The future of center play in the NBA

[KillerLeft]

Oh, yeah. I was there. Hated it. Definitely don't remember any thread about Luka being satanic. Guess I missed out. 

I kind of still miss Yuku, tbh.

[ClutchDirk]

Oh, yeah. I was there. Hated it. Definitely don't remember any thread about Luka being satanic. Guess I missed out. 

I kind of still miss Yuku, tbh.

That thread was also called out by Cato I think in one of his articles on the Mavs...

[KillerLeft]

Does anyone have a link to it though? Does it still exist?

[ClutchDirk]

Does anyone have a link to it though? Does it still exist?

Checked earlier to make sure that everything from 24/7 has been deleted...

[KillerLeft]

Well, don't keep me in suspense, pals. What did we learn? Is Luka a Satanist? 

I need to know, because I want to convert to whatever church he follows.

[FunkBoreland]

Sometimes I want to go back to the old dallasbasketball.com/yuku days and just wade through the threads. There was good activity going on, along with some humour and plenty of gifs (good luck cats gifs). tis is life

[ClutchDirk]

Well, don't keep me in suspense, pals. What did we learn? Is Luka a Satanist? 

I need to know, because I want to convert to whatever church he follows.

It started when a poster thought Luka had a Satanic tattoo and thought he needed help...then it went down the wormhole into is God, Jesus, and Bible are real and true or not...went on over a month of off-season after the draft...

https://media.giphy.com/media/lIam4ekBSJlXa/giphy.gif

[Dahlsim]

Does anyone have a link to it though? Does it still exist?

Checked earlier to make sure that everything from 24/7 has been deleted...

Yeah, that thread is gone, I have reference links but they are broken now.  It was actually a question about the meaning of Luka's tattoos which the OP thought might be non-Christian in nature but not necessarily "Satanic".  It was also a plea from the OP to Harrison Barnes to talk with Luka about Jesus and salvation at the time because Harrison was known to be an outspoken Christian.  

I do think I still have saved excerpts since I was pretty active in it and shared discussions I also engage in other places.  Message me if anyone is particularly interested and I'll check my sources.

[fifteenth]

But the most fun part of the thread, in my opinion, was the evolution and the Bible conversation.

[Jason Terry]

Nice post KL. I think the takeaway should be that - the game is moving to all 5 players being able to do everything. It’s often not possible but it’s the goal. It’s not just about the center position (even though that’s where the big change looks to be happening). Just look at Luka for example. Size wise he’s a traditional 3, but he’s our point guard. He’s one of the best rebounders on the team, yet he plays the position often responsible for the least rebounds. It’s all about flexibility and guys being able to do many things well. Look at Maxi. He doesn’t come off as the best player in the world but he has flexibility. Can play 4/5, inside/outside, guard bigger or smaller and can switch on D. No reason why he can’t be as good as someone like Daniel Theis, who does a good enough job on that.

Another important point i think is Boban and guys like him still have a place. Back to my original point that it’s about flexibility. Just because Boban doesn’t fit today’s game well doesn’t mean rick can’t use his skills to create mismatches. Teams like the rockets who can only play small ball are at a disadvantage. Having MANY options to win will give rick an edge. It’s why i believe our goal will be to create the deepest team in the league with the most diverse set of talent

[KillerLeft]

Another important point i think is Boban and guys like him still have a place. Back to my original point that it’s about flexibility. Just because Boban doesn’t fit today’s game well doesn’t mean rick can’t use his skills to create mismatches. Teams like the rockets who can only play small ball are at a disadvantage. Having MANY options to win will give rick an edge.

Totally agree.

[Dahlsim]

Nice post KL. I think the takeaway should be that - the game is moving to all 5 players being able to do everything. It’s often not possible but it’s the goal. It’s not just about the center position (even though that’s where the big change looks to be happening).

In a generalized sense, this movement has already occurred and is just continuing.   In a generalized sense its true. More players of this type are playing the leading roles on the floor for more minutes on the floor. 

This is not true  in any absolute sense.  The exceptions are still very important, in fact they are often the difference makers as all the teams are trying to play the same way.  The outcome of many games is based on individual talents one roster has over another. 

