Salley was one of those key pieces that all championship teams have to have to get over the top. Call it the drums and rhythm guitar section of the band. Too much emphasis these days on who is the lead singer or lead guitarist. The Bulls championship teams had several of them. The two centers especially.
I always think back to those good Bama teams in the 70's that had TR Dunn as the first team that often looked very "positionless". ...and since my aged mind is really wandering now ... I never saw them play (or if I did I was too young to remember) but I think there was a team from Pensacola High in the mid-60's that won the state basketball championship and had a nickname that included the word "midgets" (apologies to the PC). Maybe they were positionless