In the beginning, there was the Z.
It was April, and it was 2009. The Thunder weren't winning much yet, but Sam Presti's architecture was starting to reveal itself. This was a team with whom traditional positions simply didn't register; at times, it was as if they ignored position altogether and just played the game. We and a few others had for some time sensed that basketball was headed in this direction. Oklahoma City, despite its poor record, was poised to force a change in thinking, scrambling positions to make more, not less, sense of the players Presti had assembled.
That's how the Z-chart was born. Its aim was to represent the spectrum of positionality, point guard and center, the two positions defined most purely, were located at either end. The top was, roughly, little men, and the base, big men. The bridge in between the two is where the small forward would be -- if such a position still existed in a pure form the way in once did (think Alex English or James Worthy; now flash forward to today's 2-3 swingmen and 3-4 tweeners). You can locate shooting guard near the bend at the top, and power forward in the same spot at the bottom. Traditional roles still exist, but are understood as part of a continuum. Positions are fluid, responsibilities divvied up according to scheme, not dogma. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
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