Positionless Basketball: The Advantage

"As far as the style of play, we're going to see NBA style with a lot of small ball and threes" That is just one of the forecasts of nine-time Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) champion coach Jong Uichico when the PBA bubble gets going on October 11. And with the absence of two of the talented big men in June Mar Fajardo and Greg Slaughter, more teams could opt to do like what the Houston Rockets were doing before getting themselves eliminated in the National Basketball Association (NBA) playoffs: play with a small line-up and shoot more from the three-point line.

"Bull By the Horn" by Benny Benitez aired its tenth episode on Saturday with pinoyliga.com Founder Benny Benitez talking about the PBA bubble in Clark with Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) Coaches Academy Head Jong Uichico. While Benitez and Uichico almost spent two hours just talking about the PBA bubble, one interesting question popped out from the comments: What are the advantages and disadvantages of playing positionless basketball?

Uichico began by saying "In the old days, positionless basketball was already at play because there was no point guard. There was no center. It was already a positionless basketball at that time but the Americans came in and put in positions," Speaking about the Filipinos' lack of height, he added, "Positionless basketball will be a good style of play for us Filipinos," The former national team coach also noted that a six-foot-11 such as June Mar Fajardo is still not enough against those six-foot-nine players of the other countries. 

Answering the question of what are the advantages and disadvantages of positionless basketball, Jong Uichico explained, "You won't have a specialty if you're in positionless basketball which is I don't think is a disadvantage. It is more of an advantage because you can play inside (if you're small but good at the post, you can play on the inside). If you're a big three-point shooter,  you can play on the outside. It's interchangeable. It (positionless basketball) has more advantages than disadvantages,"

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