duncan228
10-23-2007, 01:29 PM
To spin off the "Is Duncan a Power Foward or a Center" thread, I found this. I don't usually post blogs but I thought this was too interesting a debate to bury in a thread that's pretty much done. (If I made a mistake and it belongs in that thread I apologize.)
Your thoughts?
http://www.411mania.com/sports/nba/62041/Death-of-the-Traditional-Center?.htm
Death of the Traditional Center?
Posted by Todd Spehr
As the NBA goes smaller and faster, the traditional center is becoming a thing of the past. With the steady decline of Shaquille O'Neal coupled with the recent rule changes, there is a new type of big man in the league. So where did all dominant big men go?
Several weeks ago I was wracking my brain and pouring over endless statistics putting together my top ten fantasy center list, and looking at the final draft it dawned on me that the list was made up of makeshift centers, a heap of players playing out of position. To be a tad more specific, eight of the ten players could pass easily for power forwards instead of centers. The only two true centers? Shaquille ‘The Last Great Center' O'Neal and Yao Ming. The traditional slow-it-down, pound-it-low, grind-it-out center of basically the last forty-five years of hoops is like one of those animals fighting off an inevitable extinction. Smaller players – well, if you call 6'9'' to 6'11'' smaller – are being asked to play bigger spots, and in many ways, are playing bigger. The trend can be traced to roughly two things: 1) The NBA, in the last five years, has fine-tuned the rules (introducing the zone, hands-off D, etc) to cater to a faster brand of ball; why wait for your center to lumber up the floor when you can get a 3-on-2 break? And 2) Every team insists on becoming Phoenix 2.0 (Washington and Golden State are two standout examples) and are running and gunning their way to respectability. The game has quickened. The game is faster. The traditional center is dying.
There once was a time in the league – 1976 to 2002 if you want to be ultra-technical – where every non-Jordan title team had a dominant center. Now, there are multiple sidebars to that, one telling you just how good Michael Jordan was to lead Bill ‘Elbows' Cartwright and Luc Longley to separate three-peats; the other telling you that yes, while Detroit's Bill Laimbeer was never a dominant force, he did annoy the absolute crap out of more opponents than any player in league history and was your classic foxhole guy: you hate him, but you'd want him on your team. As for the rest, well, to look at every championship team in that span, there's not a stiff among them. The three-peat Lakers had Shaq, the lockout Spurs had Robinson, the Rockets with Olajuwon, Abdul-Jabbar in LA, Parish in Boston, Malone in Philly, Sikma in Seattle, Unseld in Washington, Walton in Portland and Cowens in Boston. Golden State rode Rick Barry in '75 (one of the most underrated great seasons in NBA history, but that's another column) to be the last non-center team to claim a title in more than thirty-something years. Normally, you could point to any decade in league history and reel off five great centers; can you do that in the post-Mike era?
To make matters worse, in the last five NBA seasons, you could make a case that not one title team has possessed a dominant center.
In '03, David Robinson was on his very last legs, a very different player from even the '99 version of Robinson. He played just 64 games and averaged 8.5 points, by far a career low (Note: his performance in the clincher vs. New Jersey was a strict once-off). In '04, the Pistons relied on perhaps one of the most balanced teams in league history - one of those no-individual-is-greater-than-the-whole teams - who were anchored by Ben Wallace, a modern-day watered down version of Bill Russell (correction: an impoverished man's Bill Russell) without the psychological warfare nor the total opposition intimidation, but still, while Wallace was destructive on defense he didn't have a clue anywhere else. In '05, the Spurs had Rasho Nesterovic and Nazr Mohammed and still managed to overcome their deficiencies to win. In '06 the Heat did have O'Neal – who, by the way, was All-NBA First team in name only, he basically made that based on lack of competition - but he wasn't the dominant Shaq, he wasn't Laker Shaq, nor was he even the MVP runner-up of a season before. For the first time in his career he was content to defer to another player (Dwyane Wade) and anyone who saw O'Neal in the Finals against Dallas knows that he wasn't a dominant force anymore. Yes, when healthy, he still warrants constant double-teams, but when was he last healthy and/or in shape? And just imagine: Dallas really should've put Miami away in the Finals, and they had DeSagana Diop and Erick Dampier! Last season, the Spurs had Fabricio Oberto and Francisco Elson at center, although they also employed a Duncan-and-four-smalls offensive alignment for stretches simply because just about every team in the league now prefers to speed things up.
