There is something that we haven’t seen from the NBA in nearly 20 years. The top three players in MVP voting are all big men. Nikola Jokic won the MVP award this season, and he’s a center. Joel Embiid finished second, and he’s also a center. Giannis Antetokounmpo finished third, and he’s a 6-11 power forward. However, according to basketball-reference.com, he played the center position for the Milwaukee Bucks 39% of the time. So he can play the center position for most teams.
When was the last time the NBA has seen three centers/power forwards finish in the top 3 in MVP voting? That was in the 2003-04 season. Kevin Garnett won the MVP award that season, Tim Duncan finished second, and Jermaine O’Neal finished third.
The NBA was a different league back in 2004. It was a league dominated by defense and low-scoring affairs. If you’re bored by all the blowouts that are happening in the conference finals right now, well then you would have wanted to pull your hair out if you were watching the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons battle it out in the 2004 conference finals. There was a total of four games from that seven-game series where at least one of the teams didn’t score over 70 points! To put that in perspective, the Dallas Mavericks in game 2 against the Warriors scored 72 points in the first half.
So don’t worry! We’re never going back to that place where we were forced to watch Rasheed Wallace and Jermaine O’Neal back their opponents up while everyone stands around waiting for them to eventually settle for an 8-foot hook shot. The league has evolved to a much more score-friendly league where it’s dominated by skillful guards that can shoot the three from 8 feet behind the three-point line.
But hold up! Maybe that way of thinking has now been antiquated. No one’s debating that the three-point shot is no longer valuable, or that teams are moving away from shooting the three. In fact, teams are shooting even more threes than ever before. We keep seeing a steady rise of teams shooting more and more threes each year. However, the whole notion that you need to play small to be successful is no longer the case.
Five years ago, centers were almost like running backs. They were expendable. Their job was to grab rebounds and occasionally throw down a few lob passes. But if you couldn’t shoot the three-ball, then you were just a burden on the team. You were taking up too much space and not allowing the offense to flow the way it needed to. If they wanted to stay on the court, they needed to evolve to where they can be a three-point threat. We are finally seeing that evolution right before our eyes. Now we’re at the point where the best players in the league are all big men. But most importantly, they are the most valuable piece to have on your team.
Check out the top seven players with the highest win shares in the league.
- Nikola Jokic – 15.2 WS
- Giannis Antetokounmpo – 12.9 WS
- Joel Embiid – 12.0 WS
- Rudy Gobert – 11.7 WS
- Karl-Anthony Towns – 10.3 WS
- Trae Young – 10.0 WS
- Robert Williams – 9.9 WS
That is a total of six players who are centers/power forwards in the top 7 that led the league in win shares. And the top five players are all 6-11 or taller.
This is the next evolution of the league. No one’s expecting their seven-foot big man to shoot eight three’s a game as if they were Steph Curry, Trae Young, or Luka Doncic. That would be counterintuitive. Why would you want Joel Embiid standing behind the three-point line at all times when he can get you a few easy points in the paint? But look at what they’re doing to defenses when they shot only three to five three-pointers a game. They are creating more easy opportunities for their team and for themselves. So not only are they creating value on the offensive end, but they still remain as the team’s primary rebounder and rim protector. That’s something that undersized players can’t compete with.
We saw how unstoppable the Lakers were in the 2020 playoffs when they added a player like Anthony Davis that could do all the above. We saw what Giannis was able to do with the little talent that he was surrounded with in 2021. As much as I like Khris Middleton, he’s not exactly a top 15 player in the league. Imagine what he could do if he decided to make his job a little easier by joining another superstar? Imagine how unstoppable the Denver Nuggets will be when Jokic also is paired with a top 15 player in the league? We saw what the Denver Nuggets did in 2020 when Jamaal Murray was healthy. Imagine what the Sixers can do when they finally get a player that doesn’t refuse to shoot a shot in a series-deciding game with their season on the line? And imagine how scary the Minnesota Timberwolves will be once Anthony Edwards takes that next leap in his career?
So those of us who have decided to suffer through the blow-outs and watch the playoff games, maybe we need to realize what we are watching. This could be the end of an era. If Golden State doesn’t pull a “2016-type” meltdown, they could be the last team that we see for a while that wins a championship as a true small-ball team. Steph Curry will be 35 years old when the 2023 playoff starts and Klay Thompson will turn 33 years old next season with two major injuries that will eventually take their toll on his body. Their reign will soon be over.
To the delight of our beloved analysts, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal, the big man is starting to rule the NBA again. They might not look and play like the traditional big man of their era, but they have evolved according to the way the league is being played today. That’s the way time works and it’s the way the world works. Nothing should ever stay the same, but history is always bound to repeat itself. Some of us might have never thought we would live to see the day, but the NBA once again belongs to the giants of the game.
Christian's NBA Blog 