I gave examples earlier, which wasn't addressed of course ... 

Javale McGee and Dwight Howard do not shoot 3's or basically shoot from the perimeter. 
They are not small ball centers. They don't do everything.  Lebron James is very high BBIQ and handpicked his roster.  Javale went from the Mavericks, where Carlisle was sure to keep underusing him, to a team that used him with specificity at the right times and contributed to TWO NBA championships.  
Now he's contributing to possibly a 3rd championship team. 

Another important point i think is Boban and guys like him still have a place. Back to my original point that it’s about flexibility.

Just because Boban doesn’t fit today’s game well doesn’t mean rick can’t use his skills to create mismatches. Teams like the rockets who can only play small ball are at a disadvantage. Having MANY options to win will give rick an edge. It’s why i believe our goal will be to create the deepest team in the league with the most diverse set of talent

This actually my point.  An exceptional talent like Boban doesn't grow on trees. Not every team has one. That is a mismatch opportunity. It is not to be used the old way.  As I said before Shaq would still be an awesome weapon, but he game would change to fit the scenarios today, assuming his coach would use him.    Marjanovic could have used with specificity in smart spurts to a much greater advantage. The best use of flexibility is in recognizing the mismatches your team can exploit and when they can exploit them. 

In my 1-Mav-Advantage-vs-Clippers thread I pointed out how Jokic's with his size and skill gave Denver a decisive matchup advantage they could use against LA. It was basically the same advantage which Dallas failed to use. Size.  
Of course a big part of that was due to KP's injury but the other part of it was demonstrable failure to exploit the other big sized advantaged player who was posting more +'s in his time on the floor than most other Mavs. 

I also posted in that thread that Jokic's advantage would be much more difficult if not impossible to exploit against the Lakers because the same reason. Size.  Jokic could not bully ball his way against the Lakers because they knew when to use the traditional size on their roster.  They rarely used McGee and used Howard even less against small ball Houston because the Lakers built a flexible roster that can play small and play big.    
They still had Anthony Davis with size that was unstoppable for Houston's less flexible roster so they could match Houston's small ball with skilled guards/wings and still hold a size advantage when it worked for them.  Now McGee and Howard are having significant impact again against Denver and Jokic. 

With Jokic, Denver now has to be flexible and reach back into it's bag of strategic tricks because Jokic's inside/out game isn't nearly as easy to work.  Both McGee and Howard now came into the mix and with devastating effect. Denver has to do something different against the flexible Lakers roster versus the star studded but less flexible Clippers.

[KillerLeft]

Saving this article here for future reference. This is an example of what is NOT the future of center play in the NBA.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/how-d...azers-win/

[KillerLeft]

Here's a simple method of getting KP involved in creating shots for others. It's easy to see how this could be recreated with THJ and Curry. 

I feel like KP has the rare skill at that position to do this, but whatever it is, they need to find SOMETHING to get him involved as more than a spacer. 

Believe it or not, I think KP struggles with screening. It really could be that simple. 

https://youtu.be/u1Hu46CPLCo

[radioaktiv]

If I remember it correctly, the "satanist" thread started with the OP begging anyone who may have connections with Harrison Barnes, to ask him to help Luka see the way of the Lord... something like that.  

[Dahlsim]

Saving this article here for future reference. This is an example of what is NOT the future of center play in the NBA.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/how-d...azers-win/

Good find.   Definitely highlights a basic challenge for most of today's centers.  
How many have the lateral quickness to stay with Damian Lillard, esp. when he's in a shooting zone. 

On the one hand, this was a masterful performance by Lillard. He's playing at an extremely high level and deserves all the credit for the way he willed his team to victory. At the same time, Porzingis and the Mavericks didn't exactly put on a defensive clinic. 

In other words, the defense was poor from the Mavericks, on an individual level by KP and whoever is guarding Lillard and the strategic adjustments are too slow coming.  

This is where its chess vs chess. Let's just focus on this particular defensive challenge. 

KP in those situations can play more than just all the way up or way back out of the play which many of those clips demonstrate. 
He has to be searching out the sweet spot in the middle on those plays and shuffle in that area.  Don't make it easy to read quickly for the guard/wing.    
The sweet spot is where he can make Dame have to at least slow down and think if KP is up enough blow by immediately or if he has free clearance to easily shoot over that enormous wingspan. 

