Our next topic of basketball examination is the importance of the card-carrying point in your team's quest for a championship.
We'll wait while you roll those eyes. OK, now that you're back, we can acknowledge that the correlation between the point guard and a team's success seems obvious. The point guard has many crucial functions, including — but not limited to — running the offense, identifying and exploiting matchup advantages, pushing the ball in transition, telling the big guys where to line up for an out-of-bounds play and stopping dribble penetration on defense.Thanks to contributions from Ty Lawson, North Carolina marched through an NCAA tournament that featured point-guard domination for the triumphant team in almost every big showdown.
But we're here to determine how the importance of the little guy translates to championship efforts in the NBA.
In a nutshell? Not as much.
Sure, solid point guard play never hurt any team and several NBA squads end up in the lottery due to spectacularly inefficient point-guard play. However, a moonwalk through NBA Finals history reveals that many teams have discovered alternatives to the draw-and-kick properties in creating title-gripping offense.
Before going through that list, let's begin with the recent-history exception. Magic Johnson, generally considered the greatest point guard in league history, steered the Los Angeles Lakers to several titles while working at point guard ... on offense.
Magic was the guy feeding James Worthy on the break, dishing to Byron Scott off the curl, dumping the ball into Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the block or breaking down a defense off the dribble.
He rarely defended the opposing point guard (or anyone else).
Magic's assist-piling contemporary, John Stockton of the Utah Jazz, was a tremendous player whose title search was wrecked by a shooting guard named Michael Jordan.
Jason Kidd reached the Finals while working for the New Jersey Nets and lost to a Lakers team led by a huge rascal named Shaquille O'Neal. Two-time league MVP Steve Nash has yet to reach the Finals and his closest calls often were brushed aside by the San Antonio Spurs and big guy Tim Duncan.
