The NBA has always been a land of giants, but in today’s NBA, the big man is becoming less and less relevant. Indeed, the centre as we once knew it is all but extinct.
Bill Russell. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Wilt Chamberlain. Hakeem Olajuwon. Shaquille O’Neal.
These are some of the greatest players in NBA history. Each of them was central to winning multiple championships and each was at one point considered the best basketballer in the world.
They were enormous men who left an enormous footprint on the game of basketball.
Today’s NBA, however, is a very different competition to the league Russell and Chamberlain dominated in the 1960s.
The Golden State Warriors have made the game smaller and more expansive, greatly limiting the impact of the biggest men on the court. As more teams follow the Warriors’ lead in an attempt to compete with them, the big man may well be bred out of the game.
It’s already happening. Not since Shaq retired has a player whose primary attribute was their size been the dominant player on a championship team.
Draymond Green is just six foot seven inches, yet he played the majority of last season at centre, as the Warriors revolutionised the league with their emphasis on small-ball and three-point shooting.
In last year’s NBA Finals, the players who had the most impact at centre were Kevin Durant and LeBron James.
Last year’s stacked NBA Draft was flooded by talented rookie point-guards as teams searched for the next Steph Curry or Russell Westbrook.
The increased pace and spacing of the game has drastically reduced the impact of big men in the NBA. In the current NBA, I would argue just one traditional centre would be in the top ten players in the league, and perhaps one more that might squeeze into the top 20.
The quality of All-NBA and All-Star centres has been significantly lower than eras gone by. DeAndre Jordan, Joakim Noah, Rudy Gobert and DeMarcus Cousins have all scored All-NBA spots in the past four years. None of them will ever be considered superstars.
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There is some hope for the traditional big man though. Two players have the potential to be all-time greats who dominate the game like the bigs of old: Anthony Davis and Karl Anthony-Towns.
Both men are exceptional talents with tremendous upside and the ability to dominate the floor no few else in the league. However, they will need to a number of things to join the pantheon and reach the status of all-time great.
At the least, they would likely need to win an NBA MVP award and lead a team to a championship as the central player.
Anthony Davis has been in the NBA since 2012. Since then, he has been selected All-NBA twice and was last year’s All-Star game MVP as he put up a record-breaking 52-point performance.
He regularly puts up great numbers in points, rebounds and blocks. In 2015, he was fifth in MVP voting, and averaged 30 points and ten rebounds in his first playoff series. In 2017 he was named at centre in the All-NBA First Team.
Davis is a two-way superstar and clearly has the talent on both offense and defence to be an all-timer. The thing standing in his way is New Orleans.
At just 24 years old, Davis has the ability time to be the most dominant player in the world. ‘The Brow’ is built to destroy, and once he matures further and gets a quality squad around him, he may well be unstoppable.
Karl Anthony-Towns is just 21 years old, but the former number one draft pick and Rookie of the Year has an enormous future ahead of him.
He just finished his second season in the NBA, and he only narrowly missed out on All-NBA selection. He is seven feet tall, but possesses remarkable athleticism for a man his size.
He has crazy potential as a defensive and offensive threat, and pairing him with Jimmy Butler next season could be the best thing for his career.
While the NBA will continue to be a small man’s playground for the foreseeable future, watch out for Davis and Anthony-Towns to show that big men still have a place in the league.
Ben Sewell
Roar Pro
I really like the idea behind what the pelicans are trying to put together. They're capped out for the foreseeable future but at the very least, they're giving themselves every chance to make the 8 in a tough west. Holiday - Clark - Hill - AD - Boogie with 6th man Rondo is a solid lineup!!!
Simon Douch
Roar Guru
The AD and Boogie partnership is an outlier though. Both are freakish big men with range. Pelicans could be scarily good this year. Rondo to average 25 assists?
Ben Sewell
Roar Pro
Rudy Gobert and DeMarcus Cousins have all scored All-NBA spots in the past four years. None of them will ever be considered superstars. I disagree with this, both are still young and have showed significant potential. If boogie can get it right with AD this year, those two could tear a hole in the perception that small ball lineups are better. As for Gobert, he is a freak on defence and could be the best defensive big man ever at this rate.
Simon Douch
Roar Guru
A shaq-type player couldn't rely simply on his weight today like he used to. There's also the annoying hack-a-shaq, hack-a-howard etc. Not sure if the NBA has cracked down on that or not? Weren't they looking at introducing rules to stop it? Drummond, Howard, Hibbert have all made way for the new age of centre, KAT, Embiid, Porzingus etc offer so much more than the centres of old.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Have to agree. Warriors may have gone "small ball" and you may talk about Green playing centre, but that's with a 7-footer in Durant still hanging around. If you had nobody in your team above 6-7, you'll probably be in strife.
Joel Embiid
Guest
Trust the process
astro
Guest
Not to be too negative but...I think the premise of this article is a little flawed, in a couple of ways. Firstly, the NBA 'big man' isn't becoming less relevant...if anything, the value of a great big man is a high now as its ever been (Davis, Porzingis, Jokic and KAT would all have incredibly high trade value) and the importance of strong play at the center position is still vital to a teams success. Pace and space is useless if you cant defend the basket or block shots at the rim. It's just that the position has changed in relation to how the game itself has changed, as has every position in the NBA. Draymond is an outlier, not the future of the position. In fact, the Warriors themselves are outliers! Secondly, I think it the NBA moves in ebs and flows...it goes through periods where one position stands out above the rest. The 1990s was stacked with big men (Hakeem, Ewing, Robinson. Mourning and then Shaq). In the early 2000s, it was power forward (Duncan, Garnett, Dirk, Gasol, Bosh etc). And in this decade, its probably point guard or the ball-handling wing position. The idea that the league has always been dominated by traditional big men, and now that era is over, I don't think is true...
Tom Clarke
Roar Pro
Damn - that is actually a huge oversight on my part. He is such a talented player with ridiculous upside, if he can get his body right he will be one of the most exciting prospects in the NBA. He could have been Rookie of the Year last year even though he played less than 40 games. Philly could be a really good side to watch this year if Embiid can get on the court with Fultz and Simmons. Big 'if' though!
Swampy
Guest
Golly - Joel embiid escaped your attention
joe
Guest
Towns & Davis are both athletic freaks but even if they were to become the next great center their style of game will be far different to the previous guys mentioned on this list.The game has completely changed. Elite big men like Marc Gasol,Anthony Davis are shooting 3's on a regular basis nowadays, something that would NEVER have happened even 5 years ago. Its becoming a finesse game,there's very little physical play in the paint.I don't particularly like it,but thats the way the NBA is now