Where have all the Centres gone????

eagle eye

Excellent article by Randy Hill.

As subject matter continues to be exhausted, don't be surprised if the History Channel's "MonsterQuest" series launches a search to locate the elusive Dominant NBA Center.
In case you hadn't noticed, only a few members of this species remain in captivity. A recent roll call suggests a migration to the Western Conference, with the Eastern Conference managing to scrape up only one legit center for its All-Star squad.
Should this be considered a crisis capable of rupturing the fabric of professional basketball? Well, that depends upon your opinion of how things should be conducted on an NBA court. I prefer to attack this issue with an expression pushed over the edge of our overuse brink by athletes and celebrities.

It is what it is.
And what it really is may be hard to define. For example, there's a tricky semantics issue. Just who or what qualifies to be referred to as a center? Is the designation contingent upon a particular array of skills or tactical formations?
How much of what may be an alleged crisis has been affected by shifts in how the game is played? Have the spread offenses now popular in high school and college made low-post centers all but disappear — much like football's spread offenses have created a shortage of NFL-caliber pocket passers?
It should be pointed out that 12 of the league's 30 starting centers are little more than transient power forwards. This change in job description may be attributed to factors such as weight gain, reconciling with failure to meet perimeter-skill expectations or injury-related adjustments.
Those of you who prefer to watch basketball that includes large players behaving like "true" centers — drop-stepping, lurking, intimidating and so on — probably were encouraged by the recent work of Los Angeles Laker Andrew Bynum and Portland Trail Blazer Greg Oden.
These are two young 7-footers who allowed themselves to be cast as centers at an early age (more on that later) and still consider it their responsibility to often play facing away from the basket on offense.
Unfortunately, Bynum has achieved knee-injury déjà vu, while Oden's maturation, while apparent, isn't happening rapidly enough to keep the watchdogs quiet.
Anyway, although the NBA center issue should be left for you to navigate on a personal basis, here are a few of my opinions on this topic:
Dominant centers are good to have.I'll pause a moment while you absorb the shock that probably attends this claim. OK, now that we've come to grips with the notion that large, talented players can — when used in proper context — facilitate winning, let's look at some recent history.
In the last 18 NBA seasons, 11 championship teams employed a future Hall-of-Famer at the center position.
That doesn't seem all that overwhelming, right?
Actually, it can be embraced as a little more impressive when you consider that the seven exceptions include one crusty defensive crew from Detroit and six center-weak Chicago Bulls teams spirited to glory by a winger named Michael Jordan.
It should be noted that the Pistons are Finals-winning exceptions on a few fronts but might have avoided these distinctions had the Lakers' superstar feud not reached riot proportions in 2004.

Tim Duncan is a center.Listing Duncan as a power forward is a fine way to push his candidacy as the Best Ever At His Position while avoiding comparisons to such titans as Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, Moses Malone and Hakeem Olajuwon.
Duncan is a great, great player, but despite his early work with 7-foot-1 David Robinson, the guy has always occupied the basket vicinity that's indigenous to the center. Robinson also was a center but spent a great deal of time roaming near the foul line in the San Antonio Spurs' high-low arrangement.
What does Duncan's listing have to do with our center topic? Almost nothing. It just bugs me a little and demonstrates how the severity of a perceived center crisis can be downgraded or upgraded through semantics.

The Kevin Garnett factorI remember my first glimpse of KG the high schooler, looking very much like a live electrical wire that had been shaken free by a nasty storm.
At at least 7-foot (don't believe he's a measly 6-foot-11), Garnett would terrorize shooters, snag rebounds, lead the break, deliver the pass and tomahawk dunk the missed shot.
His ability to play above the rim, handle the ball, make passes and get to the basket after a couple of skilled bounces was astounding and unprecedented. The above-the-rim part made it unprecedented.
I had witnessed Danny Manning rebounding, running the break and making slick passes as a 6-foot-10 high school phenom. KG may have been influenced a bit by him. And Manning had no chance escaping the influence of Magic Johnson, who was a one-man break at 6-foot-9.
While smartly playing to his strengths, Garnett became the model for a generation of tall, agile big kids who now believed they could reach the league without spending hours having a coach whack them on the back and shoulders with a football blocking pad. Why practice post moves when you could roam the perimeter, swoop in to block shots, knock down mid-range jumpers and finish on the break like KG?
Even worse, being labeled a center in high school or college could suggest you lack the agility to play power forward in college or the NBA.


