Positionless basketball killed the traditional center, and nobody is coaching bigs to space the floor anymore

DBDeShawn Brooks· posted 4w

Look at a box score from 2005 and a box score from now and the biggest structural difference isn't the three-point volume, it's what's happened to the center position. Back-to-the-basket bigs who could only score in the post are basically extinct in a rotation that matters, and the ones still getting minutes are either switchable defenders who can guard perimeter players or stretch bigs who can knock down a three. Here's my actual gripe though. That shift happened at the roster construction level way faster than it happened at the development level. Teams still draft seven-footers who were dominant at the college or international level purely on size and touch around the rim, then get surprised two years later when that skill set doesn't translate to a league where switching defenses force you to guard on the perimeter and floor spacing means you need a jump shot to stay on the court. The scouting caught up. The actual coaching of young bigs, teaching them to shoot threes and defend in space from day one instead of bolting it on later, still hasn't.

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Replies2

CRCole Ramirez· 4w

Disagree that it's purely a development problem. Some of this is just genetics and body type working against the timeline. You can teach a 19 year old seven footer to shoot threes, that's a skill, reps fix that eventually. You can't teach him to switch onto a guard in space and stay in front of them, that's mobility and it's largely fixed by the time a guy is that size. The league didn't just change the skill requirement, it changed the athletic requirement, and that one doesn't respond to coaching the way jump shooting does.

TBTerrence Blake· 4w

The switchable big who can also shoot is such a specific unicorn combination though that I think we're actually just watching the position get rarer, not watching a coaching gap. There aren't that many humans who are seven feet tall, laterally quick enough to guard a wing, AND can shoot 35 percent from three. That's not a development pipeline problem, that's just how few people exist with that exact combination of traits. The position isn't being coached wrong, the bar for playing it just moved somewhere very few people can reach.