Minnesota Sports Forum

monsterpile wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:Dunn's a PG. If you question his playmaking ability make sure to focus on his drives to the basket. He's been making a bunch of drive and kick passes that haven't been converted or the trigger just isn't pulled for whatever reason (I counted at least 6 in the first half against Toronto). He didn't get too many opportunities overall last game though because they eventually started double-teaming him off the PnR and that pretty much takes away his ability to drive and kick.

Can't a SG drive and kick too?

They can, but you want a guy like Zach at the 2 who can hit 40% of his threes and occasionally attack the basket as a secondary PnR guy. Dunn isn't a spot up shooter. He attacks the basket and makes good passes off his drives. You also negate his size advantage at the 2 that he has at the PG position. He's big and has great length for a PG that will bother a lot of guys defensively and let him get to the rim with a guy on his hip easier. Playing the 2 takes away all of his physical advantages. I'm more interested in using him to make the other teams life difficult dealing with him at the 1 than giving them a better chance with a bigger and stronger player he has to guard and be guarded by night in and night out. If he's fast enough he should be a PG and wreak havoc on all the weak defensive PG's in the league while also making their lives difficult on the other end because of his length and tenacity.

Also just to add to the discussion, Norman Powell pretty much had his way with Dunn. What's Klay Thompson, James Harden, Jimmy Butler going to do to him? Dunn can guard the CJ McCullum's and Brandon Knight's of the world, but he has no shot at the big guns where as I think he can legitimately hang with pretty much every PG but Westbrook athletically and size wise.

Dunn projects as a high level defender, what he seems best at is guarding the ball and getting around screens, very disruptive for NBA offenses. He would be doing less of that playing the 2 and loses some of his physical advantage he'll have over most PGs. This team isn't interested in marginalizing Lavine's role. I can see this being worth a discussion but see very little chance Dunn is moved to SG besides playing minutes with another PG this year.

What ever happened to just being a guard? Back in the old days a guard was expected to have high-level skills in dribbling, passing, and shooting. Guys like Gail Goodrich and Jerry West were practically interchangeable (keep me honest LST - I never actually saw these guys plays, but that's what Uncle Drew told me).

We actually do see it these days. Heck, Wade WAS the Heat primary PG in the playoffs this year! Dragic and Wade can either play on or off the ball offensively. Lillard and McCollum. Going back to the 80s/90s you had Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars, either of which could run the offense or work off the ball to score.

I think at the end of the day, Dunn will play most of his minutes at PG because that is where he has the larger physical advantage. And Wade is longer - he's probably got a couple of inches on Dunn when you combine height + reach and he was certainly more athletic when he was Dunn's age IMO.

But there is no reason why Dunn can't play with another PG for stints, whether that's Rubio or Tyus. In fact, right now we have no other "pure" SG after LaVine, so I fully expect to see Dunn get more than token minutes as a 2.

Q12543 wrote:What ever happened to just being a guard? Back in the old days a guard was expected to have high-level skills in dribbling, passing, and shooting. Guys like Gail Goodrich and Jerry West were practically interchangeable (keep me honest LST - I never actually saw these guys plays, but that's what Uncle Drew told me).

We actually do see it these days. Heck, Wade WAS the Heat primary PG in the playoffs this year! Dragic and Wade can either play on or off the ball offensively. Lillard and McCollum. Going back to the 80s/90s you had Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars, either of which could run the offense or work off the ball to score.

I think at the end of the day, Dunn will play most of his minutes at PG because that is where he has the larger physical advantage. And Wade is longer - he's probably got a couple of inches on Dunn when you combine height + reach and he was certainly more athletic when he was Dunn's age IMO.

But there is no reason why Dunn can't play with another PG for stints, whether that's Rubio or Tyus. In fact, right now we have no other "pure" SG after LaVine, so I fully expect to see Dunn get more than token minutes as a 2.

Yep Q I see him as a guard also.

