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"Position-less" players

C8TS

C8TS

Junior
Nov 8, 2011
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I think we have the new gimmick and recruiting tool that Calipari is using to recruits. You can hear it when he talks about the 2016 class, it mentions "position-less" several times. You can even see it when playing 3 PG's in Ulis, Murray and Briscoe together.

The NBA has been going to position-less players as well ... it's not uncommon to see a 6'10 small forward and a 6'9 center or even two point guards on the floor at the same time.

Now, it seems like Calipari is adjusting to this NBA theme and bringing it into college.
This guy is a marketing GENIUS. Always a step ahead of everyone.
 
"Position-less" or "utility" players is what you're seeing from a lot of the championship teams in many different sports these days, but it only works if you're able to get guys that would otherwise play the same position if their skills compliment one another (thus making it easier to play them in a line-up together) and who are selfless enough to sacrifice their touches and stats for the common goal of playing a winning team game.

With Kentucky basketball, we're lucky enough to have one of the few visionaries that is able to put something like that together and make it work.
 
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n8lbs said:
Except Coach K has been doing this for many years.
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Yeah, not really. K has ran the same finesse shoot 3's, flop, get bailed out by the stripes, and shoot free throws style for many years. Don't think I've ever seen him run an "interchangeable parts" type roster where multiple guys can fill in at multiple spots, his prototypical line-up seems to be 3 or 4 shooters and a brute or two allowed to get away with murder down low.

I'm actually thinking more along the lines of the San Antonio Spurs and the way Pop does things, with athletic players that can score and defend from multiple positions on the court. That's the blue print. You also see it with the Golden State Warriors, New England Patriots, Kansas City Royals, etc.
 
Brando Mac said:
Yeah, not really. K has ran the same finesse shoot 3's, flop, get bailed out by the stripes, and shoot free throws style for many years. Don't think I've ever seen him run an "interchangeable parts" type roster where multiple guys can fill in at multiple spots, his prototypical line-up seems to be 3 or 4 shooters and a brute or two allowed to get away with murder down low.

I'm actually thinking more along the lines of San Antonio Spurs and the way Pop does things, with athletic players that can score and defend from multiple positions on the court. That's the blue print. You also see it with the Golden State Warriors, New England Patriots, Kansas City Royals, etc.
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St. Louis Cardinals.
 
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Yeah, Jon Scheyer was a point guard. Kyle Singler was a PF. Nolan Smith was a PG. Not to mention running Tyus and Quinn together last year. BUT FLOPPING LOL NO ARGUMENT.
 
n8lbs said:
Yeah, Jon Scheyer was a point guard. Kyle Singler was a PF. Nolan Smith was a PG. Not to mention running Tyus and Quinn together last year. BUT FLOPPING LOL NO ARGUMENT.
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Totally different situation. Duke lacked parts in 2010. They used what they had to and got extremely lucky. Brian ZooBeek are you f'in me?

Cal would like to have ,legitimately have, 5 interchangeable parts. And I'd love to see that. 5 magic johnsons.
 
n8lbs said:
Yeah, Jon Scheyer was a point guard. Kyle Singler was a PF. Nolan Smith was a PG. Not to mention running Tyus and Quinn together last year. BUT FLOPPING LOL NO ARGUMENT.
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Are you trying to be annoyingly horrible?
 
n8lbs said:
Except Coach K has been doing this for many years.
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Yeah how did that positionless scheme work out for K Tuesday night when he had no pg?

There's a right way to do it and a wrong way. Cal always has a strong pg running the show(except for the 2013 team). You can make the other 4 guys on the floor positionless but you can't not have a set pg.
 
Positionless is just another term for versatile....which is always a good thing in basketball.
 
The original NBA position-less player: "In Game 6, Magic Johnson played what may have been the greatest game of his career. Playing on the road in Philadelphia, Magic (a 6'9" rookie point guard) started the game at center and eventually played all 5 positions in a dominating performance. Scoring a game-high 42 points and grabbing a game-high 15 rebounds—and handing out 7 assists—Magic Johnson led the Lakers to the NBA crown."



Has there been a college player that did that? IDK, maybe someone else does know of a college player who played all 5 positions in a game. Please share.
 
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n8lbs said:
He did have a PG, a very inexperienced and apparently unprepared one.
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The sad thing is, we had 2 just as inexperienced and unprepared as Duke's Thorton, but our guys looked way better than Dukes. Our two guys are obviously more talented than Thorton or the other head flopping pg you guys have.
 
n8lbs said:
I was about to say, I can't think of a player who could play all 5 positions in college because LeBron went pro before college.
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LeBron has said: if he went to college, it would have been UK. Missed opportunity for UK B/C of silly NBA rule that let players go straight to the NBA from high school.
 
kyjeff1 said:
Yeah how did that positionless scheme work out for K Tuesday night when he had no pg?

