This article is part of our 2017 NBA All-Star Weekend series.
NEW ORLEANS -- The NBA is a cyclical league. Less than a decade ago, the Lakers won back-to-back rings running out a starting lineup featuring two traditional centers, neither of whom effectively spaced the floor beyond the mid-range.
Fast forward a few years and the "traditional center," the 7-footer who scores with his back to the basket and defends the same type of interior threat on the other end, is all but extinct. While a non-spacer in Timofey Mozgov managed to land a lucrative deal as a free agent this summer, players like Al Jefferson and Roy Hibbert -- one, a former All-NBA Third-teamer, the other a two-time All-Star -- were forced to settle for below-market-value contracts.
As the league continues to flip the traditional, inside-out philosophy on its head, the point guard position has moved to the forefront. A dominant, two-way wing may still be the league's most dangerous weapon, but never has it been more imperative to have an elite talent running the show.
"Point guards and stretch-fours is the NBA right now," Hawks All-Star Paul Millsap said Saturday. "You've got to have the pick and roll, and without those two, you can't have a good pick-and-roll system. So I think that's why the point guard position is so heavy right now."
Take one look at the Eastern Conference All-Star team, and that fact couldn't be more evident.
"Our whole team is point guards and wings," Celtics and Eastern Conference All-Star coach Brad Stevens said Saturday. "We'll probably have all five of them out there at one point [Sunday night]."
The top four teams in the East are represented by their respective starting point guards -- Kyrie Irving, Isaiah Thomas, John Wall and Kyle Lowry -- while Kemba Walker, a first-time All-Star, is on par, at least statistically, with the aforementioned four.
Walker's Hornets limp into the All-Star break having lost 11 of their last 12 games, but it's hard to point the blame at Walker, who's averaging 22.5 points, 5.5 assists and 4.1 rebounds, while shooting career-bests from the field (44.6%) and beyond the arc (39.5%). Walker, a combined 31.8% shooter from three over his first four seasons in the league, will compete in Saturday night's Three-Point Shootout.
He'll be joined in the competition by Irving and Lowry, the two players who've been at the forefront of the interminable who's the best point guard in the East debate for the past two-plus seasons.
While that debate will continue to wage in the trenches of the internet, Lowry said it's "never come up" among the players, themselves, and it's a question that can only be settled in May and June.
"Whoever makes it out of the East, I guess they can say they're the best," Lowry said.
When asked what it means to have such heavy point guard representation on the roster, Lowry said it speaks to the overall collection of talent in the league.
"It just shows how great this league is right now," Lowry said, "how many point guards have grown and led their teams to the top four seeds. It's just been a lot of hard work and dedication. And you have to prepare for every point guard differently."
Neither Lowry nor Stevens would reveal which guard is most difficult to scheme against -- "If I answer that it'll get me in trouble," was the coach's response -- but no guard in the East, and probably the league, presents more issues for defenses in the open court than John Wall.
Just ask Paul George, who called Wall "unguardable" at Friday's media session.
"Before, you just had to watch out for John on coast-to-coast stuff, fast breaks," George said. "Now, he's a threat as soon as he crosses that halfcourt line. You can't go under [screens]. The biggest thing [in the past] with John was keeping him out of the paint, so we could go under his screens. Can't do that anymore."
Wall is making his fourth consecutive All-Star appearance, but he's elevated his game to another level this season, averaging career-highs in scoring (22.8 per game), assists (10.6), and steals (2.1 -- 1st in NBA), while shooting better than 45 percent from the field.
His improved passing is what's drawn the most attention around the league, and it's something on which Wall prides himself.
"For me, I like the assist," Wall said Friday. "I get more excited when my teammate is scoring. If I make a heck of a pass and get my teammates a shot and they finish it, I'm more excited for that."
In the days leading up to the All-Star break, Wall made perhaps his best assist of the season. Breaking toward the hoop at full speed with teammate Otto Porter at his side, Wall slipped the ball between his legs, finding Porter in perfect stride for an easy dunk. As Porter elevated for the one-handed slam, so too did Wall, in celebration, creating an image of the two teammates levitating in near-perfect symmetry.
It was, as one might say, a "heck of a pass."
The dunk gave the Wizards an 86-57 advantage over the Thunder, serving as a rare mid-third-quarter dagger as Washington cruised to its third straight victory. A win Thursday in Indianapolis sent the Wizards into the break winners of 18 of their last 21 games, trailing first-place Cleveland by five games.
For Porter, the play was just another in what's been a breakout season for the fourth-year forward, who leads the NBA in three-point percentage (46.5%). A year ago, the third overall pick in the 2013 draft appeared destined for a career as a role player, but the expectation now is that he could be a max player when he hits free agency this summer.
Wall admitted, lightheartedly, that he's thought about how much money he's helped make some of his teammates, most notably Porter and Bradley Beal.
"That's my job as a point guard, to try to make everybody else better around me," Wall said. "When you do those types of things, you get recognition for it. When it's your time to get paid and whatever it does, it will come. It's great to see those guys get their money. They're well deserving of it."
And then there's Thomas, who will make his second straight All-Star appearance as a reserve.
For as much as Wall has grown this season, there's not a player in the league who can match Thomas' ascent from very good starting point guard to legitimate MVP candidate. Thomas' height has justifiably garnered many of the headlines -- "I'm 5-9, man" he declared Friday when asked if he'd be a better player if he were, say, 6-1-- but at this point it's almost belittling (no pun intended) to wonder in amazement each time Thomas spins and contorts his way to the rim around defenders more than a foot taller. Still, Thomas' peers found it difficult to talk about his accomplishments without mentioning the obvious.
"His production at his size," raved George on Friday, "just everything going against him, you know, being 5-2 [5-9] and being able to dominate the game the way he does, having or putting the Celtics on his back and getting them back to that historic Celtic pride, I think it's just unbelievable what he's accomplished."
"He's doing everything that Kyrie's doing but a couple inches shorter," George continued. "His game is definitely bigger than what his size is."
At the break, the Celtics sit at 37-20, good for second place in the increasingly competitive East. While Boston's depth deserves praise, the Celtics, even after adding Al Horford over the summer, know they wouldn't be where they are without Thomas playing at an All-Star level.
The former 60th overall pick -- that's the last pick in the draft, for those counting at home -- is averaging 29.9 points per game, second in the NBA behind Russell Westbrook, to go with a career-best 6.3 assists, all while shooting 46.7 percent from the field and 38.7 percent from three. His string of late-game heroics have earned him a new nickname, "King of the Fourth," which he's ever so gradually begun to embrace.
"It says that people are taking notice in the fourth quarter of what I'm doing and what my team is doing," Thomas said Friday. "It's pretty cool."
When asked about his goals for his career, Thomas didn't pull any punches.
"It was, last year, to be the greatest little guy to ever play the game," Thomas said. "Now, with things moving like they are, I want to be the greatest player to ever play. I know I've got a long way to go, I'm not even close, but you've got to shoot high."
Shooting high -- both when it comes to setting goals and getting the ball over a 7-footer's outstretched arms -- is something with which Thomas is certainly familiar. Just 28 years old, his ultimate standing among the NBA's greatest little guys is far from solidified, but Thomas has another goal in mind for the short term.
A reporter asked him, point blank, on Friday if he plans to make a run at the All-Star Game MVP?
Thomas paused.
"We'll see," he said, carefully. "I mean, if I get the minutes, I might as well."
