NBA small-ball concepts are being taken to a new extreme.
Any team that tossed out a power forward who chucked threes was once considered a proponent of this movement. But sweet-shooting 4s have since become standard.
And that's how we will define small-ball lineups: They are five-man combinations that cannot feature someone who has logged the majority of his career minutes at the 5, and there can be no more than one career power forward in the mix.
All lineups must have been used more than 90 possessions to qualify for this list. With the aim of keeping our findings as objective as possible, we will grade undersized groups by multiplying their net rating by the number of possessions they've spent on the hardwood as of March 29. This helps account for pace and rewards combinations that spend ample amount of time together without penalizing units that perform well in shorter bursts.
The resulting number will henceforth be known as the "Lineup Score," and the 10 best small-ball units will be ranked acco ...
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Article written by Dan Favale