NBA Draft: Big man influx could mean changing of the guard
Today's NBA Draft is big.
Really big.
Huge.
Surely the biggest in a decade.
Maybe the biggest of all time.
What I'm talking about is the embarrassment of Big Man Riches NBA teams will find themselves swimming in by the end of the night on Thursday.
From the surefire top picks to the second-round fliers, this NBA Draft is full of bigs. It should be the first draft since 2004, when Dwight Howard and Emeka Okafor went 1-2, where the presumptive top two picks are centers: Kentucky's Karl-Anthony Towns and Duke's Jahlil Okafor.
"In Okafor and Towns you probably have two of the most talented young big kids to come along in quite a while," George Raveling, Nike's director of international basketball and a legendary former college coach, told me.
And it's not just that there's simply a bunch of 7-footers on the board. What makes this draft so special is the diversity in these bigs. There's the throwback back-to-the-basket bully in Okafor, who comes with a magnificent touch in the post. There's the do-it-all modern-day big man in Towns, who can shoot the three as well as he can defend the post. There's the offensive magician in Frank Kaminsky, whose toolbox is filled with deadly range and superior instincts and smart passing and creative shot-making. There's the mysterious Latvian 7-footer in Kristaps Porzingis, the defensive dynamo in Kentucky's Willie Cauley-Stein, the versatile and dynamic Myles Turner of Texas.
Despite today's small-ball-focused NBA, all six of these big men ought to be drafted in the lottery.
Throw in a few more of the available bigs -- steady 6-foot-10 Kentucky power forward Trey Lyles, menacing Arkansas power forward Bobby Portis, late-blooming Syracuse big man Rakeem Christmas, mid-major dynamo Richaun Holmes of Bowling Green, and my favorite boom-bust pick of this entire draft, shot-blocking machine Robert Upshaw of Washington -- and we could end up having the best big man draft in a generation, if not all-time.
I know I can be a prisoner of the moment. Sorry about that; I get excited about these college kids I've seen play for a season or for finally getting their chance to shake Adam Silver's hand. To me, the NBA Draft is like Christmas morning, when every present under the tree is filled with the possibility of endless joy.
Deep down, I know we'll have some disappointments here. But the number and the breadth of big men here tell me we still have a crew that could go down in history.
Which is just so, so bizarre to say just weeks after the Golden State Warriors won the NBA title by starting 6-foot-6 Andre Iguodala at center.
It was Dirk Nowitzki who came over from Europe and changed the way Americans look at big men. If you're looking at where the NBA's evolution toward small ball began, go back to 1998, when the German 7-footer was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks ninth overall (and immediately traded to the Dallas Mavericks). He was a 7-footer comfortable on the perimeter, a foreign concept in the old big man's world that was dominated by Patrick Ewings and Hakeem Olajuwons and Shaquille O'Neals.
Now the 7-footers love to be playmakers. There's not much glamour in the post. There's glamour in making plays and getting noticed, a problem bemoaned by those who teach big men as a natural byproduct of an AAU system that focuses on rolling the ball out and playing over practicing fundamentals.
"How many big men are teachers of the game in the NBA?" said Brett Gunning, a former assistant with the Orlando Magic and Houston Rockets who works primarily with the development of big men. "I worked for a guy in Kevin McHale who was a great player and is coaching at NBA level. How long is that list of former bigs who have coached in the league?
"You get into the gym and people want to shoot jumpers," Gunning said. "How about we get hundreds of reps of finishing around the rim, or catching bad passes? Are those things being worked on? Forget AAU -- are they being worked on at an introductory level?"
Today, by the way, is an anomaly. Think about the history of the NBA. In the early years of the league, virtually every MVP was a big man. Think about those Georgetown teams that were among the most recognizable college teams of the 1980s and 1990s. From Patrick Ewing to Dikembe Mutombo to Alonzo Mourning, those teams were centered around traditional big men.
Should we talk about the league's all-time leading scorer? That's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
And yet his signature shot, the sky hook, hasn't been replicated by anyone. That's remarkable, and says something about both how tough it is to teach big men and how devalued the back-to-the-basket big man is in today's game.
When was the last center who was an MVP? You have to go back to Tim Duncan in 2003 -- or, if you insist Duncan was no center, Shaquille O'Neal in 2000.
The move toward spreading the floor is one reason why Towns is considered the presumptive No. 1 pick in today's draft.
But Gunning brought up a fascinating comparison to me, and furthered my belief that Jahlil Okafor could be the highest impact player -- both for his team and for the future of the league -- in this draft.
"One player can change the league," Gunning said. "Look at what Steph Curry has done. What he's doing right now, we're going to see the effects of that for years to come. Not just the shooting but the ball-handling. You got the camera on his pregame routine! You know how many kids are doing certain dribbling drills just because of that? It's the same with the shooting. We're talking about how he could be greatest shooter in the history of the game. People are going to copy the technique and the drills. He's an example of how one player can change things."
"And just one big guy," Gunning continued, "who shows an enthusiasm for his position or a skill level and ability to play back to the basket -- that can change everything too."
Gunning is talking about the more traditional, fundamental, back-to-the-basket big man. But there's an argument to be made that the way today's NBA uses its most talented big men is an example of progress, and not something that will revert to the olden days.
"As the game advances, the way the players are used has changed," Raveling said. "In the new game, when spacing becomes more important, coaches no longer want a player who is just going to play exclusively in the post. They're looking for players who are more versatile, who play multiple positions and can guard multiple positions. You have a guy like Dirk Nowitzki playing away from the basket and that opens up the inside for penetration opportunities and cutting opportunities.
"The transition from back to basket to facing basket is good for the game," Raveling continued. "It frees up players' minds. The player isn't so robotic any more. If he's a back-to-the-basket player, he's limited. It's easier to defend him. He has a limited shot selection. I think the new way, when you move him around strategically offensively, it really allows his game to expand and become a more versatile player."
I'm not so sure I agree. I miss the traditional big man. I loved watching Shaq, and Ewing, and Olajuwon, the hulking magicians of my childhood who were such a vital part of the game.
There are others who agree with me, and I don't think it's only for reasons of nostalgia. It's because they see the big man who roams the post as a lost art that needs to be reclaimed, especially in American youth basketball.
"European big men, they're fundamental on their footwork," said Bill McClintock, a former instructor at the famed Pete Newell Big Man Camp. "The Europeans work these kids on fundamentals from a young age. When they come over to the NBA they've got the footwork down, and they know how to play the game inside. Nowitzki is a classic example. Tim Duncan is probably the only American guy I can think of who has the footwork down, who can do a jump hook and a step-back, who can create space and read the defense and do a counter move.
"We aren't developing American centers like we did 20 or 25 years ago," McClintock continued. "Big men are just setting screens for someone else. The ball doesn't go into the post. When it does, if he doesn't have a move, the ball will come back out because they're doubling down on the post."
He sighed.
"I could go on for hours," he said.
He may not have to go on for hours. He may only have to look to tonight. Because whether it's Towns or Okafor, Kaminsky or Turner or Cauley-Stein or Porzingis -- or the totality of all of these talented, diverse big men together in the same draft -- we may look to tonight as the night the NBA stopped going small and decided to go back to being big.
Email Reid Forgrave at reidforgrave@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter @reidforgrave.
