BIG-MAN EVOLUTION League a long way from the draft debate of lanky Durant and post-presence Oden
Ten years ago, the big question before the 2007 NBA draft was which of two players the Portland Trail Blazers would select with the top overall pick. One option was Greg Oden, the 7-footer out of Ohio State who was a traditional center playing near the basket. The other was Kevin Durant, a spindly, less classifiable big man out of Texas.
It’s easy to knock the Blazers for what happened. They drafted Oden, whom injuries limited him to 105 games in the NBA. Durant, who went No. 2, has become one of the best scorers in history, and last week he was named the Most Valuable Player in the NBA Finals after Golden State defeated Cleveland in five games.
But the most resonant lesson from that draft a decade ago is that were it held today, Portland would not need the benefit of hindsight to know to pick Durant over Oden. In fact, in today’s NBA, Oden, who at the time defined his game as “bigman hook shot,” might not even be one of the top picks at all.
“An Oden, people would look at him and want to go big, but how’s he going to defend the pick-and-roll?” Billy King, formerly the Brooklyn Nets’ general manager, said in an interview. “Those guys aren’t involved in the game as much.”
Understanding the evolution in the style of NBA basketball since the 2007 draft helps explain how Thursday’s draft is likely to unfold.
The increased reliance on the 3-point shot; the constant presence of the pick-and-roll, which can be more easily defended with nimble big men who can defensively switch onto traditional ballhandlers; the increased use of spacing, which requires big men who can credibly draw their defender away from the basket on offense, all mean that some of the best contemporary big men are mold breakers.
They are players like Giannis Antetokounmpo, the 22-year-old, 6-foot-11 All-Star from Greece who has been versatile enough to play point guard for the Milwaukee Bucks, or gentle giants like the Utah Jazz’s Rudy Gobert, a Frenchman who led the NBA in blocks per game while ably switching onto smaller oppoNEW
nents.
“You’ve had a bunch of very athletic guys coming in from overseas — Giannis, Rudy Gobert,” said player agent Marc Fleisher, “and you’re finding American players who are more skilled now, even though they’re big and lanky.”
Among the likely lottery draft picks, it seems as if for every traditional center who is focused on protecting the rim and scoring down low, there are two Swiss-Army-knife-style big men who are as comfortable shooting 18-foot jumpers as 5-foot bunnies.
So when the draft gets underway Thursday night, expect the top-picked big man not to be Texas’ bruising center, Jarrett Allen, but Arizona’s 7-foot forward Lauri Markkanen, who made nearly two 3-pointers per game for the Wildcats, or Florida State’s Jonathan Isaac, a Durantlike athlete.
And describing Edrice Adebayo, whose nickname is Bam, the Kentucky freshman whose draft stock fell because of a subpar season with the Wildcats, ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla, in a conference call, outlined the very
model of a modern NBA big man: “You’re looking at 6-10, strong, athletic, runs the floor, can guard pick-and-roll, can ball screen and run to the rim and catch lobs, and he’s young.”
And then there are the elite point guards, with as many as five likely to be selected with the top 10 picks Thursday: Markelle Fultz (Washington), Lonzo Ball (UCLA), De’Aaron Fox (Kentucky), Dennis Smith (North Carolina State) and Frank Ntilikina (France).
All were just freshmen (or the equivalent, in the case of the 18-year-old Ntilikina). And all can score as well as do the more traditional point-guard work of facilitating the offense.
What this mother lode of ballhandling talent reveals — along with a simple abundance of skill that happens to exist in this draft class — is the increased premium on that position.
“There’s no question having a really good point guard is pivotal in today’s game, whereas the center position has probably been a little devalued lately,” Fleisher said.