (6-7)- 2455
PG- Curry (6-3)- 2613

Bench in order of minutes played:
SF/SG- Iguodala (6-6)- 2069
PG/SG- Livingston (6-7)-1468
C/- Speights (6-10)- 1207
PG/SG- barbosa (6-2)- 982
PF/C- D. Lee (6-9)- 904
SF/SG- holiday (6-6)- 657
C- Ezeli (6-11)- 504


I think when you dig into who played minutes for GS last year, you see a fairly average sized NBA team, but the "small ball" mantra is playing fulll bore now. It just isn't true as far as GS last year though.

never let the stats stop a good (or bad) story I suppose.

kdp59 wrote:styles of play come and go.....GS won with smaller players ,though  to be honest they did have Bogut , Speights and Festus who played a total of 3294 minutes uut of 3950 or so for the year.

not sure how much "small ball " they realy played this past season in reality. all three of those players are over 6-10.

so we're left with Draymond Green listed at 6-7 and 230# at PF. not exaclty playing 6-4 Marcus smart at PF are they?

in fact lets look at who played the most minutes at each postion to see just how "small" GS was last year:

C- Bogut (7-0)-1583 min
PF- Green (6-7)-2490
SF- Barnes (6-- 2318
SG- Thompson (6-7)- 2455
PG- Curry (6-3)- 2613

Bench in order of minutes played:
SF/SG- Iguodala (6-6)- 2069
PG/SG- Livingston (6-7)-1468
C/- Speights (6-10)- 1207
PG/SG- barbosa (6-2)- 982
PF/C- D. Lee (6-9)- 904
SF/SG- holiday (6-6)- 657
C- Ezeli (6-11)- 504


I think when you dig into who played minutes for GS last year, you see a fairly average sized NBA team, but the "small ball" mantra is playing fulll bore now. It just isn't true as far as GS last year though.

never let the stats stop a good (or bad) story I suppose.

kdp,

Thanks for pulling these numbers together.

I see center Andrew Bogut playing the least number of minutes of all the starters, and I see no starter other than him over 6'8".  That's pretty small.

I look at their bench minutes and I see their two backup centers, Speights and Ezeli, playing very few minutes.  David Lee was out injured, which is how he lost his starting role but also explains his few minutes.  In fact, Lee only played in 49 games.  If you calculate up all the minutes for the center position, 48mpg x 82 games, you get 3936 total minutes.  That does not include OT games.  If you add up the minutes of the players who had the size to play PF and/or center on GSW last year (so, I'm excluding Draymond Green who played center but that was part of a strategy, not because he's built for it.  He wouldn't have lasted 82 games doing that) you get 4198 minutes.  That's Bogut plus Speights plus Lee plus Ezeli.  That's only 262 minutes more than for the center position alone.  Put another way, double the number of minutes for center to determine how many minutes for center and power forward (assuming multi-position bigs) and you get 7872 minutes.  All the minutes for ALL the players on GSW over 6'9" and you get 4198.  That's small ball because it means there are a helluva lot of minutes (7872-4198) playing "power forward" who are under 6'9".

Bogut and Speights, who is more PF than C, got the 6th and 8th most minutes on the team.  5 guys, all under 6'8" got more minutes than the starting center.  Speights played in 76 games, and he still was the 8th most in minutes played.


bob


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Since Jared Dudley has no D, he looks at the small-ball thing from only an offensive perspective other than to note that having to defend a bigger guy detracts from his offense because it tires him out and beats him up.

Small-ball indeed gave the Warriors an advantage on offense by replacing a non-threat center with another shooter or playmaking big man, but equally important to the Warriors' small-ball success was the advantage they gained at the defensive end -- the ability to switch almost everything aggressively without being put in a mismatch because they have a fleet of like-sized, long-armed defenders. When the "center" in your small-ball lineup (Draymond Green) can switch onto anyone, even a point guard, and you have a 6-7, long-armed point guard (Shaun Livingston) who can switch onto big guys, you have an incredibly versatile defense that is a huge advantage. Curry is the only one the Warriors had to really worry about in mismatches, and the Warriors did a good job minimizing those situations, plus Curry did a credible job when forced to switch.

