NBA 2010/2011 regular season has just ended, and the overwhelming consensus is that Derrick Rose will be crowned as the league MVP for the season. His individual stat line was very good, perhaps not the best in the league but he was imperative to his team. He has had to deal without the Chicago Bulls main off-season signing Carlos Boozer and also center Joakim Noah for large portions of the season, yet lead the Bulls to a league-best 62-20 regular season record. The Bulls picked up the 1st seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs and had the number of the big teams that could rival them on getting to the NBA finals. A lot of fans were expectant that he could lead Chicago to their first NBA finals title since the legendary Michael Jordan led them to six titles throughout the 90s. But can you really win it all with a point guard that is a shoot-first guard?
A point guard is supposed to run the game from an offensive point of view. They are usually the ball handler and playmakers of their teams and have to get the ball to a team’s main offensive threats with every play. A quality point guard will act as a game-manager on the court, carrying out offensive plays wanted to be run by the head coaches. Can a shoot-first point guard do this? Chicago Bulls were soundly beaten 4-1 in the best of 7 series Eastern Conference Finals by the Miami Heat. Obviously Miami Heat were expected to go far this year after bringing in Lebron James and Chris Bosh to a team that already has a superstar in Dywane Wade. But Rose’s performances, especially in the Conference Finals were particularly sub-standard and was this a result of having an extra burden of being a game manager at point guard and also being the team’s main offensive weapon and point scorer. If we look at D-Rose’s stats from the post-season, it shows that he averaged roughly around 23 shots a game for only an average of 27 points. Also his fg% was very low at .396 and also he attempted a lot of 3PM’s and only has a success rate of .248 which is terrible for a player taking a good volume of 3PA’s. This proved to be the undoing of the Bulls as he was under so much pressure to be the catalyst for the offense and it showed he was usually taking shots with maximum risk to make things happen for the team. Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder also is more of a shoot-first point guard. This also was a problem for OKC when he was taking on average 20 shots throughout the playoffs and only making .394% of his shots. Furthermore he had one of the league’s best scorers in Kevin Durant next to him yet decided to try and become a volume scorer of the team. His turnover rate was quite high as well often putting the team at jeopardy. It begs the question whether players like Westbrook are real point guards or are they two-guards?
The recent history of winning NBA teams show that the role of the point guard is to be the playmaker, creative spark and get the ball to the main attacking threats in their team. Recent winning teams like LA Lakers, Boston Celtics, San Antonio Spurs and Detroit Pistons have point guards such as Tony parker, Rajon Rondo, Chauncey Billups, Derek Fisher, that like to do not take a lot of shots and do not put the team at risk as much as shoot-first point guards. Players like Rajon Rondo of the Celtics play their part in the offensive scoring but do not make it their main job within the team. The dynamics of the Celtics team would be very imbalanced if Rondo attempted a lot more shots and stopped getting the ball to the primary scorers Ray Allen and Paul Pierce. By my recollection the last shoot-first point guard to win the championship was Isiah Thomas of the Detroit Pistons, in the late 80s but shoot-first guards like Allen Iverson that could potentially play as a two-guard have not found success on the biggest stage. To be fair to Iverson his Philadelhpia teams in the prime of his career were never championship-calibre and he did immensely well to reach the NBA championships and even take a game off the formidable LA Lakers.
The point of this article is to raise the question whether point-guards that are the primary scorers in a team can lead their team to ultimate glory in the NBA. After all, it does add extra pressure to that position that not everyone can handle.
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