The concept of positionless basketball is not a new one. In the modern era of the NBA, this trend hasn’t just emerged, it’s already been fully established. That part of the sport is here. Players across the floor are expected to be versatile, impact the game in multiple ways and not be boxed into one rigid role.

But more recently, what really feels like the larger pivot point is the sheer size, along with the skill, of nearly every player in the league on average. Not only is the average player in the league able to play multiple positions, showcase versatility and find a way to impact the game in many ways, but now that average player is bigger than it was 10 years ago. And when you start to size up the average player in the NBA, it shifts the way the game is fundamentally played.

So you have this phenomenon where not only is the game becoming more positionless and versatile, but the size of the players that are able to do these things is shifting, which makes the game look a lot different. The size and skillset of these players is becoming more functional, too. It is no longer good enough to just be tall, rebound and protect the rim for a big. It is no longer acceptable for most power forwards to not be able to space the floor. And oh, by the way, those power forwards have to be somewhere between 6-foot-8 and 6-foot-10 and defend in space as well.

There are centers like Victor Wembanyama who are completely breaking the mold, and even beyond him, players like Chet Holmgren, Evan Mobley and others are just ridiculously skilled for their size. The average size of a point guard has significantly increased in recent history as well. In fact, it is extremely rare for a six-foot point guard to stick in the league unless they are absolutely elite at multiple things. That wasn’t the case a decade or more ago.

But the larger trend from this positionless era is the average size of the players on each team who are shouldering the highest usage and running the offense with the ball in their hands. While most every team has a depth chart of traditional point guards who, again, are taller than they have ever been on average, there are just as many players around the league, seemingly, who are the size of a small forward to power forward but have the ball in their hands as much as a point guard.

That is not a new concept overall. We have seen players like LeBron James be the offense for teams in the past at his size, which at one time was much more rare. Even after LeBron entered the league, players like Kawhi Leonard, Kevin Durant, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony have been the offensive engines of their teams as taller players. But now it seems like every team has those kinds of guys.

And not only do many teams operate with their primary offensive player being the size of a wing or power forward, but multiple players on the team can initiate offense and have the ball in their hands at that size. Think about players now, irrespective of their traditional position before coming to the NBA, who are just large creators. Think about Luka Doncic, Jayson Tatum, Deni Avdija, Pascal Siakam, Brandon Ingram, Julius Randle and Brandon Miller, among others.

Even more recently, rookie guard Cooper Flagg entered the league and was asked to play point guard in his NBA debut at 6-foot-9. There are tons of players that fit this mold, where they are not at all the size of what you would consider to be the average offensive initiator and high-usage player that completely dictates the offense, but it is becoming more of a theme league-wide.

And so what you have now is this modern league that is changing shape in how offense is distributed and how you build teams. It is kind of an inside-out approach where you build your team around larger perimeter players, and you put complementary guards and bigs around them in a lot of cases. That’s not the rule, but that certainly feels like the trend.

Thematically, as the league continues to shift, expect this to continue. When you look at the top picks in the upcoming 2026 NBA Draft and beyond, several of the top projected picks fit this mold. They are 6-foot-8 or bigger, wing or forward-type players who thrive with the ball in their hands.

And as this trickles down to the college ranks and the high school level as well, that trend is only going to continue to boomerang back to the NBA, because the prospects entering the league were shaped by the way the game is played today.

In short, the NBA is not just becoming more positionless and versatile. The players doing these things are getting bigger, and the responsibilities that come with running an offense are increasingly being placed in the hands of players with the size of traditional wings and forwards. That is changing the shape of the league, and it is only going to continue.