Small-ball isn't a perfect solution -- you're vulnerable to offensive rebounds, in particular -- and it's not something that you want to run all the time, but it's important to note that the Warriors worked small-ball to their advantage at both ends of the court, not just on offense.

In one sense, small ball encourages more team play and less emphasis on dunkathons. In another sense, the fact that one of the purposes of small ball is to spread the floor and facilitate threes, the case for team play may be reduced.  But I've always thought that, the more styles a team can play, the more weapons it has to oppose a variety of teams.  So, on balance, it's probably a good thing, although I see it as a change of pace (figuratively speaking) rather than a matter of routine.  I'm trying to remember whether a coach other than Doc began the trend.

Sam

sam wrote:In one sense, small ball encourages more team play and less emphasis on dunkathons. In another sense, the fact that one of the purposes of small ball is to spread the floor and facilitate threes, the case for team play may be reduced.  But I've always thought that, the more styles a team can play, the more weapons it has to oppose a variety of teams.  So, on balance, it's probably a good thing.  I'm trying to remember whether a coach other than Doc began the trend.

Sam

Sam,

Mike D'Antoni, in Phoenix.



bob


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I guess that would have been when D'Antoni won the Coach of the Year award some time around 2004.

Sam

The real craze is the 3 point shot.  Size in and of it self may not matter as much as the fact that smalls and bigs and everything in between are spreading the floor by staying deeper on the perimeter.  And I also think that fewer pure point guards that are pass first opportunists are coming into the league.

Everybody wants their PG to shoot jumpers and have range all the way out to behind the arch.  The back to the basket post offense is almost extinct. The only place the PG has to pass to is to a teammate that is standing outside the 3 point line and he has to be able to run the various P and R option.

Everyone wants a stretch 4 and a stretch 5.

This is a copy-cat league.  

dboss

The inside-out game is a relatively easy way for today's PGs to fatten their assist totals compared to the passing wizardry necessitated when the game was compressed within a physically small area. You used a word that perfectly describes today's PGs, dboss. Opportunists. Their games involve a substantial amount of spotting and capitalizing on opportunities that open up because of floor spacing. The word I'd use for PGs of the past would be creators. Their responsibilities included a much larger proportion of creating opportunities.

Sam

sam wrote:The inside-out game is a relatively easy way for today's PGs to fatten their assist totals compared to the passing wizardry necessitated when the game was compressed within a physically small area.  You used a word that perfectly describes today's PGs, dboss.  Opportunists.  Their games involve a substantial amount of spotting and capitalizing on opportunities that open up because of floor spacing.  The word I'd use for PGs of the past would be creators.  Their responsibilities included a much larger proportion of creating opportunities.

Sam

Right on. Your point about the "wizardry" necessary for old school pgs to find the open man in a more "compressed space" is a thought that has been kicking around in my head for some time, but which I could not quite articulate. Well said. I enjoyed marvelling at the vision necessary to find those small creases. I believe our former friend R9R had that gift, which may be why it has been so hard for me to give up on him.

Shamrock,

Yes, Rondo did have that gift. The problem was that his very complexity challenged that gift with contradictory factors in his skill set and his mental outlook on the game. I don't believe he was ever able to make the entire package work to best advantage with the Celtics. Maybe he can so so with Sacramento. I hope so, for his sake.

Sam

Rondo still had great ability to pass, he was still leading the league is assists right when he left, he had the ball alot, but so do Chris Paul and Mike Conley, and they were playing with much more talent, which showed me what a great passer Rondo really was. Considering what he had to work with, he actually did make people better, but look at all our youth, young team still learning new system with many new players and a gaping hole on the interior, no rim protection....it wasn't all his fault. Rondo's problem, one of them at least, was his inability to get to the line and then hit the FT's, that is too much of a burden at winning time for a team without a primetime clutch scorer, like say a Paul Pierce.