Small-Ball Isn't New, And Won't Be Around Much Longer, Phil Jackson Correctly Says

A common misconception about modernity is that it is necessarily the result of advancement. In many cases this is true, but just as often, the modern way is only a new expression of an old idea.

Modern college football offense is a good example of this. The spread option is thought of as a new way to play, but the basis of it is the zone read, which employs blocking concept that is more than 70 years old. What appears to be linear progress is often just cyclical reaction. Your dad was wearing skinny jeans in the 70s, he just didn’t call them that.

Phil Jackson is old enough to remember the 1970s (whether he actually does or not is another matter). As a consequence he realizes that the new small-ball style in the NBA is not so much an evolutionary advancement of basketball as it is the apex of a style that will soon be undermined by the next “new” thing. Which will of course not be new at all, Jackson wrote for the Phil Jackson Chronicles.

"Boston, New York and even Chicago won championships with undersized players. People forget how many titles the Bulls won with MJ, Scottie Pippen, Ron Harper and Steve Kerr on the floor in the endgame. Small ball is just the latest cycle. The pendulum will swing back when big men make a habit of crushing small defenders."

It may be that Jackson thinks he is at the forefront of this movement, or is trying to convince everyone of it. His Knicks have one of the bigger frontcourts in the NBA, and this is a man who has made his career on an offense that uses not one, not two, but three posts.

What is new about basketball at both the NBA and college levels are the sheer number of 3-point shots attempted. Advanced metrics have proven what practical observers have thought all along — better to take a 3 than a 2, all things being equal — and the basketball world at large has embraced the idea in full.

Jackson comes to the topic with some bias, but his logic is sound. The counter-intuitive idea that a team could gain an advantage by being smaller than its opponent isn’t new, isn’t unique to basketball (linebackers have gotten pretty svelte over the years) and is, in all likelihood, a phase on the way to the future, which is really the past.