If you can shoot, you can play.
You used to hear that saying a lot, but things have changed. Now, it’s if you can’t shoot, you can’t play.
Small-ball was a natural evolution of the game. The more players you can have on the floor who can do everything, the better. Specialists have been replaced with jack-of-all-trades types, but the shooting still has to be strong enough to space the floor. If you can’t shoot, you can’t play.
Eventually, teams will take advantage of this line of thinking. It’s already happened in a few instances. Shooters will be in such high demand that players who are just so-so but are elite in other areas will become the new market inefficiency. Those teams will just have to win with a different style with those players.
But in a copycat league, that’s tough. It’s natural to want to build a system similar to what’s currently working, obviously.
Milwaukee tried to buck the small-ball trend by loading up on size and length by suffocating passing lanes. But the addition of Greg Monroe – a sub-par defender by virtually any measure – has spoiled the plan. Jabari Parker’s been subtraction by addition, as he doesn’t help on defense as well. The Bucks took a chance on a few incredibly talented players without strong shooting ability or defensive versatility, and now nothing seems to make sense. A year after being fourth in defensive efficiency, Milwaukee has plummeted to 26th this year and has taken a big step backwards in its rebuilding plan.
Players like Monroe and Parker can compromise what you want to do on both ends. That doesn’t mean they aren’t talented, they’re just higher maintenance. Parker and Monroe could both use stretchy, rim protectors next to them. Outside of guys like Serge Ibaka, those players don’t come around all that often.
Milwaukee is an extreme example, because they attempted to roll with four non-three-point shooters in its core (Monroe, Parker, Michael Carter-Williams, Giannis Antetokounmpo). Orlando followed a similar path (Elfrid Payton, Victor Oladipo, Tobias Harris, Aaron Gordon), but hasn’t been able to translate all that athleticism into offensive production (24th in offensive efficiency) quite yet.
It’s the teams who’ve built with all shooters who can most afford to sign someone like Monroe, but rarely are those teams in position to do so. The allure of a rebuilding team making a “talent grab” like Milwaukee did is often too hard to pass up.
It’s still not a bad idea to zig while the rest of the league zags. The Memphis Grizzlies, for all their warts, still took two games from the Warriors in the postseason. Eventually their lack of shooting killed them, but there’s some logic in trying to go against the grain instead of trying to out-Warriors the Warriors.
So what’s the next strategy to take down small-ball? Can it be done without shooters?
Maybe this is impossible at the next level, given that most players in the NBA have been elite scorers since they first started playing competitive basketball, but there’s potential for a disciplined Flex offense to have success. With passing big men who can step out on the perimeter and intelligent off-ball cutters (like Tobias Harris), a team that runs something similar to what the Sacramento Kings did under Rick Adelman could have success. All teams have Flex elements in their playbooks, but a team that truly embraces the philosophy like the Kings did would be lethal.
Probably more importantly, any team that wants to take down small-ball has to have versatile, athletic defenders all over the floor and a mobile rim protector. If you trot out a non-shooter who can’t defend in the frontcourt, forget about it. Those guys are dinosaurs now.
Some team will eventually have success in a different manner than the Warriors and Spurs are enjoying now. But it’ll require a specific offensive plan set out from the very beginning, and the ability to resist the urge to sacrifice that style for a talent grab.
That’s probably a long way off. For now, enjoy the evolution.