Ode to the vanishing point (maybe)

[Tammo29@xxxxxxx]

For some reason I didn't catch this in yesterdays Globe but found it through 
a link elsewhere. 
-TAM

The vanishing point
The ballhandling, playmaking guard is an endangered species

By Peter May, Globe Staff, 10/29/2002

Bob Cousy can distinctly remember the one and only time Rick Pitino ever came 
to him seeking advice about one of the Celtics. 

The question Pitino had: Did Cousy think Chauncey Billups would ever develop 
into a true point guard? Because if Cousy felt it was a hopeless cause, 
Pitino was ready to pull the trigger on a deal for Rod Strickland.

''I told him that I'm sure Chauncey will find a spot somewhere in the 
league,'' Cousy said. ''But I also told him that he would never be a point 
guard as long as he plays in the league.''

A few weeks later, Pitino traded Billups and acquired Kenny Anderson instead 
of Strickland. Billups bounced around and has landed on his feet in Detroit 
where he is slated to play -- that's right -- point guard.

Anderson, who remained with the Celtics from February 1998 through the 
2001-02 season, is now with Seattle, and unhappy with his role as the backup 
to Gary Payton. Strickland, meanwhile, just surfaced with injury-ravaged 
Minnesota, where he will try to fill the void left by Terrell Brandon, who 
has a career-threatening knee injury.

All of the above players are listed as point guards. None passes the Cousy 
test, which basically comes down to this: When the player has the ball 
leading the fast break, what is his first instinct as he crosses midcourt? If 
it's to make the pass, then the guy has a chance, Cousy feels.

He can name two current NBAers off the top of his head who qualify as 
Cousy-certified point guards: Jason Kidd and John Stockton. There might be a 
couple others, Cooz concedes, but not many. It's a disappearing species, he 
feels, with the emphasis these days on dunking, shooting threes, and trying 
to look jazzy doing both.

''You'd think,'' he said, ''with all the millions of kids playing this game 
all over the world, that there'd be an abundance of point guards coming in 
every year. But I guess it's like centers. You don't see them, either.''

The Celtics will open the NBA season tomorrow night without even trying to 
convince their fans that they have a legitimate point guard. Tony Delk, 
Shammond Williams, and J.R. Bremer all are listed as point guards, but, in 
truth, they're all shooting guards in small bodies. Jim O'Brien's reaction: 
So what? The coach has said more than once in the past few weeks that point 
guard is not one of his major concerns this season.

The Celtics have plenty of company around the league in that area. Good 
company. The three-time defending champion Lakers don't have a real point 
guard. Derek Fisher is identified as one, but he basically goes out and spots 
up in the corner. Fisher averaged fewer assists per game last year (2.6) than 
Shaquille O'Neal (3.0) or Robert Horry (2.9). The Washington Wizards have 
imported Larry Hughes to play the role of point guard, a role he did not play 
very well last year for Golden State, even though he managed to lead the team 
in assists at 4.3 a game. Is it because he's really a shooting guard?

''I really don't play a pure point guard offense, so I had [Hughes] on the 
floor with Juan Dixon at one particular time,'' said Wizards coach Doug 
Collins. ''Both of them shared the ballhandling responsibilities. We have the 
kind of offensive attack where we really don't have one guy who runs our 
offense. I like our perimeter guys to be very flexible.''

The six-time NBA champion Chicago Bulls relied on Scottie Pippen and Michael 
Jordan to run the offense. Neither is a point guard, although Collins, when 
he coached the Bulls in the mid-to-late 1980s, used Jordan there on occasion. 
The Houston Rockets won two titles with Kenny Smith, theoretically, playing 
the position. Even Isiah Thomas, although generally regarded as a point 
guard, shared a lot of the playmaking duties in Detroit with Joe Dumars in 
the Pistons' two championship seasons.

And, lest we forget, the last Celtics team to win the NBA title, the 
imposing, dominating 1985-86 team, didn't have a real point guard. Its 
backcourt consisted of Danny Ainge, Dennis Johnson, and Jerry Sichting. Larry 
Bird was usually the guy through whom the offense ran.

