UK does not list specific positions next to player names on its basketball roster.
Why not? After all, that label is the customary way of identifying a player. Small forward. Shooting guard. It’s out of necessity. It’s the convention.
“We are unconventional,” head coach John Calipari said about his roster.
So instead of listing specific positions, UK lists the generic one. Guard, forward, guard, guard, forward.
That’s how it should because that’s how this team is built.
Calipari’s system combined with the multi-dimensional talents of his players has eradicated positional specificity.
Terrence Jones would be labeled a power forward in the traditional system. But he’s more than willing to play behind the arc (17 percent of his shot attempts were 3-pointers last season). Darius Miller is listed as a guard. He’s 6-foot-8, and in the SEC Tournament last year, he was the player who had the best success with post-up scoring. Calipari has said Miller could play backup point guard at times.
And 6-foot-11 Eloy Vargas and 6-foot-10 Anthony Davis? Both listed as forwards.
“We have no fives (centers),” Calipari said. “We have three fours [power forwards] who think they are twos (shooting guards).”
Great. Let Calipari place the pieces how he sees fit, rather than how numbers on a diagram indicate. Let him tinker.
Calipari’s system is naturally suited to having unconventional players. When four players are stationed around the perimeter, they are constantly switching spots on the floor. Their options, however, are all the same: drive, shoot, pass, rotate. Players’ contributions change from possession to possession.
“(Versatility) is a great advantage,” Davis said. “We got a lot of guys who can shoot, dribble, pass, block shots, rebound. So it’s really going to help against other guys who have solid bigs who post up and that’s it. We can switch things to have big guys posting up small guys.”
With this particular level of multi-faceted talent on his roster, Calipari is taking the alterations one step further. He reached out to Denny Crum to see how he handled some unconventional teams he had and got ideas about how to guard the post without much bulk inside.
Plus, the other talents besides bulk — the talents that contribute to the positional flexibility — make up for it. Calipari couldn’t help but “ooohh” when talking about this team’s length and speed and quickness.
He’s having players on the fast break run out wide rather than at the rim, like his teams traditionally do, to take advantage of the speed and driving ability of nearly everyone on the team. Calipari has said this could be his fastest team since his 2008 Memphis team, the Derrick Rose-led national runner-up. He’s going to let them run when they can; even Davis.
“I don’t want to run him to the rim because that’s not what he is,” Calipari said. “Get out there and run and make plays, and then slide in there if you need to. It’s interesting.”
Pick-and-rolls could be integrated more with this team. Davis and Teague would form a tough mismatch, and Kyle Wiltjer is a great screener because he’s available to shoot or drive if the ball gets reversed to him. But Calipari will use anyone if it ends up creating a mismatch. He loves creating mismatches. It lets the players do what they do best — attack, against an inferior defender.
“I feel like we have a lot of players that are interchangeable,” Jones said. “I just like playing basketball. It doesn’t matter what position I’m at.”
That’s the conventional part.
And it works.
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