With the point guard explosion happening right now in the NBA, as well as the immense importance of quarterbacks in football, I’ve been wondering lately if the point guard position in basketball is just as important as the all-mighty, bang-all-the-hottest-ladies QB.
In the NFL especially, quarterback is the end-all, be-all position in recent years. Just look at the money being thrown around; the highest-paid positions are quarterback, guys who rush the QB (defensive ends and 3-4 “pass rushers” like Denver’s Von Miller and San Francisco’s Aldon Smith), guys who protect the QB’s edges (usually the left tackle, since that’s a right-handed QB’s “blind side”), guys that catch the QB’s passes really well ($100 million is REALLY EXPENSIVE for a receiver, but that’s what Calvin Johnson got) and guys that defend the QB’s targets really well (elite cornerbacks).
The reason Richard Sherman is significantly more valuable to Seattle than Earl Thomas, the best safety in football, is that Sherman is the best corner in football. He shuts down the QB’s best target, allowing Thomas to do the hyperactive freewheeling that got him paid. Earl Thomas couldn’t do his job without elite corner play.
Ancillary or fungible positions like safety, running back, linebacker, and offensive guard don’t get as much attention, or money, because of the advent of THROW THROW THROW ALL THE DAMN TIME in football these days. College football still features high-powered running attacks like Oregon’s, but with the athletes in the NFL, that tactic gets shut down unless teams really commit to it.
Unfortunately, passing sells tickets, gets sponsors, puts points on the board, and gets wins. You can only do that if you have a very good quarterback, one with charisma, a cool-sounding name, a commanding presence, and talent.
I put talent last because I subscribe to Grantland’s Bill Simmons’ theory about quarterbacks: 25% talent, 75% intangibles. I’d rather follow a guy like Russell Wilson than some dude named Blake Bortles. Just say “Russell Wilson” for me real quick. Good, strong name, and the guy behind it, while small for his position, wills himself and his team to success.
Other QBs like Colin Kaepernick may have awkward names, but a handy shortcut (“Kap”) and a badass look (tattoos, brah) make up for that. The best QBs in the NFL, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, have the total package. For each guy it’s a slightly different mix, but the same of ingredients of toughness, charisma, talent, leadership, and stunning good looks are there. They’re ideal frontmen for their respective teams on and off the field, and that’s what you demand from your quarterback.
Guys like Blake Bortles, Andy Dalton, Blaine Gabbert, Geno Smith, Mark Sanchez, and others? They may have failed (or are about to fail) for perfectly valid on-the-field reasons, but the reasons that they’re destined to fail, that they never had a chance? It’s the intangibles, man.
Blake Bortles is the name of a guy who should be doing taxes or coaching softball at his local high school, not a starting QB who was drafted in the first round by a desperate Jacksonville team, surrounded by less offensive talent than the neighboring Florida State program in Tallahassee, then used as a defensive lineman’s personal tackling dummy for 16 games. Just the name is enough to turn you off, “Blake BORTLES.” Who the hell ever succeeded at quarterback in the NFL with a lame-sounding name like that?
Dalton is a ginger, and we all know gingers have no soul (except the attractive female gingers…they suck souls out), Gabbert started the “draft slow white QBs with lame names” tradition in Jacksonville, a guy with the surname of Smith can’t be an elite professional athlete, and Mark Sanchez…I saw that guy play at USC. He was not a pro QB, and his experiences with the New York Jets proved that (BUTT FUMBLE!!!)
What does this have to do with NBA point guards? Well, I believe that Simmons’ “coolness theory” about quarterbacks can also apply to point guards in basketball. Like the QB, points have the ball in their hands a great deal. Like the QB, points must be able to run an offense competently to survive in the league. Like the QB, charisma must go hand-in-hand with talent, if not be more important. And like the QB, the point guard tends to be among the frontmen for the team.
Obviously, the dynamics are different for some teams. The Houston Rockets have James Harden handle the ball most of the time, the Oklahoma City Thunder don’t have a true point guard (Russell Westbrook is Dwayne Wade/Clyde Drexler reborn, but he can’t run an NBA offense to save his life), and a few teams either have their floor leader injured, like Minnesota, or just don’t have one. The Los Angeles Lakers have been the outliers in this theory since Magic Johnson retired, and will continue to be until Kobe Bryant retires.
For most NBA teams, however, the point guard is the straw that stirs the pick-and-roll drink in this pick-and-roll league. Whether it’s cerebral, flawless execution of the offense (Chris Paul, Tony Parker, Rajon Rondo), stellar one-on-one play (too many to mention), impossibly accurate shooting (Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard) or possessing enough guts to make a ball of haggis larger than Scotland (Lillard again), the skills of today’s point guards are very diverse; in an NBA that features more specialization among its non-star players, seeing second and third-tier guys like Rondo, Jeff Teague and Mike Conley bring several above-average skills to the court is refreshing.
