Like you said if we went with my ridiculous Dwight Howard example that we then might as well get rid of positions and instead measure players on their roles, but are those two that different? Like Eddy Curry when he was healthy averaged 6 rebounds which was awful for his role/position of center. Versus when a PG like Chris Paul averages nearly 6 rebounds we are correctly impressed. And if a PG doesn’t rebound great, we don’t tend to hold it against him because that’s not required from that position (or role). Likewise, we don’t fault Pau Gasol for not regularly hitting 3-pointers, but if he was a shooting guard we’d say that was a major flaw and it would be reflected in the way everyone ranks him.

Now it doesn’t matter HOW they accumulate stats for that position (ie. if Billups gets assists posting people up versus Chris Paul getting them by blowing past people or doing pick & rolls), but isn’t the way we rank players inherently connected to their particular position and how successful they are at that role? Has there ever been a truly great PG who averaged less than 5 assists? Or a star center/PF who didn’t average at least 7 rebounds?

Anyway, fun debating with you, and good post.

-Alex