Debating the Value of Paul George, The Two-Way Player

Paul George has been called basketball’s best “two-way player.” But what does that really mean?

Paul George was recently called basketball’s best “two-way player” by none other than Indiana Pacers head coach Frank Vogel. But what does that really mean? What is a two-way player? Doesn’t everybody play two ways? Does this term have any real value?

More from 8 Points, 9 Seconds

Our Jon Washburn and David Searle debate the worth of the term and how it applies to Paul George.

Jon Washburn: I was listening to your Miller Time Podcast from yesterday — great work by the way, I always love when Jon showcases how white he is in his impromptu raps — and you guys started talking about Paul George and everything he brings to the Pacers. PG truly is rare among superstars in that he handles an incredible load on both ends of the floor. While some guys have the luxury of being able to turn defense on and off, Paul George spends almost 100% of his minutes on the floor defending the other team’s best perimeter player.

This is obvious to anybody who has spent any time watching the Pacers over the last few years, but it prompted Frank Vogel to announce that Paul George is the very best “two-way player” in the NBA.

I was reminded, though, of something you said a few years back about “two-way players.” If I recall correctly, it was during the 2013-14 season, before “The Struggle” happened. PG was playing well, and we were constantly having the, “He’s not better than LeBron or Durant, but is he better than Carmelo?” conversation.

I’m not sure if this was before or after Pablo S. Torre’s incredible PG breakdown, but you remarked that you thought the idea of calling people “two-way players” was ridiculous and should be halted.

Am I remembering that correctly? What exactly did you mean at the time?

David Searle: The term “two-way player” is dumb. It is a meaningless signifier because it describes all basketball players. And, honestly, it annoys me that we have to create a special tag to properly consider the full impact that a player has while on the floor — both on offense and on defense — when we should be weighing each player’s contributions on both ends every time we talk about basketball.

A thought experiment: How would you react if someone turned to you at a sports bar and declared that “Stephen Curry is a dribbler! He dribbles, man. Curry is a guy who is capable of dribbling!”

Pointing out that Paul George is a two-way player is as meaningful as highlighting the fact that PG wears socks on game day.

You would look at that person like he was insane, right? What would that even mean? Simply pointing out that a basketball player dribbles is weird because all players have to dribble (with the notable exception of Steve Novak). In reply, you might ask “Do you mean he is a good dribbler?”

That’s what I hear when someone says “ is a two-way player.” Because all players are two-way players –whether they like it or not.

There are no DHs in basketball. Carmelo doesn’t jog to the sideline on 4th down while free safety Tony Allen gets ready to hit the field. All players play both ends. All players are two-way players. Pointing out that Paul George is a two-way player is as meaningful as highlighting the fact that PG wears socks on game day.

You are the sum total of all of your contributions to the world. If you are a great offensive player and a great defender, too, you aren’t a “two-way player.” You are a goddamn great basketball player. Period. And if you blow rotations and loose track of your man on defense, you are likely overrated.

Washburn: Wow. Shots fired, James Harden.

What if basketball did have DH’s though? How fun would it be if players could sub in and out of games hockey style on the fly between possessions? Could Dirk Nowitzki play until he was 50 under that format? Would Antoine Walker come back out of retirement so that he could play the way he always did, just in a less detrimental way to his team? How much more valuable would Tony Allen be in this arrangement? How much better would certain guys be on one end of the floor when they didn’t have to worry about wasting energy on the other end?

I think your critique is a good one, and one that points to how different basketball is from other U.S. sports like football and baseball. As a fellow Colts fan, you may empathize like I do with Peyton Manning — a guy who placed his team in a position to win so many times, only to watch his field goal kicker or defense repeatedly blow the game. Basketball players have no such excuse.

I think the fact that basketball is only played with five teammates at a time makes this entire concept even more important. In soccer, players have to play on both sides, but you ultimately have guys like Ronaldo and Messi that rarely ever track back and defend. With only five guys, every player is so important.

I think the better point that you seem to be making is just how overrated offense is to defense in general. Now, I would say that offense is, in a very general sense, more important than defense, especially specific offensive skills like shooting. Fundamentally, there is no more important skill in basketball than being able to put the ball in the basket. But I think the common fan thinks that this balance is something like 80/20 in favor of the offensive end when in reality, it’s probably more like 60/40 or even lower.

