Out of Position Penalty

[medical3072]

IS there any penalty for playing a player out of position (e.g. playing a PG at SG or vice versa)?

[Tim Moungey]

If it's like the pro game, then not directly. However, if they don't have the right size or ratings for the position, performance suffers.

[Wayne23]

I play people out of position all the time and have a lot of success with it- but only one off, say a PG as an SG, an SG as an SF...

I have a PF on my current team who has started at SF one season, C another season and has done pretty well at both.

[PointGuard]

I play people out of position all the time and have a lot of success with it- but only one off, say a PG as an SG, an SG as an SF...

I have a PF on my current team who has started at SF one season, C another season and has done pretty well at both.

Concur with Wayne's general philosophy when a player's ratings/skills make that possible.

I recently had a SF who I also played at PF and SG, but he had such good ball handling and passing ratings that I seriously considered putting him at times at PG...never did though, so don't know how he (and the team) would have fared.

[Wayne23]

I pretty much recruit PGs, PFs, and Cs. Rarely go after SGs and SFs.

[hefewe1zen]

I would think that playing an adjacent position should generally not cause significant performance loss. Some playing styles will be ineffective however, like a post PF playing SF and frequently receiving the ball the ball in the corner or behind the arc. That must be the most important factor because it seems to me that the offence in CB is about having your best scorers receive the ball in their comfort zones (and it's different in PB).

As for size and weight, I've only read about its relation to drive stop ratio.

Some skills are rated 'relative to position' which I could interpret in two ways:
1) an SG with average rebounding compared to other guards will suffer as SF (so if he's 4 as SG, he's effectively 3 as SF)
2) relative to position only means that some positions are involved more in rebounding and thus a SG with a rating of 4 will be still 4 as SF - he will get more rebound because he's closer to the basket

But I'm not experienced and mostly guessing.