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Even within the modern portion of NBA history—1973-74 through the present day (when the scope of box scores expanded), point guards have seen their roles change dramatically.
They’re no longer just the table-setters who once graced the league’s premier rosters, though players who fill such roles are now known as pure point guards. Today, many are also responsible for providing plenty of scoring production, ideally by spacing out the defense with a constant barrage of three-point daggers.
Of course, every individual floor general fills a slightly different role for his team. Defensive stalwarts add plenty of value, and so too do limited shooters who constantly attack the basket and routinely punish the rim.
They can all be great.
To determine how great, we’re turning to NBA Math’s total points added(TPA) metric, which weighs both per-possession efficiency and volume to show how much value a player added during a season. The calculation here is rather simple: Add together the regular season and postseason scores so that both the first 82 games and the all-important playoffs are taken into account.
Each point guard is eligible just once, so we’re taking only their best scores to determine the modern-era hierarchy.
