NBA Teams Rethink the Point Guard Role: Is the Traditional Floor General Becoming Obsolete in Today’s Positionless League?

When Fred VanVleet, the steady hand guiding the Houston Rockets’ resurgence, went down with a torn ACL before the season even began, the eulogies for Houston’s playoff hopes were drafted. Without a proven floor general, the logic went, the Rockets would descend into chaos—a rudderless ship of young talent crashing against the rocks of the Western Conference.

Instead, they are 10-3. They boast the number one offense in the NBA.

In Atlanta, the narrative was similar. Four games into the season, Trae Young—the engine, the identity, the singular force of the Hawks’ offense—suffered an MCL sprain. Surely, without their heliocentric star, the Hawks would crumble.

Instead, they are 8-3 in his absence. Their defense, historically a sieve, has transformed into a top-four unit.

And in Miami, Tyler Herro, the Heat’s de facto point guard and offensive spark plug, has yet to suit up. The prediction? A sub-.500 slog. The reality? A 9-6 record and an offense that is humming with efficiency.

It is a trend that defies conventional basketball wisdom. In a league that has spent the last decade worshiping at the altar of the high-usage, pick-and-roll maestro, teams are suddenly thriving without them.

What is happening? Have we reached a tipping point where the traditional star point guard—specifically the smaller, defensively liable variety—is no longer a prerequisite for winning? Or are we witnessing a temporary anomaly, a mirage before the playoffs expose the truth?

To understand this phenomenon, we must first look at how the game has evolved beneath our feet.

The Evolution of the “Engine”

The death of the “pure point guard”—the Mark Jackson or Tyus Jones archetype who sets the table but rarely eats—is old news. That player died a decade ago, buried by the three-point revolution and the explosion of perimeter skill.

The modern point guard is an engine. They are expected to score 25 points a night, bend defenses with their gravity, and create for others as a byproduct of their own threat. We live in the era of Luka Dončić, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Tyrese Haliburton—giants who control every aspect of the game.

But beneath that top tier of superstars lies a more complicated class of player: the small, gifted offensive guard who gives you 25 points and 10 assists but bleeds value on the other end. Trae Young. Darius Garland. Tyler Herro. Fred VanVleet.

For years, the math favored them. Their offensive production was so overwhelming that it masked their defensive sins. But the calculus of the NBA has changed.

“Offenses are smarter now,” says one Eastern Conference scout. “They hunt you. It doesn’t matter if you’re hiding in the corner. If you’re small and you can’t slide your feet, they will bring you into the action every single time.”

In a league where switching is the default and every roster has three or four guys who can attack a mismatch, hiding a bad defender is harder than ever. And if your offensive engine is also your defensive Achilles’ heel, the net gain becomes murky.

This is the context in which Atlanta, Houston, and Miami are operating. They haven’t just lost a player; they’ve lost a paradigm. And in doing so, they’ve stumbled upon new, perhaps more sustainable, ways to win.

The Atlanta Experiment: Addition by Subtraction?

Trae Young is the perfect test case. He is an offensive genius, a one-man top-10 offense. He is also, by most metrics, one of the most damaging defenders in NBA history.

Without him, the Hawks haven’t tried to replace him. They’ve reinvented themselves.

Gone is the heliocentric system where one man dribbles the air out of the ball while four others watch. In its place is a democratized, egalitarian attack fueled by defense and transition.

The new starting lineup—featuring Dyson Daniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Zaccharie Risacher, Jalen Johnson, and Clint Capela/Onyeka Okongwu—is a defensive monster. There are no weak links. Every player is long, athletic, and versatile.

“They’re suffocating people,” notes a Western Conference assistant coach. “They switch everything. They get in passing lanes. And then they run.”

The numbers back it up. Since Young went down, the Hawks rank top-five in blocks and second in steals. They are turning those turnovers into points, averaging 32.4 transition points per game—a mark that would rank third in the league.

Offensively, they’ve replaced Young’s singular brilliance with a committee approach. Jalen Johnson has blossomed into an All-Star caliber forward who does everything. Dyson Daniels is making high-level reads. Alexander-Walker is attacking closeouts. They rank seventh in points off cuts, a sign of an offense that moves, breathes, and reacts.

Is their ceiling lower without Young’s shot creation? Probably. But their floor has risen dramatically because they are no longer playing 4-on-5 on defense.

