Dissecting Which Position Is Most Important Towards Winning an NBA Championship | News, Scores, High

There are several road maps that lead to an NBA championship, but one role is a constant for every team that has hoisted the trophy in this era: There must be a ball-dominator; a player that the offense flows through and the player that is the first option at crunch time.

Does that role have to be confined to one position? 

I say no. 

Obviously there are five positions, but when thinking of building a team, it’s not about five spots, it’s more like three:

These are the power forwards and centers. In the grand scheme of things, they are the same from the perspective of building a team. Ideally a team wouldn't want two back-to-the-basket players on the floor at the same time. It's also not ideal to have two face-up bigs or garbage men on the frontcourt.

I used the term garbage men endearingly, referring to players like Dennis Rodman and Ben Wallace. These are players that have limited abilities on offense, sans their offensive rebounding, put-backs and the occasional timely pass.

They can be very valuable, but too many of them means your offense isn't potent. This is what happens to the Chicago Bulls' second unit when Taj Gibson and Omer Asik are in the game at the same time.

They play great defense, but the offense generally suffers.

That said, on the defensive side of the ball, winning teams must have bigs that protect the rim. They don't have to lead the league in blocked shots, but there must be an inside presence that clogs the middle. The bigs must clean the glass on defense and help the team transition into offense.

When other positions are forced to play the bigs primary role, it weakens the entire team.

Next is the Wing Players

These are the small forwards and shooting guards. If you're building a team and you have neither, they are one in the same. Two dominant wing players can clash if one doesn't significantly pull back on his game.

Big-time wing players need the ball and the freedom to create. The only caveat to that are players like Reggie Miller and Ray Allen. They get their offense from running off screens, and rarely, if ever take players off-the-dribble.

This style of player can easily blend with a dominant wing player that thrives on dribble penetration.

Just as two quality bigs can co-exist, as long as they play different games, such is the case with the wing players as well.

Finally, the Point Guards

They are in a class by themselves. There are different types of lead guards: the scoring point, a la Derrick Rose; the pure point guard like Rajon Rondo and the do-it-all lead guards like Chris Paul and Deron Williams.

The lead guard may have a plethora of skills, but it is his responsibility to make sure he gets his team involved. His role can be superseded by a ball-dominator at the wing position. Players like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant don't need traditional point guards.

Take a look at some vintage MJ and Kobe:

They create the offense for themselves and others, but these are rare talents and circumstances.

Since they have their own group, it could be argued that the point guard is the most important position, but the history of the NBA championship says otherwise.

Whose Leading Teams To Championships

Since 1992, only two point guards have won NBA Finals MVP (Tony Parker in 2007 and Chauncey Billups in 2004). In 2007, although Parker torched the Cavaliers, almost no one would tell you he meant more to the Spurs than Tim Duncan.

Because of Duncan's presence, Parker was able to have the series he had. He's a great player, but that team belonged to the Big Fundamental.

Billups played on a rare squad, it was difficult to decipher who the best player really was. That said, I'd go with Billups over Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace and Ben Wallace.

Each of them played a huge role, but CB4 made that team go.

So, in the past 20 years, a point guard has been the best player on only one NBA champion.

You simply can't argue with those numbers. When looking at the teams that have won titles in that span, you can't logically say that there are more point guards that were the best player on their teams.

Even if you give Parker the nod, it still only accounts for 10 percent of the past 20 NBA champions.

The wing players are well-represented. Jordan, Bryant and Wade have been the most important players on eight championship teams since 1992. It's an impressive number, but it's spread between only three different players, and more than half go to the greatest of all time.

Jordan won five in this span, Bryant also won five, but only two came with him as the definitive most important player on the team. His first three came with Shaquille O'Neal.

Wade's lone title was also with Shaq, but this was a different O'Neal, and Wade was clearly the most important piece in 2006 vs. the Mavericks.

These players are an example of the types of wing players that are so dynamic, they change what is needed from the other positions. They don't need traditional point guards, and in Jordan's case, he didn't need a truly dominant post presence.

Both Bill Cartwright and Luc Longley were decent centers, but neither were top 10 scorers at their position. His power forwards were garbage men (Horace Grant and Dennis Rodman). He had a dynamic wing player as his second fiddle in Scottie Pippen, and he was comfortable in his role.

Both Bryant and Wade still had significant offensive players in the post.

That leads me to the bigs. Simple math shows that the most important player on the remaining 11 NBA champions were all big men: Shaq, Duncan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kevin Garnett and Dirk Nowitzki.

Here is an example of KG at his best in 2010:

You could make an argument against Garnett in Boston in 2010, especially because Paul Pierce won the Finals MVP, but I contend Garnett's impact on that team was most vital to the championship run.

Shaq obviously had Kobe, Duncan had Parker and Manu Ginobili, Olajuwon had Clyde Drexler and Kenny Smith, Garnett had Pierce and Ray Allen and Nowitzki had Jason Kidd and Jason Terry.

No one player can win it alone, but they were the most vital players on their teams.

Their presence allowed the game to be played from the inside-out, which is the easiest way to be effective.

What's the Conclusion?

Any position can be the most important player on a team, it's all about the player, thus the ball-dominator. More often than not, this player is a big. Teams with a big as the most important player have accounted for more titles in the past 20 years than any other.

This group has also had more different players than any of the other positions with five. This tells me for as much as the game has changed, one thing remains the same: This is still a big man's game. This year will not add to the mantle for big men, as none of the four remaining teams have bigs as their most important players, but this is a more of an aberration. 

A dominant big will carry the responsibility of scoring and defending the rim, which is paramount in any defensive scheme.

There are always alternate routes, but history proves that you need a truly transcendent player on the wing to elevate a team to the highest level. This is just another example of what made Jordan so great. He was dominant without the presence of a dominant big man, and that is almost unprecedented.

The path to an NBA championship must be created by stars, and more often than not those players are the bigs.

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