Tyson Chandler considered himself a Garnett-in-training while playing four years of varsity basketball at Dominguez High in Compton, Calif. In his first two prep seasons, Chandler — working with Division-I-caliber upperclassmen who could score — seemed content to block shots, rebound and dunk off of lobs and put-backs.
By the time he was the Dons' "go-to-guy," the fast and bouncy 7-foot-1 Chandler lacked the back-to-the-basket chops required to take advantage of his length and leaping ability. By the time he was a senior, Tyson was convinced that showing off reasonable skill from behind the arc would convince the hot-pursuing NBA scouts that he could play forward. For several months, he was right.
Now working as a highly-paid center with a rejection and rebounding pedigree, Chandler 's offensive game remains limited to lobs and put-backs.
Where was all of his crucial post-development time spent in high school? Check out our next category.

AAU and club ballWith what used to be the spring and summer skill development periods now usurped by club basketball and its seemingly endless string of tournament games, when do big kids find time to learn how to play in the post?
They often don't.
Sure, competition — especially against major talent you encounter on the club circuit — should be part of any good development plan. But club obligations can bring as many as 100 spring and summer games to a player's work load.
What is the responsibility of the club coach? That really depends on the club coach, but the crazy competition schedule leaves little time for skill development.
High school coaches often are too busy over-scheming their next game to incorporate adequate skill development into their practice plans.
There are those who do often split the breakdowns into groups of perimeter and post players, a tack that provides guards with little opportunity to work on feeding the big guys. Some of the guards who may actually want to get the ball inside often have little practical knowledge of how this is accomplished.
How about developing posting and passing skills between the summer club blitz and high school seasons? Well, many club programs stay busy in September and October; high school coaches typically are prohibited from being on a basketball court with their players until the official start of practice.
While a prevailing lurch in America toward structure — in the form of private coaches, organized leagues and tournaments — would indicate the potential for productive change, we may need to take a step back to move forward.
By that I mean much of the responsibility for individual development (that can be molded into a team upgrade) should be placed upon the player. How much work is being done by the player when nobody else is presiding or even watching?
In today's American basketball development, little kids are escorted onto teams and introduced to offensive sets before they've learned how to set up a defender on a cut, shot fake to create space or use the dribble to create separation.
The pick-up games that provided canvasses for players that the current sporting media believes have disappeared are being discouraged.
How about encouraging creativity at a young age, blended with skill development and eased into a competitive format?

Centers don't move sneakersWhile de-emphasizing excessive competition and increasing skill-building is fine, how many kids playing basketball solitaire hit the neighborhood court pretending to be an overpowering center?
The drop step and jump hook aren't exactly compelling on the highlight reel. And when was the last time your kid was excited about purchasing the signature shoe of a real live NBA center?
Adidas has KG and Duncan in its marketing arsenal, but KG never has been mistaken for a center (which is cool, he's a Hall-of-Famer) and Timmy's also a four, right?
A note to parents: If you review recent NBA draft listings and notice how many iffy center candidates were selected in the first round (with its guaranteed three-year contract worth millions), you might be inspired to have your big kid mix in some post moves with those crossovers in the driveway.

What about the European invasion?Well, many European development programs have the right idea regarding the balance of skill work and competition.
But the trapezoidal lane has been credited with discouraging tall kids from working on skills often attached to what passes as a legitimate center. They can shoot the blood out of the ball from distance, pass it like a guard and handle it with some fluidity, but they haven't learned to move laterally in an effort to prevent some playground fiend from driving past them.
Many tall prospects with nice footwork also have been arriving from Africa, but much of their early shooting and dribbling drills were limited to their feet.
There's been some slight post-play enlightenment coming from Europe in recent years, but I believe we've run out of Gasol brothers.
By the way, Marc is a card-carrying center, but how should we define Pau?

Lafortezza

Good article, can you post the link to source when you get a chance?

I don't agree about Tim Duncan being a centre though, I always thought that the sign of a power forward was the fact that no matter what size he was that he had no problem playing along side another 7ft guy. TD can play from the free throw down, he can shoot the bank shot from the side, he can take his man off the dribble. Greg Oden or D Howard or Chandler can't to any of these to the same extent.

Part of the reason I think that there is fewer true centres is the fact that all positions on the court have been equalised in terms of height and build. You still have the little guys and the big guys in general, but you have LeBron playing any position from the 1 to the 4, McGrady and similar players like him playing the 1 thru 3, and sometimes on the court it's impossible to tell who is at which position because they change it up depending on the play.

Similarly for the bigs, you will have an oversized Small Forward, and maybe three or four 6ft10 brick ****houses in the rotation at the 4 and 5 spots. There doesn't seem to be any rigid way of organising the positions because so many teams play varying styles.

The GS Warriors are a good example, the Knicks in recent times too. They play an up tempo get out and run, shoot alot style, where they have 1 big and 4 players under 6ft8 or so.

eagle eye

lafortezza wrote: »

Good article, can you post the link to source when you get a chance?

