The small forward position in today’s NBA is a sticky wicket. The game’s best player plays at the small forward, but there’s also a glut of talented 3’s throughout the NBA.

LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Paul Pierce, Kevin Durant, Hedo Turkoglu, Danny Granger, Ron Artest, Caron Butler, Josh Howard, Stephen Jackson, Shawn Marion, Richard Jefferson, Rudy Gay and Lamar Odom are just a few of the big names populating the small forward landscape.

Quite a list, huh? Each one of them could be legit All-Stars, and most of them have been.

Notice anything else about the list? Anything?

Only Lamar Odom, Paul Pierce and Jackson have rings, and they play with teams that are stacked from head to toe with other talent. With the exception of Pierce, they were all nothing but role players on their championship teams.

LeBron James, on the other hand, is easily the game’s best player, and he has yet to win a Finals game.

This gets me to my point. Of all the positions (with the possible exception of PG), the small forward relies the most on having other talent around it.

Durant, Gay, Marion, Jackson, Jefferson, Butler were all on teams that had sub-.500 records last season.

Part of this is due to the variety of roles a small forward can take. The LeBrons and the ‘Melos are the number one offensive option for their teams, meaning that they can’t also be relied on as the number-one defensive option.

Since the other team’s scoring is most likely coming from a perimeter player, that leaves the team (in this case, the Cavs and Nuggets) at a distinct disadvantage.

Despite a good run or two, neither LeBron or Carmelo has had what can be called a satisfying run into the playoffs.

The example that would seem to disprove this would be the 2007 Cleveland Cavaliers, who went to the Finals. I would argue that their trip to the Finals speaks more to the transcendent talents of LeBron than anything else.

While LeBron is everything you could ask for from the small forward, he’s not exactly paired up with any world-beaters on the defensive end. LeBron had Mo Williams and Delonte West, basically two under-sized point guards playing in the backcourt.

Carmelo Anthony has Chauncey Billups and J.R. Smith playing in his backcourt, another small pair that can’t do much on the defensive end.

Teams like those are very vulnerable to big teams, just look at the havoc that the 6-10 Hedo Turkoglu was able to wreak on the Cavs in the Eastern finals last year.

Same with the Nuggets, who had to deal with Kobe, and either Ariza or Odom at the small forward, and Pau Gasol at power forward and Bynum at the center. That’s a lot of size, with Odom at 6-10 the smallest one.

Ideally, you would team a high-volume scorer at the small forward with a defensive-minded shooting guard, or vice versa.

It worked with the Lakers last year, with Ariza playing the defensive stopper to Kobe’s scorer. In 2008 for the Celtics, Paul Pierce also took the role of defensive stopper, lining up opposite LeBron and Kobe, while Ray Allen could be counted on to provide the scoring.

The small forward can be used interchangeably as a shooting guard, depending on the lineup in question.

The Houston Rockets present an interesting case. When they have Tracy McGrady firing on all cylinders, they had Shane Battier as the stopper.

Last season, they used two small forwards on the perimeter, with Artest and Battier taking up the two and three positions, giving them a good defensive push in the middle as well as a shooter in Artest.

Now, we saw that that combo got past the first round (which they never did with McGrady), and even pushed the Lakers to seven games, when clearly the Lakers were the better team.

So it would seem that a defensive stopper at the small forward would be better than having a shooter there. History shows us that teams work better when the shooting guard shoots the ball (shocking I know) and the small forward plays the lock-down defender (Jordan and Pippen anyone?)

The Dallas Mavericks also present an interesting case, because they are currently dealing with two All-Star caliber small forwards, who are both good defenders and good shooters.

Since Josh Howard didn’t make his return until Saturday night, the jury is still out on how effective he will be.

Here’s what you want from your ideal small forward, in order: defend the other teams’ best perimeter player, post up defenders, possibly do some ball handling. That’s it.

Good jump shooting helps, but isn’t a must.

Personally, I think Lamar Odom and Shawn Marion fit this to a T. In Phoenix, Marion was a defensive stopper and an outside shooter, both of which he’s good at. But as Dallas is showing this year, Marion’s offensive game is better suited when he’s posting up people, he has the athleticism to make bigger guys pay and small guys get bullied, and he’s shown me a nice set of low post moves in his first few games as a Maverick.

Since the words “low post game” are unheard of in Mike D’Antoni’s system, we are left to wonder just how much more effective Marion could have been if he was playing in a more traditional offense.

Lamar Odom has a skill set like no other forward in the league, his problem is consistency.

During the Finals last year, I saw Odom make a rebound, take the ball up the court, post up Rashard Lewis, and hit a nifty hook shot in the span of about ten seconds.

For a 6-10 guy, that is very impressive, and if he could do it regularly, he would be the top SF in the game not named LeBron James.

Speaking of 6-10 guys at small forward, it’s this height that makes Hedo Turkoglu so effective. If he’s 6-6, he’s just a poor man’s Peja Stojakavic, good jumper, injury history, not particularly athletic.

But at 6-10, he is a matchup nightmare for any team. Most small forwards are 6-5 to 6-8, and a two to five inch advantage is definitely a plus in today’s NBA.

In his absence, the Orlando Magic are forced to go with a more conventional (but still effective, if not more so) lineup of Carter at the shooting guard and Mickael Pietrus at the small forward. Since we all know Vince Carter won’t be playing much defense, that leaves Pietrus as the top perimeter defender.

Since we’ve seen that the small forwards seem to fare better as defensive stoppers, perhaps the Magic will do better with a more conventional lineup. Hell, they could probably move Rashard Lewis to the small forward (his game is more suited for that position anyway) and have the same long-distance range and mismatch potential of Turkoglu, and put Brandon Bass or Ryan Anderson as the power forward.

Look at the starting small forwards on the last few NBA Champions: Trevor Ariza, Paul Pierce, Bruce Bowen, Udonis Haslem, Bruce Bowen, Tayshaun Prince.

None of them high-volume scorers, mostly defense and three-point shooters.

Look at the last few small forwards on the losing teams in the Finals: Hedo Turkoglu, Vladimir Radmanovic, LeBron James, Josh Howard, Devean George.

George and Radmanovic excepted, I think it’s pretty clear who the better group of players is in a pure basketball sense.

But they didn’t take home the rings.

This is the third in a weekly series covering each position on the floor in-depth. Also check out Guns a-Blazin’: The Modern Shooting Guard and Hardwood Generals: Examining Today’s Point Guard .

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