He played PG throughout college and had pretty decent assist numbers. At the same time, he's got the length and attacking mentality to play SG, as LST points out. His turnovers and questions about outside shooting mean he doesn't look like a perfect match for either position, but I think he can play both and he's got the potential to be a very good player, regardless of where he plays.

I've got a couple questions though.

First, why does this question rivet us so much? At the end of the day, I think it's because we want to know whether Dunn could potentially start over Rubio or whether he could potentially start over LaVine. So arguing about Dunn's position is often really an argument about Rubio and LaVine (or maybe Wig, for those who want to see Wig start at SG).

Second, what is a "natural" PG or a "natural" SG anyway, and how important is it to fit that definition? I think when talking about a "natural" PG, people mean a 6'2-3" guy who looks to distribute first, and an SG is an attacking 6'5-6" scorer who can hit 3s at 37-38% or higher. I think these terms can be more limiting than helpful. I'm not comparing Dunn to these guys, but Curry, Giannis, and others in recent years have successfully defied the "natural" roles. What made a guy like Terrell Brandon any more "natural" as a PG than Curry or Giannis or Westbrook? Calling somebody a "natural" at a certain position implies that he's better at that position than others who are presumably "unnatural." But I'd take an "unnatural" PG like Curry or Giannis any day! As for SGs, I'm glad LST mentions Wade because has never been a good outside shooter, but he's probably the 3rd best SG in history! And DeRozan is a great SG now, but not a good outside shooter. So I think we should be careful not to fetishize particular skills for each position as "natural." Just like people shouldn't have shoehorned those guys into positions before they played an NBA game, let's let Dunn play both until we figure out how he develops and fits in best with the rest of the team.

There have been guys who are "tweeners" who haven't been successful, but that's less because they weren't "natural" in their position than because 1) they faced matchup problems because their size and skill set didn't match, and 2) they weren't really that good to begin with. Foye is an example of a below-average tweener (the problem wasn't so much that he had a scorer's mentality for a PG, but that he just wasn't quick or athletic enough to overcome other deficiencies and he just wasn't that good). Other tweeners, like Charles Barkley, were just great basketball players, so they overcame disadvantages due to mismatches in their height and skill set. Dunn should be fine here because he has both the quickness and the length to play both positions.

I DO think there are certain skills you ideally want guys to be able to have, and LST is right to raise the AST/TO ratio as one of them. Ideally, your PG should be able to keep the AST/TO ratio within reason, and your SG should be able to hit outside shots at a halfway decent clip. There are questions whether Dunn can do those things, especially the first, and those are fair concerns. But there are a decent number of successful guys at the 1 and 2 who aren't stellar in those two areas, but they are still very good players because they are good in other areas.

I don't think all guys can play all positions well. I never liked LaVine at the point because the offense was just terrible when he ran it, and he fit so much better as an attacking 2 guard. That might end up being the case with Dunn, but I've got more hope for him at the point than LaVine given Dunn has more experience at the point coming in than LaVine had. So while not everybody can play every position, I do think we should be open to "unnatural" possibilities, and I can see Dunn possibly becoming a good player at the 1 or at the 2.

For now, I'd play Dunn at both positions and see how it pans out.

Drew, Why this is an important question is that a) being able to defend multiple positions is a really important trait in today's NBA where a lot of switching happens. While Dunn is a little smaller than some of the very elite SGs in the game, he can match up with the vast majority of NBA SGs defensively. That's a big deal to me. And b) having two ball-handlers on the floor can really help an offense because you aren't reliant on just one guy to create chances for your team. Wiggins is not a ball handler. LaVine is better than Wiggins, but still only has rudimentary skills in running the pick and roll.

At the end of the day, what really matters is who you can guard, and in my mind Dunn can guard either backcourt position. He's a guard. Period.