The Miami Miracle: The “No-Pick-and-Roll” Offense

If Atlanta is winning with defense, Miami is winning with heresy.

Without Tyler Herro, the Heat have adopted an offensive system that looks like it was designed in a laboratory to annoy basketball purists. They don’t run pick-and-rolls.

Literally. The Heat run just over 10 pick-and-rolls per game. For context, the team with the next fewest runs nearly 27. Tyler Herro alone ran more pick-and-rolls last year than this entire Heat team does now.

Instead, Erik Spoelstra has unleashed a “drive-and-kick” ecosystem on steroids. They lead the league in pace (up from 27th last year) and rank first in assists off drives.

“It’s positionless basketball in its purest form,” says an NBA analyst. “Bam Adebayo isn’t a center anymore; he’s a floor spacer taking six threes a game. Jaime Jaquez Jr. isn’t a rookie wing; he’s a primary initiator attacking the paint.”

By removing Herro—a player who needs screens to get open—Miami has empowered everyone else to attack. They create space not with pick-and-rolls, but with five-out alignments and relentless cutting. It is a system that requires high IQ and unselfishness, two traits the Heat culture breeds in a lab.

And defensively? Without Herro to hunt, Miami has returned to its roots as a top-three unit when Adebayo plays. They are winning ugly, they are winning fast, and they are winning without a point guard.

The Houston Anomaly: Bully Ball 2.0

Then there are the Houston Rockets, who have decided that “skill” is overrated if you can just beat everyone up.

Without VanVleet, the Rockets start a lineup of giants. Their smallest player is 6’7″ Amen Thompson. They play two centers. They play wings with 7-foot wingspans.

They have leaned into a strategy that feels prehistoric but is statistically revolutionary: Offensive Rebounding.

The Rockets are grabbing 40.8% of their own misses, the highest rate in 30 years. Steven Adams, Alperen Şengün, Amen Thompson, Tari Eason—they are simply bigger and stronger than everyone else.

“It doesn’t matter if you miss the shot if you get the ball back,” says Ime Udoka, presumably (though his team’s play screams it).

This allows them to survive with poor spacing. They take the fewest threes in the league. They run the second-fewest pick-and-rolls. But they have the number one offensive rating because they generate more possessions than anyone else.

And in Alperen Şengün, they have a “point center” who can approximate the passing of a guard, while Amen Thompson provides the rim pressure of a slasher. They have replaced the finesse of a point guard with the brute force of a sledgehammer.

The Verdict: Are Point Guards Obsolete?

So, is this the end of the small guard? Are teams better off trading their Trae Youngs and Tyler Herros for three 6’8″ wings who can defend?

Not quite.

“Let’s not get carried away,” warns the scout. “Regular season basketball is different. You can win with effort, transition, and rebounding in November. But in May? In the last five minutes of a playoff game? You need a guy who can get you a bucket.”

This is the crux of the issue. The Hawks look great now, running and gunning. But when the game slows down, when defenses lock in and take away the transition opportunities, who creates the advantage? Who hits the pull-up three against the drop coverage?

Trae Young does that. Fred VanVleet does that.

The Rockets’ bully-ball works against the Hornets on a Tuesday. Will it work against the Timberwolves or the Thunder in a seven-game series when the refs swallow their whistles and the paint is packed?

Probably not.

However, what this season has proven is that the dependency on the point guard is overstated. Teams are realizing that you can build a robust, winning ecosystem without a heliocentric star if you have enough collective skill, size, and IQ.

We are seeing the rise of “aggregate playmaking”—where the responsibility of the point guard is shared across five positions. We are seeing the value of “defensive integrity”—where having no weak links is more valuable than having one offensive savant.

The small guard isn’t dead. But the margin for error has shrunk. If you are going to be small and bad on defense, you better be Steph Curry. You better be Jalen Brunson. You better be so transcendently good on offense that the math still works in your favor.

For players like Trae Young and Tyler Herro, the pressure is now on. When they return, they aren’t just fighting for wins; they are fighting for the validity of their archetype. They have to prove that they are the ceiling-raisers, not the floor-lowerers.

Until then, the Rockets, Hawks, and Heat will keep winning, keep defending, and keep proving that sometimes, the best point guard is no point guard at all.