LogGrad98
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exactly. When will people start to understand we are at a time in the NBA where there are 3 positions, not 5. And Mitchell is the most obvious case.
You have guards, wings and bigs. Mitchell is a guard.
This is mostly semantics. We have always had this kind of division. The thing you are seeing more now is players working to develop a broader skill-set, which blurs the lines a bit. But what was Magic Johnson? He is listed as a point guard, but he played all 5 positions very effectively, most famously in the first finals series he won when he literally played all 5 positions and dominated in the center spot to win it all. How about Barkley, who was far from a traditional "big". How about Drexler who is really the prototypical "wing" as we see them now. Hornacek was a prototypical "guard" as we see it now, being able to very effectively play both positions (he just happened to play alongside the best true PG to ever play the game, but he played a lot of point and "combo" on other teams and even for the Jazz gave us a 2nd playmaker on the floor). The biggest change IMO in the last few years is how much players and teams rely on the 3-ball. This is the most drastic change realistically. But there really isn't a difference in the positions. The tactics will change as time progresses and teams take advantage of their individual strengths. The 80's Lakers, for example, played a lot of small-ball but then could switch to half-court sets at will as well with Kareem in the middle. But take him out and they often ran with Rambis or Worthy at the 4/5 to get into the run-n-gun. You can see examples of it all over. The game does indeed evolve, but it is also somewhat cyclical. If the next dominant players (read the next Bron or Curry) happens to be a glut of traditional big-men it will shift yet again.