In alt.sports.basketball.nba.chicago-bulls on Sat, 07 Oct 2006 06:47:14 GMT
Granville Waiters' Ghost wrote:


It is at this point in these conversations where I pipe up to defend a
descriptivist definition of positions, in contrast to the presciptivist ones
being thrown around here. (In case you're rusty on the terms, descriptivism
is a value-free definition, merely describing what a position does, over the
complete range of players who play that position. There are no "true"
centers or PGs under this view. Prescriptivism can be identified in the wild
by the word "should", as in a PG should be thinking to create offense for
his teammates, or a starting center should be able to average double figures
in rebounds. This view sets a standard for what each position should be, and
measures each player against that standard.)

You folks have different standards, different positional definition --
physical features, skillsets, etc. -- and that's what the disagreement has
been about. But I wanted to show there's another view, one that assumes
coaches largely know what they're doing, and if the coach puts a Deng or
Battier at the PF spot, then, by god, they are PFs. Once you accept this
view -- that these SGs can also be PFs -- it opens up interesting questions
about the skillset(s) that PFs are required to use.

Fistpout Trebuchet wrote:

On the debate between prescriptivists and descriptivists, you might
enjoy David Foster Wallace's essay on the language usage wars:
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafa...sent_tense.html
The closest he comes to a brief definition of the two camps is:

===
You'd sure know lexicography had an underbelly if you read the little
introductory essays in modern dictionaries - pieces like Webster's
DEU's "A Brief History of English Usage" or Webster's Third's
"Linguistic Advances and Lexicography" or AHD-3's "Usage in the
American Heritage Dictionary: The Place of Criticism." But almost
nobody ever bothers with these little intros, and it's not just their
six-point type or the fact that dictionaries tend to be hard on the
lap. It's that these intros aren't actually written for you or me or
the average citizen who goes to The Dictionary just to see how to spell
(for instance) meringue. They're written for other lexicographers and
critics, and in fact they're not really introductory at all but
polemical. They're salvos in the Usage Wars that have been under way
ever since editor Philip Gove first sought to apply the value-neutral
principles of structural linguistics to lexicography in Webster's
Third. Gove's famous response to conservatives who howled[14] when
Webster's Third endorsed OK and described ain't as "used orally in most
parts of the U.S. by many cultivated speakers [sic]" was this: "A
dictionary should have no traffic with ... artificial notions of
correctness or superiority. It should be descriptive and not
prescriptive." These terms stuck and turned epithetic, and linguistic
conservatives are now formally known as Prescriptivists and linguistic
liberals as Descriptivists.

The former are far better known. When you read the columns of William
Satire or Morton Freeman or books like Edwin Newman's Strictly Speaking
or John Simon's Paradigms Lost, you're actually reading Popular
Prescriptivism, a genre sideline of certain journalists (mostly older
ones, the vast majority of whom actually do wear bow ties) whose
bemused irony often masks a Colonel Blimp's rage at the way the beloved
English of their youth is being trashed in the decadent present. The
plutocratic tone and styptic wit of Safire and Newman and the best of
the Prescriptivists is often modeled after the mandarin-Brit personas
of Eric Partridge and H. W. Fowler, the same Twin Towers of scholarly
Prescriptivism whom Garner talks about revering as a kid.[15]

Descriptivists, on the other hand, don't have weekly columns in the
Times. These guys tend to be hard-core academics, mostly linguists or
Comp theorists. Loosely organized under the banner of structural (or
"descriptive") linguistics, they are doctrinaire positivists who have
their intellectual roots in the work of Auguste Comte and Ferdinand de
Saussure and their ideological roots firmly in the U.S. sixties.
===

For a rather predictable dissent, see:
http://www.languagehat.com/archives/000510.php

Wallace's essay is reproduced in a collection I'm reading at the
moment, reviewed here (among other places):

http://www.signonsandiego.com/union...v18lobster.html

On 2006-10-07 14:05:10 -0600, "sv0f" <sashankvarma@yahoo.com> said:


Actually, though this discussion has wobbled a bit searching for a
"center" point of reference, for me at least, it's been helpful in
trying to understand this Bulls team. And perhaps trends in NBA.

If Diaw is called a C, and supposedly is playing C, then is he a C, or not?

And if Skiles is playing a four guard lineup, are they really four
guards out on the floor?

I'm going to venture that with this Bull's team, one looks at the
roster trying to figure out how certain players are going to get on the
court, and I think the answer is probably to throw out "standard"
expectations of lineups, conventional descriptions, or prescriptions,
and just realize that the coach can send anyone out onto the court he
wants.

And that's what Skiles is going to do, even more this year than last,
seems like.

Personally, I'm clueless/ confused as to how one schemes a game using
the new thought approach, but if it works, well...

Ben wrote:

That's good to know. Ponytailed Eurotrash backpackers are in the
nine-man rotation of People I See Every Day, and I can't see it working
out any better for the Bulls than it does for me.

Also important to note: according to reports from Thabo's arm, the game
chose him. No statements about the chances for survival of parties
other than the strong as of press time, however.

