The Chet Holmgren/Victor Wembanyama comparisons are inevitable, boring, and wrong. Both are rookies. Both are tall and so thin as to be two-dimensional. Both have untraditional skills for seven-footers, and both are fierce basketballhawks on defense. But the details are decidedly different.
Amazing that only 7-12 years ago, the NBA was panicking that the big man had gone the way of the dodo. We've come a long way from having to pretend that nice, productive players like Bogut, Bynum, Chandler, DeAndre, and Drummond are truly among the league's elites; exactly ten years ago, the three All-NBA centers were:
First team: Joakim Noah, averaged 12.6 points on a 48-win team
Second team: Dwight Howard's first Houston year
Third team: Al Jefferson posting up every possession and playing no defense for the Bobcats
Man, I think about that constantly! Turns out, it was just a revitalization, and now the league is awash with quality bigs again. They just look a little different than they used to, and that's a great thing.
The league is best when it has dominant players at every position on the spectrum (and all the places in between, too). I think we're pretty much there right now, give or take the nebulous small forward designation; would you agree?
So I don't care about "small forward" and traditional position codes as much, even outside the newish trend of positionless ball if in 1997 we called both Kobe and KG small forwards how much could that possibly tell us about what they do? But I absolutely agree with your thesis that talent is crazy-high across the role board as I see it:
Primary creators
Scoring guards
Wings
Small bigs
Big bigs
Assigning players to one category or another are all based on whatever possibly-meaningless distinctions are bouncing around in my head, but as a rough heuristic I think it works pretty well. You also avoid having to worry about a weak small forward class, because for me PG, Kawhi, and *mayyyyyyyyybe* even Durant and LeBron are still wings.
I don't hate that classification system. I always get bogged down in the exceptions when I try to come up with a new taxonomy. I need to think about this more, might be a fun post one day. Needs to be some sort of size x role matrix, I think, which you pretty much get at.
Nice analysis. l think it's a lot harder to be the main guy on a bad team that just started it's rebuild, who's getting everyone best look, and has no all-star level teammates to draw attention from him or open up the game for him, than it does to be a guy who's team has been tanking and stacking players for 6-7 years previously until now, has an all-star level player to take away all the attention from him, making his job a heck of a lot easier on a nightly basis. That's why Chet has a high chance of being ROTY, his team will finish higher in the standings. They both have unfair expectations. I like the analysis of his play though. Hopefully the Spurs can get the draft picks to stack up against teams like OKC one day, they are just a lot further behind on their rebuild. And don't have the length and explosiveness on defense to contend with the players they do have currently, aside from a few.
Thanks! I didn’t mean to imply Chet would have Wemby’s stats if their roles were reversed, and it’s not easier to generate offense or anything like that when defenses load up on you.
I meant more that top picks on bad teams have the freedom to play through mistakes and develop more on-ball reps. Guys in Chet’s position don’t always have that luxury given that their teams are actively trying to win. It’s not necessarily “easier” or “harder,” but it is different!
Amazing that only 7-12 years ago, the NBA was panicking that the big man had gone the way of the dodo. We've come a long way from having to pretend that nice, productive players like Bogut, Bynum, Chandler, DeAndre, and Drummond are truly among the league's elites; exactly ten years ago, the three All-NBA centers were:
First team: Joakim Noah, averaged 12.6 points on a 48-win team
Second team: Dwight Howard's first Houston year
Third team: Al Jefferson posting up every possession and playing no defense for the Bobcats
Man, I think about that constantly! Turns out, it was just a revitalization, and now the league is awash with quality bigs again. They just look a little different than they used to, and that's a great thing.
The league is best when it has dominant players at every position on the spectrum (and all the places in between, too). I think we're pretty much there right now, give or take the nebulous small forward designation; would you agree?
So I don't care about "small forward" and traditional position codes as much, even outside the newish trend of positionless ball if in 1997 we called both Kobe and KG small forwards how much could that possibly tell us about what they do? But I absolutely agree with your thesis that talent is crazy-high across the role board as I see it:
Primary creators
Scoring guards
Wings
Small bigs
Big bigs
Assigning players to one category or another are all based on whatever possibly-meaningless distinctions are bouncing around in my head, but as a rough heuristic I think it works pretty well. You also avoid having to worry about a weak small forward class, because for me PG, Kawhi, and *mayyyyyyyyybe* even Durant and LeBron are still wings.
I don't hate that classification system. I always get bogged down in the exceptions when I try to come up with a new taxonomy. I need to think about this more, might be a fun post one day. Needs to be some sort of size x role matrix, I think, which you pretty much get at.
Nice analysis. l think it's a lot harder to be the main guy on a bad team that just started it's rebuild, who's getting everyone best look, and has no all-star level teammates to draw attention from him or open up the game for him, than it does to be a guy who's team has been tanking and stacking players for 6-7 years previously until now, has an all-star level player to take away all the attention from him, making his job a heck of a lot easier on a nightly basis. That's why Chet has a high chance of being ROTY, his team will finish higher in the standings. They both have unfair expectations. I like the analysis of his play though. Hopefully the Spurs can get the draft picks to stack up against teams like OKC one day, they are just a lot further behind on their rebuild. And don't have the length and explosiveness on defense to contend with the players they do have currently, aside from a few.
Thanks! I didn’t mean to imply Chet would have Wemby’s stats if their roles were reversed, and it’s not easier to generate offense or anything like that when defenses load up on you.
I meant more that top picks on bad teams have the freedom to play through mistakes and develop more on-ball reps. Guys in Chet’s position don’t always have that luxury given that their teams are actively trying to win. It’s not necessarily “easier” or “harder,” but it is different!