Q12543 wrote:Drew, Why this is an important question is that a) being able to defend multiple positions is a really important trait in today's NBA where a lot of switching happens. While Dunn is a little smaller than some of the very elite SGs in the game, he can match up with the vast majority of NBA SGs defensively. That's a big deal to me. And b) having two ball-handlers on the floor can really help an offense because you aren't reliant on just one guy to create chances for your team. Wiggins is not a ball handler. LaVine is better than Wiggins, but still only has rudimentary skills in running the pick and roll.

At the end of the day, what really matters is who you can guard, and in my mind Dunn can guard either backcourt position. He's a guard. Period.

I agree with everything you've written in this thread, Q, which is exactly why I think whether or not Dunn is a natural PG or a natural SG is not the right question to ask. Rather than asking "what is he?" we should be asking "what can he do and how well?" You've done a good job of analyzing that second question here, which makes the first question fairly moot.

Given what we've seen so far of what he can do, I think he should get experience this year playing both on and off the ball offensively, and guarding both PGs and SGs defensively.

Q12543 wrote:Drew, Why this is an important question is that a) being able to defend multiple positions is a really important trait in today's NBA where a lot of switching happens. While Dunn is a little smaller than some of the very elite SGs in the game, he can match up with the vast majority of NBA SGs defensively. That's a big deal to me. And b) having two ball-handlers on the floor can really help an offense because you aren't reliant on just one guy to create chances for your team. Wiggins is not a ball handler. LaVine is better than Wiggins, but still only has rudimentary skills in running the pick and roll.

At the end of the day, what really matters is who you can guard, and in my mind Dunn can guard either backcourt position. He's a guard. Period.

As we continue to move closer to "position-less" basketball, this is what will keep guys on the floor. Offensively, you simply need a guy who can create. Whether that's a Chris Paul like player. Or, Wade. Or, Bryant. Or, even a guy like LeBron James who often does it as a de facto PF.

If guys have legit talent... they'll find a way onto the court at some position. And everything will work out just fine. You can't have too many talented wings/ball handlers in the NBA.

Q12543 wrote:What ever happened to just being a guard? Back in the old days a guard was expected to have high-level skills in dribbling, passing, and shooting. Guys like Gail Goodrich and Jerry West were practically interchangeable (keep me honest LST - I never actually saw these guys plays, but that's what Uncle Drew told me).

We actually do see it these days. Heck, Wade WAS the Heat primary PG in the playoffs this year! Dragic and Wade can either play on or off the ball offensively. Lillard and McCollum. Going back to the 80s/90s you had Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars, either of which could run the offense or work off the ball to score.

I think at the end of the day, Dunn will play most of his minutes at PG because that is where he has the larger physical advantage. And Wade is longer - he's probably got a couple of inches on Dunn when you combine height + reach and he was certainly more athletic when he was Dunn's age IMO.

But there is no reason why Dunn can't play with another PG for stints, whether that's Rubio or Tyus. In fact, right now we have no other "pure" SG after LaVine, so I fully expect to see Dunn get more than token minutes as a 2.

I had to think about this one, q, because I wasn't sure. Fortunately I had my standing Tuesday morning breakfast group this morning, and was able to pose your concept to a guy who played with the Lakers in the 50s. He didn't think guard classifications have changed much. He said that he was clearly a SG on the Lakers, and that Slater Martin was clearly the PG. Further, he said nobody would have ever called Bob Cousy anything other than a PG, or Jerry West anything but a SG. Now there were exceptions back then, just like there are now, and you came up with a good one in Goodrich. But for the most part guards had identities like they do today.

I have to admit I'm a little troubled by calling Dunn just "a guard". Flip and Sam both tried to stress that concept with LaVine, but many here didn't want to buy it and preferred to think of him only as a SG. I remember similar conversations about Randy Foye, who exhibited qualities of both guard positions...I was always a little concerned that he wasn't quite suited to excel at either position though.

While flexibility is good to some extent, I think ultimately a guard will carve out a better career if he can establish a true identity as either a SG or a PG. That doesn't mean he can't exhibit qualities of both...Curry clearly does, but just as clearly he is primarily a PG.