BoneDry wrote:

My theory (on which I may have expounded previously in this forum) is
that positions are only relevant on defense. On offense, you have
roles instead, e.g. spot-up shooter, post scorer, etc. So to me, a
tweener would be a guy who is too slow to defend one position, and too
small to defend the next bigger position. I can't think of any strong
defenders who were labelled tweeners.

So, in Hinrich's case, I would say that he is capable of defending both
PG and SG, but he's better at PG. And on offense, he can be both the
spot-up shooter and the penetrate-and-kick passer.

In Diaw's case, at 215 lbs, I certainly would never have him try to
guard any worthwhile C. If Phoenix does, then he is playing C, but
he's playing out of position.

On 2006-10-08 21:34:14 -0600, "ImLittleJon" <ImLittleJon@yahoo.com> said:


Maybe tweener isn't going to work for this team. Guess I'm sort of
trying to redefine it as a "new positive" label because Bulls have so
many "non standard" players. Maybe there's another word that says it.
Swingman is used in a positive sense, but doesn't quite capture the
connotation I'm trying for to describe Bulls.

So, since he does all of the above for Bulls, is he a classic PG? And
what is he when Bulls are playing a "3 guard" lineup which Skiles
already has said he's going to do.

Your theory goes against the descriptive theory of position we heard
expounded earlier here, though it's as good as anything I've heard so
far. And after a while, if Phoenix is playing like this all the time,
year after year, is their C playing out of position all the time?

From the discussion so far, it seems to me a big change is underway in
how we understand a "lineup" and a "roster", and that this year's Bulls
are going to muddy that water up quite a bit.

BoneDry wrote:

Swingman is the most commonly used term that comes close to what you're
trying to describe. I've also seen multi-positional or multi-talented,
but those are more cumbersome.


Classic is GWG's term. In my terminology, the equivalent would start
with his best defensive position being PG. Offensively, he would have
to be able to fulfill the roles of penetrate-and-dish, make-entry-pass,
bring-the-ball-up-the-floor, etc. Being able to fulfill other roles,
such as spot-up-shooter, is ok too, as long as those are subordinate to
the more classic PG roles. Which roles make up the classic PG skillset
is subjective, as is whether Kirk fulfills those roles, but to my mind,
I'd say he qualifies.


In my terminology, that would depend on which 3 guards, and who Kirk
was guarding. If the other 2 were Duhon and Gordon, it might very well
be that Kirk would be guarding the opposing team's SF. That would make
him the SF in my terminology, although he is a natural PG. So a 3
guard lineup would include 3 players whose natural position was guard,
but one of them would be playing SF.


I would say I'm kind of in between. The "natural" part of my
terminology is clearly prescriptive, but the
in-this-lineup-Kirk-is-a-SF part is descriptive, to the extent that I
understand those terms, anyway.


Yes.


I think it goes farther back, and it's just that it's coming back in
style again. The Showtime Lakers had Kareem and four 6'9" guys. Magic
played C when Kareem was injured. Worthy could pass and handle the
ball. And being successful, a lot of teams tried to copy that style
for a while.

In alt.sports.basketball.nba.chicago-bulls on Sat, 7 Oct 2006 20:05:11 -0600
BoneDry wrote:


[Me, actually]

Yes. Or no. It depends: how do you define a center? If you think it's a
player with low post skills and rebounding ability, then, no, he isn't a
center. If you define a center as the player whose name occupies the
"center" slot on the lineup chart, then, yes, he is a center. If the latter
seems tautological to you (and it probably should), it's worth pondering why
a center has to have low post skills in the first place. Since a team
lacking such a center nevertheless has no problem playing high-level
basketball, it is additionally worth asking why we're attached to such a
definition of center in the first place.

This is a core epistemological argument, by the way. I read somewhere that
Hume first pointed out the difference between prescriptivism and
descriptivism about 300 years ago, and we, as a species, haven't really
internalised the difference. People are still much more apt to talk about
the way things should be than the way things really are. Note here that
scientific inquiry relies on descriptivism to get any work done, and that
this could only really be accomplished after the ideological shackles of
"should" were cast off.


Again, it depends on the assumptions you bring. This is why I prefer talking
about player roles, some of which coincide with classical definitions of
some positions (PG and C/PF) but which don't use the same terminology, which
seems to hang people up on the labels, instead of dealing directly with the
concepts behind the words.


On the floor you need at least two particular things: you need a player to
distribute the ball, and you need a pair of primary rebounders. You need to
get these things done no matter what. Depending on your scheme, you need a
spot up shooter, a drive-and-disher, a wing defender, a weakside defender,
etc. None of these roles, some more critical to a team's strategy than
others, require a PG, or a PF, per se. They require players who have the
ability to play those roles, no matter what their positions.

BTW The GWG word "classic" has unfortunate value connotations -- if you use
the word "classical" instead, as in "Steve Nash is a classical PG," you lose
most of the baggage.

Fistpout Trebuchet wrote:

Yeah, but then you get into stuff like "Gilbert Arenas is a hip-hop
PG", which leads straight into racism, which is even worse baggage. :-)

In article <1160452783.964444.90410@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.c om>,
"ImLittleJon" <ImLittleJon@yahoo.com> wrote:



Little help flexing a hard juice card over here, please.