Difference between revisions of "Positions"

Revision as of 00:26, 20 December 2006

PG

Selecting a PG PG is one of the most important positions in the game. If you're PG play is bad, your offense doesn't even get started often enough to give you a real chance of winning. Normally you want your player under 6'8" with the best handling at PG. If another player has overwhelmingly better other attributes and still has good hands as well then put him ahead of the excellent hands guy.

The problem now is that not all players who look like they should be able to play PG can actually do it well. Some players with good hands (and even excellent hands) just don't seem to be able to produce at PG. You may need to experiment with a number of options. Sometimes an underclassmen who can't handle PG matures into an upperclassman who can, so keep trying.

The above is all great advice except when you have no guys under 6'8" with better than fair hands. Now you need to experiment with taller PG's or with players who have other supporting attributes. Intelligence, athleticism, shooting and defense can all go at least part of the way to making up for a lack of handling.

Attribute Requirements

As much handling as possible. Intelligence is most important at this position. Most coaches also want defense. You'll see the whole range of attributes as far as scoring those (see PG Archetypes below). Rebounding is least important.

Height Requirements

PG's taller than 6'7" get penalties to their ball handling skills. You can get away with a taller PG, but some guys fall to pieces. There are plenty of tales of woe of "god pointguards who grew two inches and could no longer play the position".

PG Archetypes

• Pure Passing

Excellent hands and told not to shoot these guys might go for 1-3ppg and will be looking at 5,6,7 and upwards assists per game.

• Pure Scoring

A shooter with low ball-handling related turnovers can take over a game like few others when placed at PG and given the green light. If you've only got 1 real scorer and he can play PG without turning it over too often (even if he's only Fair hands) its worth considering putting him at PG where he'll get a lot of the ball.

SG

Attribute Requirements

You want as much shooting and defense as possible. Athleticism makes for more scoring and better defending. Hands and intelligence are nice to have but by no means essential. Rebounding is a small plus, but probably least important.

Height Requirements

You'll see players from 5'8" to 7'0" here (taller than 6'8" is rare though).

SG Archetypes

• Standard

See the attribute requirements above

• Defender

A team that is strong at scoring in the other positions will sometimes just put a lock down defender at this position even if they can't score. Lots of teams #1 scoring option is at SG so this can be a viable strategy.

• 2nd Point Guard

If a team has a strong scoring frontcourt, or if they are going the pure scoring PG option you will see essentially a PG playing at SG as an extra distributor to get the ball into the hands of the shooters.

SF

Attribute Requirements

A well rounded player as tall as you can find is generally what you're looking for here. You'll get pretty good use out of all six attributes at this position. Intelligence is also used to determine if the SF will call a timeout if they are having trouble inbounding the ball, so this probably isn't the place to hide that None intelligence guy.

Height Requirements

6'4"-7'0". 6'4" is certainly on the short side. Competitive teams tend to average somewhere between 6'7" and 6'8" for SF (if you look at say the top 20-50 teams after game 18)

PF

Attribute Requirements

Shooting, defending, rebounding and athleticism are all useful things to have. Handling and intelligence are probably least important at this position.

Height Requirements

6'7"+. You might be able to get away with a talented 6'6" guy but they're a rarity rather than the norm. Comeptitive teams will average 6'9"+ here.

Comments

Very often PF is simply a team's 2nd best big man. You can take advantage of this by having a solid scorer at the position.

C

Attribute Requirements

As for PF but handling and intelligence are more useful here as C's get more touches than PF's.

Height Requirements

6'8"+. Again you want as tall as possible here. Even 6'8" players could be giving away 8 or 9 inches to some players.