I've been noticing certain archetypes when I watch my favorite hoopers and I want to try to put words to what I've been seeing
So basically you have like… some players, whose offense is conducted in this choppy style (idk another word for it—maybe a "deliberate" style?)
There's a lot of what almost feels like they're hitting buttons on a controller with their movements, but in an expert way. Like the most high-level version of "press X, press Y, hold R2" but happening in real life. Every move is sectioned off, executed, and then transitioned into the next.
But it's not clunky; there is an intentional and controlled rhythm to it.
This isn't a commentary on skill level by the way. Players of similar skill sets can exist on either side of this spectrum, what I'll call the "offense as storytelling" spectrum. What I'm trying to describe isn't about whether you're "good" or not—it's more about how you move. The rhythm you operate in. It's more of a feel type of thing.
So then you've got the other style of player on the spectrum—the one who's like pure poetry in motion. Each move flows into the next like it's all part of one continuous story. It feels like the most natural thing in the world. There's no pause, or button-press. It's all flow. (Distinct from flow-state; any style of player can enter flow state yfm).
LeBron feels like the former to me—more deliberate, more authored. Melo feels like the latter, but with a bit of deliberation sprinkled in. Jalen Brunson is deliberate. Donovan Mitchell flows. And again, it's not a hard binary. It's a spectrum.
Steph, for example, is more toward the smoother, movement-as-poetry side, but he's not all the way smooth. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander? That man moves like storytelling in motion. But he's not quite as fluid as Devin Booker, who might be the cleanest example of "pure poetry" in the league right now. Each movement flows into the next one, like a waterfall flows into a river, or like a creek flows into a stream.
If I could use a literary analogy, it's like: to what degree can I feel the artist exercising narrative control versus letting the story just… unfold? Both create beauty. Both are art. But they hit you as an audience member in different ways. It's just a different process.
And then you have someone like Kyrie. Who, to me, is dead center. He can go full poetry or full narrative control depending on what the moment calls for. He's bilingual. He's the bridge.
Paul George? All poetry. Like a walking sonnet. Kawhi? The opposite. Every step feels calculated. Like he's working through a chessboard that only he can see. Everything is intentional. Nothing is wasted.
And I'm not even trying to say one is better than the other (well Kawhi is clearly better than PG but I mean I don't think one style is necessarily superior).
I just think it's interesting. The same way two authors can write about the same thing and produce two totally different books. Some players paint. Some players write code. Some do both.
This spectrum of movement as storytelling is one of the beauties of watching the sport.
Of course we care about the final scores and who wins but the "how" in what they do matters just as much.
What language they're speaking when they move. What kind of story they're telling every time they touch the rock.