While Dame is thinking his defender can fight over the screen, maybe go under sometimes to again not give Dame the same look. 
Many times now watching the good defensive teams we see the defender chase and bother, rush or even block the shot from the behind. 
KP has to buy the defender that extra second with his spacing and his wingspan. 

Sure it's a tall task against Dame but it could be done much better than those clips show.  
Lillard had a walk in the park over and over. Just rushing him more often could drop a 61 pt game down to a 57 or 55 with a few misses.

[KillerLeft]

There has been lots of discussion recently about "possitionless basketball" and "small ball" and other misleading nomenclature. My observation is that much like every other analyzed subject in modern society, the debate tends to get broken down into two, needlessly limited viewpoints simply so that groups can form on one side or the other in order to oppose each other with as much gusto as possible. 

When it comes to center play, the debate has somehow become "big guys vs. not big guys" which is moronic and not at all where the innovation point lies. 

Here's Kevin O'Connor, doing a pretty good job of explaining what makes Bam Adebayo so freaking special:

https://youtu.be/dXvsnOVrWh0

Now, is that dude not big? I mean, relative to who? When compared to the prototypical 90's centers, no, he is not big. But this observation completely misses the point, and fails to provide context as to WHY this trend towards smaller "bigs" is happening. 

In the video, segments are devoted to how he impacts the game in the following ways:

• half court offense: not only can he contribute in the traditional ways - setting screens, rolling hard, etc, he can handle the ball and facilitate for others, and not just standing at the elbow like Vlade Divac and Brad Miller used to, either. His "triple threat position" is actually a triple threat. 
  
• transition offense: He can actually be trusted to bring the ball up, even in important moments of the game, and make good decisions. This is huge, because it puts the defense in an insanely awkward position, as they have exponentially less experience setting up their half court defense under those circumstances.
  
• half court defense: he doesn't have to play drop coverage on the pick and roll against ANYONE, because he has the foot speed and athletic reflexes to hedge, blitz, whatever, and then recover to the paint to effectively defend the rim. Also, he has the ability (at the center position!!!) to SWITCH onto most ball handlers and still manages to bother them into taking low percentage shots. When post passes are thrown (not a very frequent occurrence anymore, but it does happen) he is more than capable of holding his own in those situations, too. 
  
• transition defense: he's fast. And, he's smart. And, he plays hard all the time. I see this get glossed over by so many fans who assume that every NBA player is up to the task of going top speed for long stretches of the game, just because they're "pros." From what I've seen, this is far from the case, and sometimes a skilled player is rendered useless on any given night just because he can't keep up with the opposing team's pace. There's a commonly held misconception by NBA fans that the playoff game is less concerned with running and more focused on the half court game. This is false. These teams are still trying to run and get themselves easy baskets - they'd be stupid not to try. However, all of the teams who rely on players who can't keep up have been weeded out, and the deeper we go into the tournament, the fewer mistakes are made, resulting in more well guarded half court possessions. In fact, I'd go as far as to posit that this responsibility (running the floor relentlessly on transition D) might just be the primary thing coaches look for in their big guys, which is another way of saying it's like the "minimum basic skill" required to carve out a career at that position. 
  

The list of ways Bam impacts the game above is the dream. It's a much wider job description than that of any other era's center stars, and he's literally a step forward in the evolution of basketball. When trying to identify other current players who can affect the game in that many ways at the center position, I could only think of 3: Bam, Jokic and Davis. Interesting that they're all in the final four, isn't it? There might be others I can't think of right now, but all three of those guys are capable of doing all or most of the stuff listed above at an insanely high level. In my opinion, any team who is not trying to develop such a player right now is making a huge, huge mistake. 

Will there be more like those guys, or are they outliers? I think we'll see many more, and that this will be the norm, eventually. Hell, if you keep going down the list (past the top 3) of who's coveted around the league at this position, most of the names you'll see are guys whose teams are in the process of molding them into being worthy of inclusion with that group (see Porzingis).