An exceptional Kidd

''There's too much labeling of players these days,'' groused Ainge, who can 
speak to both sides of the debate because he coached Kidd in Phoenix and 
knows what it's like to have the real thing. ''I think what you need are two 
good guards, which is what the Celtics had with me and DJ. Just basketball 
players. If you have a John Stockton, then, sure, you let Jeff Hornacek run 
the floor and wait for the ball. But guys like that are rare.''

In that respect, Kidd is an Army of One, which explains how he can almost 
singlehandedly dominate a game, not to mention a conference. Stockton is 40; 
he'll average less than 30 minutes a game. Newcomers such as Andre Miller, 
Jamaal Tinsley, and even Cousy's countryman, Tony Parker of the Paris, 
France, Parkers, are still trying to get to where Kidd has already been.

''I think Jason is the best at pushing the ball up the court because he makes 
people effective, he finds people, he keeps the pressure on people,'' said 
Toronto coach and former point guard Lenny Wilkens.

Is there Kidd Envy among the 28 other NBA coaches? Definitely. But that does 
not mean the sky is falling and Armageddon is approaching simply because you 
don't have Kidd, or anyone nearly as good as Kidd, at the position.

''I think the whole thing is overrated,'' Ainge said. ''Sure, Magic Johnson 
or Jason Kidd or John Stockton would be great to have on your team. But the 
need for a point guard is something that's overused by the media and the 
coaches. They're trying to put the square peg into the round hole instead of 
figuring out what guys do well.''

Another thing many of the point guard-less championship teams had: Hall of 
Famers at other positions. The Lakers, of course, win now because they have 
the most dominant big man in an essentially center-less league in O'Neal, and 
one of the most versatile and talented wing men in Kobe Bryant. The Bulls won 
because they had Jordan and Pippen. Both teams also relied on role players, 
which further militates against the need for a point guard.

''The league is so watered down these days that if you have a pair of Hall of 
Famers surrounded by role players, that will bring you three championships,'' 
Cousy said. ''Look at [Rick] Fox. We had him in Boston. He's a good role 
player. But if you can get decent role players and surround them with a 
couple of Hall of Famers, yeah, you probably don't need a point guard, 
either.''

That's certainly the hope now in Minnesota with the devastating injury to 
Brandon. The Wolves signed Troy Hudson in the offseason as Brandon insurance 
and now have Strickland aboard as Brandon/Hudson insurance.

Oh yes, they also have Kevin Garnett, one of the top 10 players in the league 
and a potential Hall of Famer.

''If you have great players at other positions, that certainly helps,'' said 
Sichting, an assistant coach for Minnesota. ''Basically, what you want is for 
your best players to be making the key decisions on the floor, regardless of 
the position.

''I remember the old Knicks teams used to get the ball as quickly as they 
could to Bernard King. On our Celtics team [of '85-86] we didn't have your 
prototypical point guard, but we had All-Stars at three or four other 
positions and everyone understood what they had to do. And one of the things 
we didn't do was have a guy out top dribbling it 30 times.''

Nobody runs

There's one other glaring absence in today's NBA that speaks to the lack of 
point guards: a running game. So few teams even bother to run - the Nets, 
with Kidd, are an exception - and Cousy feels that makes the need for a true 
point guard even less critical.

''If you're going to be a halfcourt team,'' he said, ''whether you have a 
real point guard really doesn't matter. And nobody runs anymore because it 
requires all five guys being on the same page regarding transition basketball 
and they have to respond immediately and simultaneously. That has to be 
instilled each and every day.''

O'Brien has talked about running, but in the end, the Celtics probably will 
be like most teams and get into a set offense, with the ball ending up in the 
hands of either Paul Pierce or Antoine Walker. Maybe that's why O'Brien isn't 
so concerned about the loss of Anderson. He still may not have a point guard 
who passes the Cousy Test, but he does have someone who can get the ball to 
his best players. And in Walker and Pierce, he has two of the best in the 
league.

Come to think of it, Billups could probably do that just as well. The Pistons 
are banking heavily that he will this year and for six more thereafter.

This story ran on page G1 of the Boston Globe on 10/29/2002.