Did you know that Oscar Robertson was not a PG?

ESPN had him ranked as the #2 PG All-time http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=daily...

Players like Oscar and Magic could play 4 or 5 positions. Their positions are really just labels.

EDIT: I wouldn't know, I didn't start watching Basketball till the mid 80's.

Wikipedia also mentions he was a shooting guard/point guard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Robertson

Oscar Robertson

Back when Robertson played, they didn't label players as "point guards", or "2 guards", they were just guards.

Guys like Oscar, Jerry West, and Pete Maravich handled the so-called point duties (bringing the ball down, setting up other players, etc...), as well as being great scorers. They were much more versatile than players today.

Most of the time the offense was run through Robertson, who could not only score, but was great at setting up teammates - so yes, he was a point guard.

FYI - for the first couple years of Magic's career, he shared the "point" duties with Norm Nixon, who was more of a prototype point guard than Magic was, until he was traded to the Clippers. It was only then that Magic took over as the sole point guard.

Hope this helps

229 and "my kill" aka some sissy scrawny kid that plays too many videogames but probably hasn't hurt an ANT in his life - are WRONG.

A PG's duty is to distribute the ball and make others better. Oscar was a SCORER first and foremost.

My definition of what a PG is is when the points he manufactures through assists outnumber the points he scores by himself.

Example - the year Oscar averaged 30 points and 10 assists. Those 10 assists only account for 20 points, so he personally scored more points himself than he manufactured for others. This is common sense. It defines what your role was.

Now take Magic for instance. Even when he started scoring later in his career a bit more, the points he manufactured through assists STILL outweighed any he scored on his own. Example - 23 points and 12 assists. 24 points > 23. It's close, but to me that's the fine line you walk when defining roles.

So in conclusion, Jerry West and Oscar were SCORING GUARDS first and foremost. Just b/c they brought up the ball like Lebron James does, doesn't make them a true PG.

It's also the very reason why Iverson moved to SG, and why everyone universally started thinking Stephon Marbury should've moved to SG, b/c his PG duties were so diluted through his desire to score (ex: one year he put up something like 22 and 10..again it's close, but the points outweigh the assists here).

One last example is Michael Ballhog Jordan. Even when he brought the ball up in 1989 and averaged 8 assists a game and everyone proclaimed him a "PG" that season, he was still putting up in excess of 30 points a game, thereby OBVIOUSLY precluding him from EVER being a true PG...

While Oscar is mostly plays as a combo guard (PG+SG), he is best known for his PG abilities. That's the reason why he is the all time assists leader for years (9800+ and was done when the NBA was more stringent in counting assists) until Magic broke it in '91. And yes, he is a dominant scorer and a reasonably good rebounder too. He is just that good.

I've never seen any CREDIBLE NBA PG GOAT list w/o Oscar Robertson and i've never seen any CREDIBLE PG GOAT list that disqualify him just because he moonlights as a forward sometimes.

He was 6'5 220 pounds. Built like a shooting guard or a really smaller small forward. And he could play the point, 2 guard or even the forward. He was a combo guard.

Point Foward like Scottie Pippen.......

Yes i knew that

yeah he's like lebron point forward

Not sure why this matters.