Basically, if there's a way you can be played off the floor, then the good things you do don't really matter, because...well, because you can't be on the floor. Guys like Whiteside, Drummond and Adams look just as out of place today as Roy Hibbert did not too long ago. I will probably lose people here, but I expect that Rudy Gobert isn't too far behind them. 

It's interesting to me that people in Dallas, specifically, don't seem to get what's happening. We just saw this same renaissance happen with the 4 position, and we all had front row seats for it. It started right here with our Mavs. Remember how the talking heads all thought Dirk couldn't win at the 4 because he wasn't tough enough, and that you needed an Anthony Mason or a Charles Oakley there? Then remember how guys like Dirk, Webber, Garnett, Wallace, etc all changed the game and how building your offense around a player like that became the arms race around the league? Now, it's just a given that you have to have at least one big on your roster who can do those things. Would anyone reading this really even consider putting Anthony Mason on the floor in the playoffs right now as the second big? Next to another unskilled big guy, to boot? Is it really so tough to understand that this evolution has spread to the 5? 

That's what is happening, and because we're early in the evolutionary process, there just aren't very many players who fit the bill. But everyone knows they have to start playing that way. To do otherwise would be a little like building an NFL offense around the wishbone. 

There will be another Shaq someday, but it's not going to happen until the guy in that body can do everything Bam can do. It's the requisite skillset that's changing, not the desired body type.

---

https://twitter.com/mikepradanba/status/...47040?s=21

Don’t ever let someone get away with posting something about defense in support of a center who can’t do what’s in the clip above, because that’s how defense is defined now.

Bump. 

I can't be the only one who feels this way about where the game is, has been heading and still is heading, relative to the center position. 

There aren't enough Adabayo types to go around (yet), but that's where it's heading. After that, we'll see an offensive revolution from the position similar to what Dirk, KG, Rasheed Wallace and others did for the 4 spot in the last era. 

Since not everyone can have an Adabayo (I wonder what a comprehensive list of those would look like...5 names, 10?), what's better, an Ayton, or someone you might feel is juuuuust a bit undersized for the position, but who brings more skills to the table to make up for it?

[KillerLeft]

Wow, I just re-read this thread, and between posts of such masterful analysis I should have gotten paid for them, it kind of seems like I was really mean to @"Dahlsim". 

Dude, that's not like me (at least I hope it's not) and I can't for the life of me remember what occurred before this thread that got me in such a not cool headspace when interacting with you. I apologize profusely!

[dirkfansince1998]

Bump. 

I can't be the only one who feels this way about where the game is, has been heading and still is heading, relative to the center position. 

There aren't enough Adabayo types to go around (yet), but that's where it's heading. After that, we'll see an offensive revolution from the position similar to what Dirk, KG, Rasheed Wallace and others did for the 4 spot in the last era. 

Since not everyone can have an Adabayo (I wonder what a comprehensive list of those would look like...5 names, 10?), what's better, an Ayton, or someone you might feel is juuuuust a bit undersized for the position, but who brings more skills to the table to make up for it?

You know that I completly agree with you when it comes to the role of bigs in the modern NBA. But I actually think that when it comes to the defensive end Ayton is already close to the best you can get (not named Giannis or Bam) when it comes to foot speed.
His iso defense on the perimeter probably isn´t worse than Bam´s but he struggles with the team defense part. When he is asked to rotate, switch or help. The one thing that might be even more important than mobility. Decision making, instincts, IQ. In that sense he might be the anti-Powell. More often than not in the wrong spot. Wrong rotation. Lazy closeouts.

[KillerLeft]

You know that I completly agree with you when it comes to the role of bigs in the modern NBA. But I actually think that when it comes to the defensive end Ayton is already close to the best you can get (not named Giannis or Bam) when it comes to foot speed.
His iso defense on the perimeter probably isn´t worse than Bam´s but he struggles with the team defense part. When he is asked to rotate, switch or help. The one thing that might be even more important than mobility. Decision making, instincts, IQ. In that sense he might be the anti-Powell. More often than not in the wrong spot. Wrong rotation. Lazy closeouts.

Interesting. So are you saying you'd be interested to give it a go, if the price was right?

---

@"dirkfansince1998" your description of Ayton comes dangerously close to the complaints about Wood, if I'm understanding you correctly.