Shooting Guards

Shooting Guards

The shooting guard (SG), also known as the two or off guard, is one of five traditional positions on a basketball team. Players of the position are often shorter, leaner, and quicker than forwards. A shooting guard's main objective is to score points for his team. Some teams ask their shooting guards to bring up the ball as well; these players are known colloquially as combo guards. Kobe Bryant, for example, is a shooting guard who is as good a playmaker as he is a scorer; other examples of combo guards are Jamal Crawford, Allen Iverson, Dwyane Wade, Tyreke Evans, and Jason Terry. A player who can switch between playing shooting guard and small forward is known as a swingman. Notable swing men (also known as wing players) include Evan Turner, Stephen Jackson, and Tracy McGrady, also Rudy Fernández having an under average size for small forward.

Notable shooting guards include current NBA players Ray Allen, Manu Ginóbili, Vince Carter, Dwyane Wade, Joe Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Richard Hamilton, James Harden, Paul George, Monta Ellis and former players Tracy McGrady, Michael Jordan, Clyde Drexler, Sam Jones, Earl Monroe, Reggie Miller, Allen Iverson and Jerry West.

Read more about Shooting Guards:  Characteristics and Styles of Play

Famous quotes containing the words shooting and/or guards:

    I’ll tell you one thing. If a little green man pops out at me I’m shooting first and asking questions later.
    Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1922–1978)

    To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.
    Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)