NBA BIGS NO LONGER CENTER OF ATTENTION
Robert Parish has wondered about Tacko Fall in the way a sculptor views a piece of raw marble. The Hall of Famer sees the same unchiseled edges as everyone else in the Celtics rookie – seven feet and five inches of potential waiting for some team-appointed Michelangelo to smooth and round into a real player. He lets out a prolonged “whoaaaa” when asked about Fall. Parish once unsuccessfully marketed himself to teams, the Celtics included back in the day, to work with young projects like this. His best friend, Clifford Ray, made a post-playing career out of it for a long time. Ray, the center on Golden State’s 1975 championship team, worked with the young Al Jefferson and Kendrick Perkins as a big man coach on Doc Rivers’ Celtics staff. He was brought in to work with Dwight Howard in Orlando, and DeMarcus Cousins in Sacramento.
The jobs eventually dried up for Ray. As the NBA has redefined the role of big men – Aron Baynes now attempts more 3-pointers (4.0) than Larry Bird in his peak downtown season (1990-91, 3.3) – the means of coaching them has changed.
Parish simply wonders where the “big” in the equation is going, which brings him back to Tacko.
“If he ever can find his game, he’s gonna be a force,” said Parish. “But right now he’s just a diamond in the rough.
“You don’t know what you’re gonna get until the rough edges have been polished,” he said. “I don’t know who they have working with the big fella. It would be interesting if for once they get a true big man to work with a big man.
“Instead you have guards and forwards trying to teach centers how to play the center position. It would be like me teaching a guard how to play the guard position. I can’t do it adequately.”
But the game continues to seep out of the area Parish called home. To wit, Danny Ainge tweeted a short video last week of Fall in the Auerbach Center – turning out to the corner to make a 3-pointer.
“Tacko Tatum” was the general manager’s tag.
Parish admits that the modern big man is a wonder to behold. The three best in the game, in his estimation, are Anthony Davis, Joel Embiid and KarlAnthony Towns. All three shoot the 3-pointer with impunity and punish an increasingly ill-equipped group of post defenders in the blocks.
Towns, in particular, refined his perimeter game this season, shooting .412 from 3-point range on a Durantian (7.9) number of attempts, to go along with his 4.4 assists and 26.5 scoring average.
Though opponents would still rather see him settling for threes, Embiid is unparalleled at destroying the paint and all in it. Davis dominates from the corner to the rim with more overall excellence than any big man, probably ever.
“That’s why I respect the bigs of today. Their game is so diversified,” said Parish. “They have a post game, they have a mid-range game, they’ve got 3-point shooting. What I really admire about those three players is that they still do big man things. They play defense, they rim-protect, they block shots, their transition game is solid, so I really respect how they play.”
But somewhere along the line they still need the advice of a well-established big man. Fall got an early taste, working out as a high schooler not only with Hakeem Olajuwon, but Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The latter attempted to teach Fall the sky hook. Some things, though, cannot be taught.
“Why has nobody ever learned the sky hook like Kareem in the history of basketball,” said Danny Ainge. “The guy shot 60 percent and nobody has ever learned it. It’s not like people haven’t tried. That just goes to show you how special he was – how great he was. Michael Jordan won’t be able to teach Malik Monk how to be Michael Jordan. There’s things Michael Jordan would be able to teach everybody – big man position, small man positions. I don’t think it has to be so specific. Big men coaching big men only. Then how are big men going to coach a point guard.”
The truth is, according to Dave Cowens, that big men aren’t getting the same opportunities to coach the little guys and wings.
“If you can coach you can coach. You need a big man coach? Do they have a little man coach? That’s a bias in itself,” said the Celtics legend, at 6-foot-8 the small ball center of his era. “Why are we different? I used to teach the guards. I’d say you all should have hook shots. You should all have backto-the-basket games because you’re going to have mismatches. Muggsy Bogues is going to guard you, and you should be able to post a guy up.