So while recent history doesn't associate dominant centers with championships, either do the statistical leaders. Since '96, when Olajuwon finished second to MJ in scoring, Amare Stoudemire is the only center not named Diesel who has landed in the top five in any of the eleven seasons since, finishing fifth in ‘05. (Prior to that, the last time a center missed the top five? 1989. And today's era is not unlike that of the mid-to-late ‘80s in regards to statistics, when the game was strictly dominated by guards and small forwards.) There were eleven starting centers that averaged less than ten points per game last season, and the average PPG of the entire starting center list was just 12.2. Even the rebounding title has been claimed by a power forward (Kevin Garnett) in each of the last four years. And other than O'Neal – seeing a trend here? – name another center who will physically overpower you? You won't. Stoudemire will, yes, dunk everything, but his timid/lackadaisical nature on the defensive end doesn't put fear in anyone. Yao is predominantly a jump-shooting center (and a fine one at that) so he won't stay in the post all night. Gasol is a face-the-basket type who uses the baseline as well as anybody, not to mention his middle name just has to be finesse. Perhaps the only guy who shows flashes of a young O'Neal is Dwight Howard who, at 21 years of age, has future (if not now) beast written all over him.
And the characteristics of these "new" centers are a far cry from the usual back-to-the-basket stuff. Posting up has been replaced by the high pick-n-roll; the hook is strictly a fighting term; any skills on the block have been traded in for a perimeter game. And the rules don't help. Ever since the zone came in several years back basically everyone but Shaq and Yao – the only guys now who have a post game and actually use it – became some form of a perimeter player. Because you can double a guy without the ball, stick a man on his hip and on his back, posting up currently resides in our memories of Olajuwon and Abdul-Jabbar, by far two of the finest post players ever, along with Kevin McHale. And yes, Tim Duncan still spends a lot of time down low, but remember he's a power forward. The durability of these guys is just atrocious as well, which makes no sense because they are actually banging less. Four of my top five fantasy centers (Stoudemire, Yao, Gasol and O'Neal) all have sub-60 games played seasons in the last couple of years. And with the success of Dallas, Phoenix and Golden State in recent times, this trend is sure to continue as teams aim to get smaller and faster (which is debatable in the first place, considering no "small-ball" team has won a title) in order to compete.
In the meantime, the center position is evolving into the new power forward spot; 40 is the new 30.
Your thoughts?
http://www.411mania.com/sports/nba/62041/Death-of-the-Traditional-Center?.htm
Death of the Traditional Center?
Posted by Todd Spehr
As the NBA goes smaller and faster, the traditional center is becoming a thing of the past. With the steady decline of Shaquille O'Neal coupled with the recent rule changes, there is a new type of big man in the league. So where did all dominant big men go?
Several weeks ago I was wracking my brain and pouring over endless statistics putting together my top ten fantasy center list, and looking at the final draft it dawned on me that the list was made up of makeshift centers, a heap of players playing out of position. To be a tad more specific, eight of the ten players could pass easily for power forwards instead of centers. The only two true centers? Shaquille ‘The Last Great Center' O'Neal and Yao Ming. The traditional slow-it-down, pound-it-low, grind-it-out center of basically the last forty-five years of hoops is like one of those animals fighting off an inevitable extinction. Smaller players – well, if you call 6'9'' to 6'11'' smaller – are being asked to play bigger spots, and in many ways, are playing bigger. The trend can be traced to roughly two things: 1) The NBA, in the last five years, has fine-tuned the rules (introducing the zone, hands-off D, etc) to cater to a faster brand of ball; why wait for your center to lumber up the floor when you can get a 3-on-2 break? And 2) Every team insists on becoming Phoenix 2.0 (Washington and Golden State are two standout examples) and are running and gunning their way to respectability. The game has quickened. The game is faster. The traditional center is dying.
There once was a time in the league – 1976 to 2002 if you want to be ultra-technical – where every non-Jordan title team had a dominant center. Now, there are multiple sidebars to that, one telling you just how good Michael Jordan was to lead Bill ‘Elbows' Cartwright and Luc Longley to separate three-peats; the other telling you that yes, while Detroit's Bill Laimbeer was never a dominant force, he did annoy the absolute crap out of more opponents than any player in league history and was your classic foxhole guy: you hate him, but you'd want him on your team. As for the rest, well, to look at every championship team in that span, there's not a stiff among them. The three-peat Lakers had Shaq, the lockout Spurs had Robinson, the Rockets with Olajuwon, Abdul-Jabbar in LA, Parish in Boston, Malone in Philly, Sikma in Seattle, Unseld in Washington, Walton in Portland and Cowens in Boston. Golden State rode Rick Barry in '75 (one of the most underrated great seasons in NBA history, but that's another column) to be the last non-center team to claim a title in more than thirty-something years. Normally, you could point to any decade in league history and reel off five great centers; can you do that in the post-Mike era?
