Best Signature Moves in NBA History: Point Guards

Almost every great player has some sort of signature move.

Michael Jordan had the dunk from the free-throw line. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had the sky hook. LeBron James has the chase-down block.

Look at a list of all-time point guards, though, and you'll usually find some individualized skills that revolve more around quickness and finesse than they do the powers of leaping to the rim from 15 feet away or pinning a fast-break layup against the backboard.

Point guards are floor generals, offensive leaders, basketball's quarterbacks. But they also have a chance to show off some flash. And the best ones do it in the most consistently comfortable ways.

Allen Iverson's Crossover

The amazing part of Allen Iverson's career was that it was so long. Somehow, an under-6', 164-pound (while soaking wet) guard who loved finishing around the rim put up 12 years as an elite player, then another couple as a quality contributor before falling off.

Iverson's longevity was all about his quickness and sprung from said quickness was the crossover.

It was the Georgetown product's signature move, next to merely having cornrows, of course.

He had this patented way of doing it, too. Iverson would take a high dribble with his left hand, hesitate, and then go to his right at a speed to which defenders couldn't react. Just don't bring any of this up around Tyron Lue.

John Stockton's Pocket Pass

It's generally thought of as the most unstoppable play in basketball history: the John Stockton-Karl Malone pick-and-roll. Nothing looked prettier when it was working, especially when Stockton was throwing pocket passes.

The pocket pass is one of the most underratedly difficult dishes to make in basketball. Often coming after dribbling around a ball-screen, a point guard will wait for his target to get open and find him quickly, bouncing or tossing the rock to his teammate by flicking his wrist right as the ball comes up to his hip.

Stockton was a master at the pocket pass. Malone was an all-time screen-setter and finisher at the rim. No one found open space like the two of those guys.

Couldn't you just watch those above highlights for days?

Mark Jackson's Teardrop

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Unfortunately, one of the biggest flaws of the Internet in 2015 is that there isn't any readily available video of Mark Jackson's floaters.

Jackson popularized that shot in the '80s and '90s, referring to it as the "tear drop," though pretty much everyone now just refers to it as a floater. Without that move, Tony Parker and Stephen Curry aren't as creative getting into the lane. Chris Paul isn't as crafty either.

The tear drop spread around the NBA as a way for point guards to shoot from three-to-eight feet, something that can't happen without Jackson's innovation, since it's nearly impossible to dribble to that area and shoot with your feet set. 

Rajon Rondo's Behind-the-Back Fake

Other players are starting to try the Rajon Rondo behind-the-back fake now. 

Jeff Teague ripped it off in Atlanta a month or two ago. Brandon Jennings did it in Detroit right before he went down with a season-ending Achilles injury. But that move will always specifically be Rondo's.

Rondo isn't an above-the-rim player, so he has to find other, craftier ways to finish in the paint. His most well-known and highlight-worthy manner to do it: the behind-the-back fake.

How many times have we seen the former Boston Celtic get a head of steam to the basket and throw off a defense by...not throwing anything? It's a thing of beauty when it works, and with Rondo's skill set, it regularly does. 

Chris Paul's Right Elbow Fadeaway

It's so Chris Paul-like to have a signature move that is relatively boring.

Hooray! You made a 14-footer. Congrats. I can't wait not to see the highlights on SportsCenter. But that's CP3, boringly consistent in everything he does.

Paul seems to get this shot whenever he wants. He'll often go left around a ball-screen, cross back over and find himself dribbling at an angle to the right elbow. When he gets there, he fades away and pops.

It's almost always a swish, part of why this is one of Paul's go-to moves in crunch-time. Paul's logic: If you can almost always find a way to get open for your most consistent shot, then why not rely on it as much as possible?

Tim Hardaway's Crossover

The young ones reading this might know Tim's son, Tim Hardaway Jr., currently a second-year guard for the New York Knicks, but the original Tim Hardaway was still the better one.

Hardaway was dominant in his time with the Miami Heat and Golden State Warriors in the '90s, mostly because of his quickness. He could get to the rim on a whim, finishing athletically and powerfully because of the move that got him there: his crossover.

Hardaway's crossover was legendary because of his quickness. Once he got a defender backpedaling, no one stood a chance. 

Shaq's All-Star Crossover

OK, so maybe this isn't a signature move...And maybe Shaquille O'Neal wasn't a point guard...

Actually, it probably is one. And Shaq was a 1 during All-Star Games.

He would always pull out this kind of stuff on All-Star weekend, trying to play point guard as best he could. And he was never a pass-first, distributing point guard. He loved his pull-ups.

We'd see Shaq dribble the ball up the court, attempt to cross someone over and then pull up for a hideous mid-range jumper. 

Maybe it's not the most graceful move in NBA history, but it's got to be one of the most entertaining. 

Stephen Curry's Pull-Up Three

There's a reason they say Curry might be the best shooter ever. He hits long balls in every way possible.

It's hard to compare Curry to a Ray Allen or Kyle Korver type because they're such different style players. Allen and Korver like to catch-and-shoot, though Allen handled the ball plenty in his prime with the Milwaukee Bucks and Seattle Sonics. 

That's the preference of most shooters. Anyone who's played pickup or even knockout knows it's easier to put up an attempt immediately after receiving a pass than it is to drain baskets off the dribble. Somehow, Curry prefers the latter.

No one pulls up with the consistency or quantity or accuracy of Curry. No one. Ever. And his PUJITs (pull-up jumpers in transition, of course) are all-timers because of it.

Magic Johnson's No-Look Pass

There may not be a player in NBA history who, at his peak, was more fun to watch than Johnson. 

Seriously, if your memory is too poor to recall or if you're young enough that you never got to see him play during an actual game, turn on NBA Hardwood Classics when NBATV shows them over the summer. It feels like 75 percent of those old-time, NBA reruns are just Lakers-Celtics games from the 1980s, because, you know, why not?

Watching a player for a full game gives you a different feel of him than if you just go to his YouTube highlights, which you can easily do with Johnson too. And watching a full game of his though, feels like a highlight reel anyway. Every pass is the best you've ever seen, and nothing of Magic's was more signature than his no-look dime.

Bob Cousy's Flashiness

"Flashiness" isn't a move. I get it. This is a cop-out slide.

But it's not actually.

Bob Cousy is one of main men to bring flash into the NBA. You know those old-time videos you look at from the '50s? The ones with a bunch of unathletic kind of tall guys lazily tossing a ball in a basket from 12 to 16 feet away? Remember how exciting those videos are?

Right. They're awful. They're painful to see.

Cousy changed all of that with his flair. The manager at Chotchkies would've been proud.

Fred Katz averaged almost one point per game in fifth grade but maintains that his per-36-minute numbers were astonishing. Find more of his work on ESPN's TrueHoop Network at ClipperBlog.com. Follow him on Twitter at @FredKatz.