I love basketball. I love watching it, and in my youth (columns A and B above, row 2), I loved playing it.
I wasn’t good. My only skill was shooting the ball, which I did flat-footed from the nether regions of the court called “outside” or “downtown.” I hit about half of those shots if nobody guarded me, which was most of the time, because I was a slow white guy who stood 5′ 9 1/2 inches on a tall day, with “alligator arms” that were two inches less than that. But I did have that shot, so when sides were chosen for pickup games, I’d be in the middle of the pack, which was good enough for me.
Playing at that low level still conditioned me to maintain a steady interest in how the game was played. This went through my years in North Carolina (’65 to ’85, with a break for New Jersey from ’69 to ’74), the Bay Area (’85 to ’01), Santa Barbara (’01 to now), Boston (’06 to ’13), New York (’13 to ’25) and Indiana (’21 to now). I went to countless Duke, Knicks, and Warriors games, plus the occasional Lakers, Harvard, Celtics, and Hoosiers games. I’ve watched a lot of games on TV, of course. (Caught the Pistons being creamed by the Cavs last night.) And I listen to half a dozen basketball podcasts in addition to the many hoops channels on SiriusXM.
So I got to thinking this morning about how much the five positions in the game have changed, both in how they are played and what they are called. Guards, forwards and centers have turned into points, shooters, wings, bigs, and numbers, among other labels. So, with artistic help from ChatGPT, I created the chart above. It’s my own thinking at a moment in time, and subject to improvement and debate. So let’s have both. A pickup game. Fun exercise with no losers.
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