To make matters worse, in the last five NBA seasons, you could make a case that not one title team has possessed a dominant center.
In '03, David Robinson was on his very last legs, a very different player from even the '99 version of Robinson. He played just 64 games and averaged 8.5 points, by far a career low (Note: his performance in the clincher vs. New Jersey was a strict once-off). In '04, the Pistons relied on perhaps one of the most balanced teams in league history - one of those no-individual-is-greater-than-the-whole teams - who were anchored by Ben Wallace, a modern-day watered down version of Bill Russell (correction: an impoverished man's Bill Russell) without the psychological warfare nor the total opposition intimidation, but still, while Wallace was destructive on defense he didn't have a clue anywhere else. In '05, the Spurs had Rasho Nesterovic and Nazr Mohammed and still managed to overcome their deficiencies to win. In '06 the Heat did have O'Neal – who, by the way, was All-NBA First team in name only, he basically made that based on lack of competition - but he wasn't the dominant Shaq, he wasn't Laker Shaq, nor was he even the MVP runner-up of a season before. For the first time in his career he was content to defer to another player (Dwyane Wade) and anyone who saw O'Neal in the Finals against Dallas knows that he wasn't a dominant force anymore. Yes, when healthy, he still warrants constant double-teams, but when was he last healthy and/or in shape? And just imagine: Dallas really should've put Miami away in the Finals, and they had DeSagana Diop and Erick Dampier! Last season, the Spurs had Fabricio Oberto and Francisco Elson at center, although they also employed a Duncan-and-four-smalls offensive alignment for stretches simply because just about every team in the league now prefers to speed things up.
So while recent history doesn't associate dominant centers with championships, either do the statistical leaders. Since '96, when Olajuwon finished second to MJ in scoring, Amare Stoudemire is the only center not named Diesel who has landed in the top five in any of the eleven seasons since, finishing fifth in ‘05. (Prior to that, the last time a center missed the top five? 1989. And today's era is not unlike that of the mid-to-late ‘80s in regards to statistics, when the game was strictly dominated by guards and small forwards.) There were eleven starting centers that averaged less than ten points per game last season, and the average PPG of the entire starting center list was just 12.2. Even the rebounding title has been claimed by a power forward (Kevin Garnett) in each of the last four years. And other than O'Neal – seeing a trend here? – name another center who will physically overpower you? You won't. Stoudemire will, yes, dunk everything, but his timid/lackadaisical nature on the defensive end doesn't put fear in anyone. Yao is predominantly a jump-shooting center (and a fine one at that) so he won't stay in the post all night. Gasol is a face-the-basket type who uses the baseline as well as anybody, not to mention his middle name just has to be finesse. Perhaps the only guy who shows flashes of a young O'Neal is Dwight Howard who, at 21 years of age, has future (if not now) beast written all over him.
And the characteristics of these "new" centers are a far cry from the usual back-to-the-basket stuff. Posting up has been replaced by the high pick-n-roll; the hook is strictly a fighting term; any skills on the block have been traded in for a perimeter game. And the rules don't help. Ever since the zone came in several years back basically everyone but Shaq and Yao – the only guys now who have a post game and actually use it – became some form of a perimeter player. Because you can double a guy without the ball, stick a man on his hip and on his back, posting up currently resides in our memories of Olajuwon and Abdul-Jabbar, by far two of the finest post players ever, along with Kevin McHale. And yes, Tim Duncan still spends a lot of time down low, but remember he's a power forward. The durability of these guys is just atrocious as well, which makes no sense because they are actually banging less. Four of my top five fantasy centers (Stoudemire, Yao, Gasol and O'Neal) all have sub-60 games played seasons in the last couple of years. And with the success of Dallas, Phoenix and Golden State in recent times, this trend is sure to continue as teams aim to get smaller and faster (which is debatable in the first place, considering no "small-ball" team has won a title) in order to compete.
In the meantime, the center position is evolving into the new power forward spot; 40 is the new 30.