While I realize that having a star player at any position in basketball will have equal impact no matter what position he plays, I feel the need to compare point guards and quarterbacks because, like I mentioned before, they have the most offensive control in their respective sports. Having Chris Paul has been just as important for the Los Angeles Clippers as having Aaron Rodgers is for the Green Bay Packers.
Paul was traded to the Clippers after then-Commissioner David Stern, acting as the executor for the ownerless New Orleans franchise, vetoed a trade to the Lakers. That single decision by Stern seismically altered the fortunes of both Los Angeles franchises.
The Clippers had been the laughingstock of American sports since my mother, who’s in her fifties, was a small child. They were owned by a racist pig in Donald Sterling. They were mismanaged by the geriatric Elgin Baylor, an NBA legend who eventually left the organization and sued Sterling, accusing him of racial and age discrimination. Baylor’s replacement at GM, Neil Olshey, who traded for Paul and drafted Blake Griffin, left to take the GM job at Portland because Sterling was being his disgustingly cheap self.
Fast forward to the present day. Griffin has blossomed into perhaps the best all-around player at his position today. DeAndre Jordan channeled his gifts and became a rebounding machine and terror in the middle. Doc Rivers, one of the most gifted leaders I’ve ever seen, became the coach and eventually team president. Sterling was forced to sell the team to Steve Ballmer, who promptly used his billions to improve every aspect of the Clippers’ operations, right down to the ushers and ball boys.
All that was possible because Chris Paul was there, the quarterback and ringleader. His arrival started the process of transforming the biggest joke in American sports into a well-run juggernaut with a real chance to win an NBA championship.
Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors has become perhaps the most dangerous offensive player in the NBA today, a guy that has range to 30 feet, can beat anybody off the dribble, or five-hole a clever pass between a clumsy big man’s legs to a rolling teammate. Tony Parker is one of three men who can claim to be the best player on a championship team as a point guard (Magic and Isiah Thomas are the others). Mike Conley is the tough-minded general of the Memphis Grizzlies, a personification of that team’s “Grit and Grind” personality.
You have a super-athletic freak playing out of position in Russell Westbrook, a point-by-committee in Phoenix, two solid players out East in Kyle Lowry and Jeff Teague who are overdue for their first All-Star appearances, and a guy in Derrick Rose who once was the king, but may very well be the future king.
Two more point guards I’ll highlight are Kyrie Irving and Damian Lillard. Their stats were similar last year, but Irving was considered the better player because he didn’t have the fortune of playing with LaMarcus Aldridge. When Irving starred in both the 2014 All-Star Game and the Basketball World Cup, that opinion solidified.
With this current season playing out like it is, however, Lillard is starting to gain traction. He’s had his offensive explosions, like Irving has, but the Cleveland point man is struggling to coexist with teammates who are better than he is.
When LeBron James returned to Cleveland, and Kevin Love was traded for, Irving went from being the top option on a terrible team (he and Lillard, good as they are, can’t be the top guys on winning teams) to being the number three guy on a team many were picking to win the championship. For such a young guy who’s had the ball in his hands his whole life, and the freedom to do whatever the hell he pleased with it, the adjustment understandably has been very tough for Irving.
He and Lillard have never been asked to enable other players before coming to the NBA, and while Irving has the skills to run an offense, his role should ideally be as a secondary ball-handler while LeBron runs the offense. Wait until the defense bends to stop LeBron and whoever is with him, then take LeBron’s pass on the weak side and either shoot the three or drive, depending on the situation. Sounds very simple, right?
For Lillard, whose natural inclination is to shoot with no remorse, when he plays off the ball this situation is easily resolved. Whether it’s a lack of good coaching, LeBron and Love not being on the same page, or just his own baggage, Irving has not adjusted nearly as well as Lillard to having guys on the team higher-up than he is on the food chain.
There’s also the unavoidable fact that a guy named “Kyrie” is probably destined to be gutless. I mean, “Damian Lillard” sounds like some unholy demon risen from the pits of hell, or a character from the “Assassin’s Creed” games–you know, the guys with large hoods who walk around murdering people.
Damian Lillard is a name that sounds strong and laden with authority. Kyrie is a name I’d bestow on a newborn girl or a sweet little puppy.
For both point guards and quarterbacks, while talent is important, it’s a much smaller part of the equation than you’d think. While both Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston are good, strong names with good, talented players behind them, it doesn’t take a genius to see that Mariota, if he can get over his shyness, will be a better pro than Winston, the kind of quarterback that exists to get coaches and general managers fired.
Mariota has maybe 85-90% of the physical gifts that Winston possesses (though Marcus is extremely fast for a QB), but the things that separate him and Winston are what separate Russell Wilson from Colin Kaepernick. Wilson has $100,000 talent with a million-dollar brain, and Kap has million-dollar talent with a $1 brain. That dynamic is the same with Mariota and Winston.
When you’re arguing with your buddies in a bar, a living room, or anywhere that beer and sports can combine, when player comparisons come up, remember: sometimes, it’s all in a name.
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