The point guard is the offensive leader on the court who calls the plays and initiates the offense. It is the position on the basketball team which leads the offense and are the strategist on the court. Running plays and creating opportunities to score as a playmaker, the point guard controls the pace of a basketball game, distributing the ball to fellow teammates. To lead the offense, point guards must have exponentially strong passing, ball-handling, dribbling, communication, and decision-making skills.
Key Responsibilities
The point guard’s main responsibility is to dribble the ball up the court to execute a play. If the opposing team is playing a full-court defence, the point guard has the responsibility to get the ball past the half court line, whether that be dribbling it themselves, or passing to an open player.
The point guard starts the offense by creating the appropriate space on the court, and passing the ball to other players, or working off of pick-and-rolls. Point guards often guard the opposing team’s ball handler, and are often (but not always) the shortest player on the court.
Role on Offense
As the playmaker of an offense, a point guard leads a team’s strategy. Usually, the plays are drawn up in a way that the ball starts in the point guard’s hands.
Point guards must make on-the-fly decisions on who to pass to when drawn-up plays don’t go according to plan. It is their job to either score themselves or set up a potential scoring opportunity. These players are the genius behind a basketball team’s attack, leading fellow teammates by example. Point guards can score but act unselfishly to create opportunities for the wider offense.
Role on Defense
The point guards speed transfers to the defensive end of the court, and they are often tasked with guarding the opposing team’s point guard and ball-handler. On a 2-3 or 1-3-1 zone, they usually take one of the top positions, and thus need to move to cover the post amount of space in a zone defense. Because they are faster and more agile, they have a slight advantage in steals and can catch opponents off guard by coming off of the weak side on a defense and stealing the ball from an unsuspecting post or power forward.
Physical Attributes
These days, point guards can be any size, but they are often the smaller, quicker, and more agile players on the team. This is simply due to basic physics, where the closer you are to the ground, the faster you can dribble the ball (because there is less space needed for the ball to travel between the ground and your hands).
While they are often the shorter players on the court, most point guards at elite levels are at least over 6 feet, as too much of a size disadvantage poses problems on the defensive end of the court. Furthermore, it’s harder for a 5 foot 9 point guard to see past and effectively score and pass the ball around a defender who is 6 foot 3 and has the arm span to match. Thus, good court vision and elite hand-eye coordination are also necessary to ensure play with precision. Strong legs and conditioning are needed as the point guard dribbles the ball and moves the ball up the court more than any other player.
Important Skills
Point guards must have a high IQ and expert knowledge of basketball. Other than the coach, they must have the best understanding of the team’s offense and judge the court. These players mastermind and call plays on the court to create the best possible chances to score.
Expert proficiency in passing and dribbling is also required, with precision in the pass and speed in execution needed to make quick and effective passes. A good point guard is often judged by their assist-to-turnover ratio; thus, ball handling and playmaking are the most important skills.
In today’s basketball, perimeter shooting is also crucial. If the point guard is not a threat at the three-point line, the defense can just leave them open and double team other players until the point guard enters the key.
Finally, point guards must be excellent teammates and a vocal floor leader with masterful levels of communication to navigate an offense to victory.
Who is the Best Point Guard of all Time?
The term ‘best’ is subjective, but we can outline the best point guards based on their statistics across total points scored, points per game on average, and longevity as a player across games played:
Best point guards according to points per game on average:
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Jerry West – 27
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Oscar Robertson – 25.7
- Trae Young – 25.3
Point guards with the most total games played in their career:
- John Stockton – 1,504
- Chris Paul – 1,352
- Gary Payton – 1,335