There’s a huge difference between being better on one end and being detrimental on the other end. Stephen Curry is a better offensive player than he is a defensive player, but he doesn’t torpedo his team on defense.

Further, there’s a huge difference between being better on one end and being detrimental on the other end. Stephen Curry is a better offensive player than he is a defensive player, but he doesn’t torpedo his team on defense by any means. In fact, he’s a pretty good defender, he’s just a transcendent scorer. Solomon Hill, on the other hand, is a very versatile and useful defensive player, but similar to Sam Young before him, he often destroys the entire offense for several minutes at a time.

I also think it’s interesting to point out that generally, players aren’t called “two-way players” if they are better on offense. Typically, this designation is reserved for a great defensive player who has improved offensively. Which brings us back to Paul George. Is he better on offense than he is on defense now? And how impressive is his offense considering he’s still guarding the other team’s best perimeter player every night? I can’t think of any other player in the NBA from the past five years, besides LeBron James, that has been asked to be THE GUY on BOTH ends every single night. Am I forgetting somebody? Is PG even better than we thought?

Searle: What Paul George is doing is very special and worthy of a heap-load of praise. However, I would argue that players who have the biggest (or one of the biggest) impact both offensively and defensively every night for their team is more common than you make it seem.

Did you know that LeBron James is currently holding the man he covers to a field goal percentage that is 13.6% lower than those player’s overall season averages? Night after night, opposing wings are much less efficient than they typically are when guarded by LeBron.

How good is that? Well, that’s the lowest differential in the league for any player who has played more than 15 games. Is he always guarding the #1 option all game long? No. Does it matter when he takes that big a chunk out of an opposing team’s offensive efficiency? Maybe not.

It’s definitely a short list. Paul George, Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard, and Jimmy Butler currently do it. LeBron is obviously capable at any moment, he’s just at a different stage in his career.

Is that stat definitive? No. But we all know that LeBron is a superb defender, and this is at least some indication that he has been very good this year as well. His brilliance on both offense and defense has been on display for many, many years. So he’s the best two-way player in the game, right?

Who would be the next-best “two-way player”? Anthony Davis, maybe? He is brilliant on both ends, too.

What about Kevin Durant? He has dropped opposing FG% by at least 3% for the last three years (he’s second on the entire team behind Robeson), and he is a killer offensively. Durantula is a plus player on both ends, so surely he gets the “two-way” player label, right? And he’s clearly superior to all others (outside of LBJ and AD) who qualify for the label, isn’t he? So he’s maybe the third best two-way player?

Aren’t we know just making a list of the best players in the game now?

Which brings us to Steph. He’s dropped opposing shooting by 2.9% this year, and that’s tops for Golden State guards. I don’t need to tell you that he is breaking the sport of basketball offensively.

So is there any good reason why Stephen Curry shouldn’t earn the title of “best two-way player in the game”?

Actually, I have a good reason: Because the title already exists. It’s commonly referred to as the “MVP Award.”

Washburn: I hear what you’re saying. Everyone plays both ends, so literally, everyone is a two-way player. At the same time, I think the term is helpful, if poorly labeled, because people use it to indicate which players play both sides of the ball well.

Your example about Stephen Curry “being a dribbler” makes sense to a point, but I would argue that just because a player literally does a skill, that doesn’t make him actually a skill-doer of that particular skill. Was that confusing enough?

For example, Shaq would often “get out on the fast break” during All-Star games and literally dribble the ball up the floor before making some slick pass to a guard. But never over the course of his entire career would I have actually called him a dribbler. He might dribble from time to time, but he was not a dribbler. Solomon Hill shoots threes occasionally. He’s not a shooter. I blocked a shot once when I was in ninth grade. I was not a shot blocker. You get the point.

So maybe you would prefer that we call these guys “Equal Opportunity Two-Way Players” or “Commensurate Two-Way Players.” I suppose we are just getting into semantics at this point, but let’s talk about some of these CTWPs.

In no way do I feel it necessary to criticize LeBron James. He is my favorite non-Pacer of all time, and he’s one of the all-time greats. With that said, I don’t think you can compare what he’s doing this year to what Paul George is doing.

