Interestingly, the data shows that it’s pretty even among the positions, except for the point guard spot. The shooting guard position had the highest marks in regards to win shares, while RAPM points heavily towards the importance of big men.

To be fair, the data set starts in 1990, right after all-time great point guard Magic Johnson led the Lakers to multiple titles in the 1980’s. However, that was still 30-plus years ago, and it’s probably worthwhile to ponder just how important the point guard position is in the modern 2014 NBA game.

Here’s a list of the point guards for each team that won the title since 1990:

Tony Parker
Mario Chalmers
Jason Kidd
Derek Fisher
Rajon Rondo
Gary Payton
Chauncey Billups
Avery Johnson
Ron Harper
Kenny Smith
B.J. Armstrong
John Paxson

In that list, you have a couple great point guards (though in regards to the all-time greats like Jason Kidd and Gary Payton, they were at the end of their career and title-hunting) and then a bunch of solid floor managers.

This is not to say that an NBA team can’t win a title with a superstar point guard. However, the data does question if a team can win one when they’re being paid superstar money. Or to put it in more economical terms, perhaps a team can’t win with the majority of their available cap being taken up by the point guard position.

According to my research, the only point guard in the last 25 years that you could say was even the best player on a championship team was Billups in 2004 (and even that’s arguable). In fact, out of all the champion point guards, he was the only one that registered a double-digit win share season. The PG position as a whole was nearly half as productive as the shooting guard position, specifically in regards to total season win shares.