To date, three of the most popular are distinguished from game team sports. Football comes first without question, and basketball and hockey share second and third. It is worth noting that the first sport is more common in Europe, while the other two are on the American continent. However, basketball is widely popular everywhere, even if the strongest NBA league is located in the USA. Millions of people watch basketball games and enjoy it incredibly. And even more fun you can get if you know all the positions in basketball. If for you so far there were just five players from each team on the field, then this article is intended just for you. Here you can find out what each of the five positions is called, what functions each player performs, and how these positions are divided along the lines.
Basketball Lines
If you want to know everything about the position in basketball, then you need to start small, or rather, with the general. The first thing you need to deal with is the lines into which all players are divided. There are only two of them - front and back. It is easy to guess what each of them is responsible for. The back line is the players who protect their ring from enemy attacks, and also start their own team's attacks. Accordingly, the front line is the players who attack the opponent’s ring. They may also try to prevent the enemy from launching a counterattack. As a matter of fact, there is nothing complicated in this: different formations assume a different number of players in the lines, but the standard scheme implies two players of the back line and three players of the front line. Now that you understand the basics of lines, you can take a look at the basic positions in basketball.
Base position
Each player has their own positions in basketball, but they will be discussed a little later. There are only five of them, and each of them will be described in detail. But first you need to consider the basic positions, of which there are only three: defender, center and striker. Again, there is absolutely nothing complicated, since the roles of players in their positions can be understood instantly. Defenders protect the ring, attackers attack the opponent’s ring, and the center is the link between the attack and the defense. At the same time, it is impossible to single out any of the most important of the three basic positions, because each of them is incredibly important. But these are only general concepts. Now you should more carefully study the basketball concepts, the position in basketball in English and Russian, as well as the tasks of each of the five players.
Five positions
So, it's time to make out the five main positions of basketball. In the back line, this is the point guard and attacking defenders, and in the front line it is a heavy and light forward, as well as a center forward.
Point guard
So, it’s worth starting with the analysis of abbreviations that are used in basketball to indicate specific positions on the field. For example, SF is a position in basketball that indicates a light forward who is usually closest to the opponent’s ring. But it’s worth starting from your own ring, so the first player to consider is a point guard. In English, it is called either combo guard or point guard, and its reduction looks like PG (in the Russian version, respectively, of RE). What functions does this player perform? In fact, the scope of work is very large, since he sees almost the entire site, respectively, it depends on him how effectively the whole team will play. He is the dispatcher, the distributor, from which the team attacks begin. In defensive actions, he serves as the last frontier, so he must be tall in order to be able to shoot the enemy throws. But do not think that this position is more important than other basketball positions. Freestyle 2 and other computer basketball games also prove that every position is important.
Attacking defender
The next player on the back line who is a little further from his ring is the attacking defender. As you can see, it is not so easy to understand basketball, the positions of the players are very diverse. In English, this position can be called both swingman and shunting guard, the reduction looks, respectively, as SG (or AZ in Russian). As for the role on the field, this defender, as you can already understand from the name of the position, is more focused on the attack than on the defense. Usually this is the team’s best sniper, who can score more than other points, as well as pull the enemy’s defense against himself, untying the hands of his partners. In defense, this player’s task is to patronize the most dangerous attacking opponents.
Now you know what positions in basketball are in the back line. It's time to go to the front line, which has three more players.
Light forward
The first player of the attacking line, which is worth talking about, is a light forward, which was already mentioned a little earlier. In English, this position is called tar forward, that is, SF. Accordingly, the Russian abbreviation for this position is LF. But much more important is the role this player plays on the field. This position is a place for a mobile attack player. He acts immediately on the entire front, and also can spend a lot of time under the ring, gaining points there. A lot of famous basketball players played in this position or in the mixed position of forward point. The latter combines the features of both a light forward and a point guard. As you can see, absolutely all positions in basketball play a huge role. The description of each of them proves this again.
Heavy forward
This is a rather interesting position, which allows the player to practice immediately both in attack and defense. Moreover, some well-known heavy forwards almost always concentrate on defensive actions, but there are also those who manage to earn a quarter or even a third of all points of their team. In English, this position is called Power Forward and, accordingly, is designated as PF, but in Russian, its reduction, of course, is designated as TF. It’s worth mentioning right away that the main responsibility of this player, who does not play as close to the opponent’s ring as the light forward, is to select the ball both in defense and in attack. Accordingly, the player must have high physical strength, powerful complexion, because otherwise it will be very difficult to cope with such a task. As in the case of the light forward, this position can be combined with the duties of a point guard (or play a combo forward who acts as both strikers). However, this is rarely practiced, since the workload of a heavy forward is already impressive. Accordingly, such mixtures are not common.
Center
And of course, you definitely need to tell more about the center, which is actually the center of the whole team. In English, it is called - center - and is therefore designated accordingly - TS. As you can already understand, in Russian the abbreviation will be exactly the same, therefore in all languages this position is indicated as TS.
As for the playing role of this player, everything is quite complicated here. It would seem that this player should play in the center of the field and connect the attack with the defense - by analogy with football. But in fact, everything is completely different here, because the center in basketball determines its center with a field not across, but across. And this means that this player is always focused on the opponent’s ring. As a matter of fact, his task is to play under the ring and earn points. Of course, this is the task for the highest player in the team, so most often in this position you can meet players with a height of more than 210 centimeters, up to 225 centimeters. Please note that the center may take on additional duties of a heavy forward, so that he can play a forward or combo forward point, thereby moving away from the ring and playing a little further, which changes its functions. As you can see, the five main positions of the players may not be clearly assigned to them, there are intermediate ones.