First of all, the Cleveland offense has been running through Kevin Love for much of this season. LeBron has been able to sit back and take fewer shots for large stretches of games in 2015. Paul George doesn’t have that luxury. We saw just how bad the Pacers looked in the first five games of the season when he wasn’t firing on all cylinders. Last night, Paul George had a poor outing and the Pacers got rocked by an inferior team. Sure, other guys were getting their legs as well, but the big change this year came when PG turned into a human fireball.

But further, there is an important distinction between the FG% drop in the guys that LeBron, Durant, and Curry are guarding and what Paul George does defensively. Cross-matchups.

When Chris Paul has to bust his butt for 40 minutes defending Curry, his offense is naturally going to dip. KD and LeBron take a similar toll on their opponents. Meanwhile, Paul George is often cross matched in a way that makes both ends of the floor more difficult for him. Next week against the Warriors, PG may guard Klay Thompson on one end and then find himself being defended by Andre Iguodala on the other end. Iggy will be able to blend in offensively and then exert all of his energy on defense. PG will not have that luxury.

I think this is what makes PG unique from all of your other “CTWPs” in the entire league besides Kawhi Leonard — another player who regularly defends the other team’s very best player on a nightly basis. But Kawhi, as good as he is offensively, isn’t asked to carry his team on that end.

Searle: So your definition of a “two-way player” is this: Players who defend the best opposing perimeter player each night and who carry the offensive load as well.

Do I have that correct? Is that the Washburn Unabridged Dictionary definition of a two-way player? Does that definition reflect the popular / commonly accepted use of the term?

Washburn: I don’t know that it reflects the commonly accepted usage, but I think it would be a better usage.

My biggest problem with the phrase is that I think it’s overused. Typically, we use it to describe a player who is great offensively and doesn’t suck defensively. I would prefer to use it on guys that excel on both ends. That list, in my opinion, is quite small.

I wouldn’t call Curry a two-way player. This is not to say that he’s bad on one end. I don’t think he’s bad defensively. I just don’t think he qualifies for that title in the same way that Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, and Anthony Davis do.

And yes, you are right to note that my Washburn Dictionary would definitely be unabridged. Conciseness has rarely been a forte of mine.

Searle: As we saw with your prior reply. Hey-O!

I dig the New King Jon version of the two-way player. It is a damn exclusive club (PG, the guy the Pacers traded for George Hill, Jimmy Butler, ???). But at least it has a tangible definition, and ranking them makes sense under those terms. The “Curry” loophole has been closed.

Does the term have room for guys who theoretically could be the “#1 option” on O & D but aren’t because their teammates are talented enough to make that extreme expenditure unnecessary?

LeBron absolutely can do it, the Cavs just wisely avoid it (until he is called upon to lock up PG down the stretch like he did earlier this season). Is that enough? If Klay Thompson was suddenly traded to the Jazz, he could absolutely be that guy on a just-miss-the-playoffs squad. Would the mediocrity of that hypothetical squad ruin his candidacy?

Does the team have to be a playoff contending team to feature a true-blue two-way player? Because there is a guy in Tinsletown on a farewell tour who technically fits the “carry the load” definition on both ends, and we can’t allow that if we don’t want Basketball Twitter to collectively block us forever. I think Google would flag 8p9s for malware.

Washburn: This has really come full circle. From possible DHs to possible NKJ 2-Way players.

It’s definitely a short list. Paul George, Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard, and Jimmy Butler currently do it. As you said, LeBron is obviously capable at any moment, he’s just at a different stage in his career right now. Similarly, I think Chris Paul is tremendous on both ends and is probably his team’s most important player, even though it’s much more difficult to be a “game changer” on defense as a point guard these days. Marc Gasol has slipped a little, but I think he still has one more year of leading his team in both ends.

Past those guys, I suppose that Al Horford, the young Andrew Wiggins, and Klay Thompson might qualify, but we’re starting to get into that “they play hard on both ends, but they aren’t really elite (I hate that word but whatever) on both ends. I think Karl Anthony Towns could definitely get there one day. Tim Duncan just left after living there for fifteen years.

As you said. It’s a mighty exclusive club. And as for Kobe Bean Bryant, Nerlens Noel, and anyone else you may have mentioned, I don’t watch college level basketball, so I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Searle: Are the Lakers or Sixers playing NBA-quality basketball this year? No way, player.