There's a right way to do it and a wrong way. Cal always has a strong pg running the show(except for the 2013 team). You can make the other 4 guys on the floor positionless but you can't not have a set pg.
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A good ballhandler and passer, sure. Not necessarily someone you'd call a traditional point guard. If you have somebody like LeBron, you don't need a pg. The idealized version of this is like S&C said, five 6'10 guys who can do everything.
 
ymmot31 said:
Been having positionless sex lately.
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Suggested reading:

BOOK_01.jpg
 
Hoskins91 said:
A good ballhandler and passer, sure. Not necessarily someone you'd call a traditional point guard. If you have somebody like LeBron, you don't need a pg. The idealized version of this is like S&C said, five 6'10 guys who can do everything.
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How many Lebron's are out there?
 
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UKvisitor said:
LeBron has said: if he went to college, it would have been UK. Missed opportunity for UK B/C of silly NBA rule that let players go straight to the NBA from high school.
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He would have come to UK in 2003 and played for Tubby?

Uh...I'm thinking no. If LeBron actually said that, he had Cal's UK program in mind, and that didn't exist when LeBron came out of HS. LeBron never seriously considered any college, but if he had been forced to play a year, it almost certainly would have been at Ohio State.
 
LeBron would've likely been at Ohio State, Dwight Howard would have been at Carolina, and Kobe would've gone to Duke (despite him worming his way out of Charlotte).
 
positionless basketball is not a gimmick in todays game. The skill level of todays elite players that are 6'9" or better has been so developed that they can make 3's or put ball on floor to drive to basket to score. Cal is totally correct to call todays game a positionless game. Cal is smart enough to use this for his advantage.
 
kyjeff1 said:
How many Lebron's are out there?
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It doesn't need to be LeBron. Just that nowadays you can get that from players you wouldn't consider traditional pg's. Most of the good perimeter players in the NBA are the guys who are doing all of the creative, playmaking for their team. Many of them are guys you wouldn't call a point guard.
 
mj2k10 said:
He would have come to UK in 2003 and played for Tubby?
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I thought I read here on this forum with a link that Lebron said that. I am searching without success so far. I swear I read it here and in the link..

Edit: I was wrong since I can't find it. Found the LeBron to Ohio State more than once.

Moving on.
 
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n8lbs said:
Players like LeBron, Okafor, and Wall shouldn't have to spend a year in college.
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Come on man. What di you want to do? Make College Basketball less entertaining? I mean with this wonderful rule where everyone has to go to college at least 1year there's about 15 or more players every year who play a year that otherwise wouldn't. It makes college basketball way better. It would be way down without the 1 year out rule.
 
I think that most people would argue that college basketball was way better before the one and done rule. It's not like some of these guys wouldn't still spend a year in college. Towns would've probably still played in college last year.
 
UKvisitor said:
I thought I read here on this forum with a link that Lebron said that. I am searching without success so far. I swear I read it here and in the link..

Edit: I was wrong since I can't find it. Found the LeBron to Ohio State more than once.

Moving on.
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The big names that almost certainly would have been at UK are Jermaine O'Neal and Tracy McGrady. UK held out on O'Neal until April of 96, then snagged Magloire when O'Neal pulled the trigger on entering the draft (O'Neal might not have been academically eligible anyway, which was part of why he went straight to the pros). Dirk Nowitizki also says he would have played at UK, but even though that does come from his mouth now, and UK definitely had a chance, I've always wondered how much of that is just Dirk liking the current UK program. When he was actually considering colleges, most people thought he would go to Cal (Berkeley), because they discovered him early, and had ties to his mentor in Germany.
 
Charles Barkley was trying his damnedest to bring Dirk to Auburn. Funny enough, there was a Dirk documentary on AXS a couple of nights ago but I only kept it on as background noise.
 
n8lbs said:
There's one at LSU.

Thank God there aren't downvotes on here.
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Downvote's? Explain.
Are you talking about giving me a thumbs down because I asked how many Lebron's are out there? Not a smart move being a visitor and all.
 
I would've been comfortable with Jamal Mashburn playing any position on the floor in college.
 
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kyjeff1 said:
Downvote's? Explain.
Are you talking about giving me a thumbs down because I asked how many Lebron's are out there? Not a smart move being a visitor and all.
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I was talking about the hyper vigilant posters here taking offense to me calling a non-Kentucky SEC player the best player in America.
 
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