“If there’s going to be matchups,
why wouldn’t you learn every move the game has. Now nobody teaches a hook shot – they teach a jump hook, which was one of the shots I introduced to the whole deal in the early ‘70s. Nobody was teaching jump hooks, but I developed one and tried it out. I did it early on because if you tried a regular hook the big guys would knock it out of the air. So you had to get it off quick.” Cowens was the last player/ coach in the history of the NBA, taking over a 2-12 Celtics team from the fired Satch Sanders in 1978-79. He later coached the Hornets (1996-99) and, for 105 games, the Warriors (19992001), after two seasons as a San Antonio assistant. He returned as an assistant coach with the Pistons from 2006-09. When Celtics general manager M.L. Carr fired Chris Ford after the 1994-95 season, Cowens applied. “I tried Boston and M.L. Carr hired himself. How about that one?” said Cowens. “I interviewed in Cleveland – (Jim) Paxson was the GM, another guard. All the GMs are guards.” It got to the point, Cowens believes, where big men fell out of fashion as coaches. “There’s a bit of a bias in coaching circles on big guys,” he said. Asked why, he said, “Because the guys that hire them are little guys. They have to be smart, and into analytics, and talking to the press, the PR stuff, what they look like. “One thing that aggravates me, and probably aggravates Robert (Parish) as well, is they don’t allow big guys to coach,” he said. “Every coach in the NBA is a small guy. Every coach in college is a small guy. And they all think they know how to post people up.” Everyone seems to have a Clifford Ray story, and Cowens’ comes from the time Ray worked with Howard in Orlando. One day, as Ray told Cowens the story, head coach Brian Hill questioned his value. “Brian Hill, who other than (Mike) Fratello may be the smallest coach in NBA history, he said ‘we don’t really need you, Clifford, I can teach postup’,” Cowens recalled. “And I’m like, he has no idea. He never posted anyone up in his life. But he knew he could teach it – he thought he could teach it.” Parish, who unsuccessfully attempted to catch on as a coach with several teams, including the Celtics, understands that the role of a coach responsible strictly for big men has gone past the boards. “There’s never been one. Think about it. There’s never really been a big man coach,” said Parish. “Even Kareem told me that. His role with Shaq (O’Neal) was limited. They kept them apart for whatever reason. I don’t know if it was ego. Dave Cowens has said the same thing. His role was limited because his role was limited working with the bigs. Coaching is just designated for guards and small forwards, and I never understood that concept. Don’t get it. “(Ray) said the same thing. His coaching role was limited. I don’t understand that. Especially when it comes to the big people, because guards and forwards cannot teach the bigs how to play their position.” Parish, who now makes public appearances on behalf of the NBA, also points a finger at himself where his inability to get a coaching job is concerned. “It didn’t work out, and I’m gonna take most of the blame for it,” he said. “I didn’t start reaching out until I was 57 or 58, and by then I was too old. I felt like I waited too long to campaign to do something. That was one of the main reasons. I was almost 60, and they basically show coaches the door by then.” One of the longest-suffering narratives for Knicks fans was the team’s history of passing over Patrick Ewing for the head coaching job, including during his long stint as a New York assistant. The Georgetown coach was reportedly insulted by his former team after being offered the Knicks’ G-League job. “There probably is a big man perception,” Ewing told Yahoo Sports in 2014. “They think that all guards are the best thing. It’s a guard-oriented league right now, but it is what it is.” Nothing has changed. The names most attached to the Knicks’ current opening are Tom Thibodeau and Kenny Atkinson, the recently fired Brooklyn coach. “Tim Duncan might be the next one to be a head coach somewhere,” surmised Cowens. “Who knows? Why didn’t Jabbar ever get a head job? He tried forever. Not too many guys who were more productive than him – a smart guy, and he couldn’t get a look. I think people hire people that look like them a little bit, maybe. There’s a vast number of people to choose from, but they tend not to select tall guys. Maybe they don’t do interviews well.” Ainge points to the changing nature of the league. Big men are now taught guard skills – indeed, expected to develop them. It’s not about the size of the coach, says the Celtics general manager. It’s the need of the particular big man that counts. “Ultimately it’s the coaches who hire their own coaches. What are their philosophies? What are their needs? I don’t think there’s a bias against anybody or a person’s style of game,” said Ainge. “Depends on the player. There’s a big difference between Robert Williams and Joel Embiid. What they need to learn to do and become are completely different. We shouldn’t just classify them as big men coaches. There’s some very good big men – I’m saying 6-foot-6 to 6-8 guys – who are very good at teaching point guards who never played the point guard position. But they’ve played alongside some of the best point guards. “I learned a lot in my time playing with Bird. We didn’t have a big man coach, but we had arguably one of the best front lines in the history of basketball. We had K.C. Jones and Chris Ford coaching – two shooting guards. It wasn’t like Robert Parish had a big man coach, at least not in the NBA. Kevin McHale. But I have no doubt that those guys could help any player. Robert Parish and Dave Cowens could help point guards, shooting guards AND big men. You don’t need coaches by positions.” That may be part of the problem for throwback big men in the coaching ranks – diversification of the game. And though Red Auerbach thought enough of Cowens to name him player/coach during one of the most dysfunctional seasons in franchise history, the Celtics patriarch had this curious halfjoke he used to tell. “Red Auerbach had a thing – he always said if you’re over 6-foot-5 you’re not as smart as the other guys,” said Cowens. “I don’t know if he was kidding – he hired (Bill) Russell, he had (Tommy) Heinsohn. “Wasn’t like he did it all the time, but he would do it in a kidding way, in a sarcastic way.” In a way, intentional or not, that paints a picture like today.