I don't agree about Tim Duncan being a centre though, I always thought that the sign of a power forward was the fact that no matter what size he was that he had no problem playing along side another 7ft guy. TD can play from the free throw down, he can shoot the bank shot from the side, he can take his man off the dribble. Greg Oden or D Howard or Chandler can't to any of these to the same extent.

Part of the reason I think that there is fewer true centres is the fact that all positions on the court have been equalised in terms of height and build. You still have the little guys and the big guys in general, but you have LeBron playing any position from the 1 to the 4, McGrady and similar players like him playing the 1 thru 3, and sometimes on the court it's impossible to tell who is at which position because they change it up depending on the play.

Similarly for the bigs, you will have an oversized Small Forward, and maybe three or four 6ft10 brick ****houses in the rotation at the 4 and 5 spots. There doesn't seem to be any rigid way of organising the positions because so many teams play varying styles.

The GS Warriors are a good example, the Knicks in recent times too. They play an up tempo get out and run, shoot alot style, where they have 1 big and 4 players under 6ft8 or so.

Here is the link. I'd agree about Duncan being able to do the other stuff, but Hill is saying that he might be more effective if he was sticking to post play. If you have him on the inside like that he opens up the floor for others and with his rebounding you will get a lot of second phase fresh clocks.
I'd certainly agree though that there are less and less players in that position, but it will come back around again when some team becomes unstoppable with a true Center.

Lafortezza

Dwight Howard seems to be becoming close to as dominant as Shaq was in his best years. He's getting 20+pts and 12+ rebounds so often this year, and is surrounded by good 3 pt shooters in ORL.
If he can sort his free throw problems and develop some kind of short shooting game, then he could change all our minds again about how valuable a good C is.

Sea Devils

For the last few years the NBA has evolved into more of a Small Ball unit where teams like to use a small forward at the power forward spot and a power forward at the center spot meaning that a true Center is redundant in this Offense. I think that might have played a role in it

Rasheed Wallace is an example

ascanbe

Don't really think Duncan is a 'true' centre. More a PF/Centre hybrid and, more importantly, just a great, savvy basketball player who can do whatever is needed for his team at any given time. I think the next 'true' centre will be Hassem Thabeet, currently playing in college with the Connecticut Huskies. Greg Oden could have been but, unfortunately, the guy looks crocked.

Kinetic^

It's a well written article.

However, the league was never filled with a huge amount of centres, decent ones anyway. If you take the mid 90s, you had Ewing, Shaq, Olajuwon, Robinson and Mourning. That's 5 teams with a decent post player out of a potential 28 teams (I think it was 28 back then).

Duncan is a centre imo. Even in that bracket he's one of the greatest ever players. I'm not too bothered either way. While he may not be out on the break throwing down slam jams, he plays the game the way it's supposed to be. They don't call him the Big Fundamental for nothing.

To think that the NBA would be filled with 7 footers is retarded. The fact of the matter is, when you're that tall co-ordination etc takes years to master. Look at Yao Ming, he's an awkward bastid even after several years in the league. They're there for getting dunked on by point guards or throwing out monster blocks :pac: Oden could be the next big thing (pun intended) as he has really good footwork but whether or not he can is up to how much extra work he's willing to put in.

I wasn't around for Wilt Chamberlin but when he's playing against people who are significantly smaller then him he's bound to have a massive amount of points per game. Imo Olajuwon is probably the best centre of all time. He had it all - attitude, work ethic, athleticism and a great understanding of the game.

d'Oracle

Kinetic^ wrote: »

It's a well written article.

However, the league was never filled with a huge amount of centres, decent ones anyway. If you take the mid 90s, you had Ewing, Shaq, Olajuwon, Robinson and Mourning. That's 5 teams with a decent post player out of a potential 28 teams (I think it was 28 back then).

Divac, Mutumbo, Bradley (lol), Muresan (ROFL). I mean every team has a point guard these days, but they arent all Iversen or Wade or what have you.

I think the game has deteriorated into a girlfest since the 90's.
Its too soft, a lot of the physicality is gone. Centres are always going to fall in that situation.

Kinetic^

Mutombo yes, awesome defensive presence. Not so much on divac though. Don't even mention those other 2 freaks.

I agree that it's a girl fest and the fouls they call are a joke. However, the players have themselves to blame with some of the thuggery they show when all hell breaks loose (indiana a few years back anyone?). There are some real thugs in the league, real life thugs, not just pretend thugs. It's a joke. The 80s & 90s were great decades for the league but I feel the 00s pail(sp) in comparison.