Positional Fluidity: How Skill Sets are Overriding Positional Caps

The young core of the Oklahoma City Thunder graced the cover of SLAM 247. In an interview during the photo shoot for the magazine, sophomore Jalen Williams (J-Dub) described how he works on his game. "My workouts don’t really reflect kind of how I play, as far as positionally. Especially since I got in the NBA a lot of it has been tailored towards playing off who is on the court." The adage of "practice how you play" seems to not apply in Williams' unique circumstance. He plays a guard-forward combo role for the Thunder, and yet he is not limited by his positional nomenclature.

At 6'6", Williams fluidly interchanges from running pick and roll like a point guard, slashing to the hoop like a forward, spotting up in the corner like a shooting guard, guarding the ball and running transition, to setting screens like a big man for a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander midrange. All of these "roles" have normally been reserved for specific positions on the court, and yet Williams possesses the skills to fulfill any one of these jobs depending on who is on the court. This positional fluidity allows Williams, and the Thunder, to innovate in ways that leave defenses confounded. Basketball has undergone a positional revolution, and having players who are not limited to the skills of their positions allows the best players to transcend the game's self-inflicted boundaries. Let's start with the positional caps.

In Mike Prada's Spaced Out: How the NBA's Three-Point Revolution Changed Everything You Thought You Knew About Basketball, he dedicates a chapter to discussing the "Positional Revolution". He uses the Early 2010s Miami Heat as an example of a team to adopt "positionless" basketball:

"The shortest guy didn't run the offense. The best spot-up shooter defended the opponent's strongest post-up player. The tallest guy shot more threes and stepped out furthest when defending pick-and-rolls. The second shortest guy refused to shoot threes and anchored the back line of their defense. Each of those positional interventions served a superstar small forward who kind of functioned like a point guard... But the Heat's setup did not upend positional roles, it reorganized them around context specific qualities" (Prada 77).

Prada elaborates that the Miami Heat capitalized on the skills of their roster rather than limiting themselves to sized-based positionality. The skills of a point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center are still important. Yet, the height of a player should not limit their skill set (Draymond Green as a 6'5" center, LeBron James the 6'9" point guard, Victor Wembanyama the 7'4" guard/rim protector/stretch big, etc.). For too long the NBA, and the sport of basketball as a whole, has placed a cap on the abilities of players based on size and pre-determined position skills. If you are small, you handle the ball. If you are tall, you post up near the basket. Why not, instead, take the player as they are and place them in positions that best suit their skill set? To emphasize, this is not to say positions are obsolete. Rather, the skills of each position are what is important. Prada notes that the positional revolution is about having players who can service the roles of the five positions in multiple different circumstances. That is what makes this era of basketball seem positionless. Players tend not to match up physically with the position they are listed as in the box score.

Bringing the Heatles to the 2020s, we now see multiple teams capitalizing on their players' unique capabilities by building out rosters of individuals with complementary and interchangeable skill sets. For the Thunder, this means having numerous ball handlers who can initiate the offense but also possess supportive traits such as shooting, cutting, IQ, and defense. Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey's pairing is odd at first glance. The two guards lack high volume, and efficient three-point shooting and seem to be best when one has the ball and the other does not. But upon further inspection, it becomes evident that Gilgeous-Alexander's rim pressure and silky smooth in-between game opens up Giddey's passing and connective playmaking. Lu Dort and J-Dub supplement the thunder backcourt with defense and shooting, and Chet Holmgren will serve as the team's anchor in the paint and floor spacer/lob threat/7'0 ball handler on offense. All of these skills combined make up the required skills of the traditional point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward and center.

Jalen Williams services his teammates in whatever way they need him to. He may be listed as a guard, but he provides much more than shooting and some ball handling. Williams can adapt to his team's needs and step outside of his position. Basketball has become a sport of skill sets rather than where a player lines up during the jump ball. Every team requires the talents of all five positions, but as Mike Prada writes, "they just [aren't] the players who [look] like point guards, shooting guards, small forwards, power forwards, or centers..." (77).

Image Credit: ESPN

Prada, Mike. Spaced Out: How the NBA’s Three-Point Revolution Changed Everything You Thought You Knew About Basketball. Triumph Books LLC, 2022.

"The Oklahoma City Thunder Are HERE RIGHT NOW!! BEHIND THE SCENES of their SLAM Cover Shoot."YouTube, uploaded by SLAM NBA, 23 October 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKPTgQ_bUFg&t=416s.