Draft class shows center position evolving
MIAMI — It seems so long ago, even though it has been less than two months since Hassan Whiteside was largely relegated to the Miami Heat bench for those five playoff games against the Philadelphia 76ers.
It was as if the series was a referendum about the limited value of players approximating the traditional NBA center.
And then both the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers turned to true big men for the NBA Finals, JaVale McGee for the Warriors, Tristan Thompson for the Cavaliers.
And now, Thursday at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, when the league convenes for the NBA draft, three centers could be among the first six selections, when factoring in Arizona’s Deandre Ayton at the start of the process, likely to be followed shortly thereafter by Texas’ Mohamad Bamba and Duke’s Wendell Carter.
No, the Heat won’t be part of that stage of the draft, and likely not for any of it, without a pick in either round.
But coming two months after Whiteside was benched and coach Erik Spoelstra tried to carry the day with smaller — or at least more versatile — lineups, the era of the big man might not be done yet.
Against that backdrop, Heat Vice President of Player Personnel Chet Kammerer headed into his draft evaluations, with the Heat still with the option of trading into the process.
“I was just talking with Coach Spoelstra and we talked about that a little bit,” Kammerer said of what still feels like a shift away from the traditional NBA big man. “It’s changing. There’s no question.”
And yet the first player to shake hands Thursday with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver almost assuredly will be Ayton. And within minutes after that, Bamba and Carter also will be on stage.
“I think that this year the better players are bigs,” Kammerer said, downplaying the notion of the NBA moving away from Spoelstra’s favored position-less approach. “So I don’t think it’s all of a sudden you’re going to pass over the best players.
“You’re going to take what you think are the best players. And I think that this year, it just so happens, there’s three or four really good big players. And so I think they’re going to go high.”
The difference, Kammerer said, is that this next wave of big men appreciate that there has to be more than post play — on both ends.
Ayton, Bamba and Carter, in fact, have gone out of their way to stress that they are not the lumbering big men of previous eras, but rather something closer to Joel Embiid, the 76ers big man who so tormented the Heat and Whiteside in the first round.
“I’m not a regular big man,” Ayton told Sports Illustrated. “I can move my feet. Not saying I can stop anyone out there who’s in front of me, but trust me, I can really be a problem on the perimeter guarding somebody. I can switch from the center to the guards.
“The game is evolving. You got dudes like Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, all these 7-footers, doing everything. They’re unstoppable. We can grab the board, take it down the floor and then score just as well. There’s no stopping us.”
That is where the game stands. That is where Whiteside has stressed he can stand.
With this next wave to follow in the footsteps of Embiid and Davis, it could come down to a last stand for the big man who previously had so impressed the Heat before this past season’s drop off.
“The game is changing,” Kammerer said. “But there are still bigs that people still like. They like bigs that are mobile, that can block shots, that can switch and stay in front of people, and that kind of big where he’s maybe more of a rebounder, shot blocker, what they call vertical spacing, where you lob the ball to people, like the [Clint] Capelas and those guys like that. So there’s that kind of big.”
That still could be what the Heat have in Whiteside.
But there also is what the Heat have in Kelly Olynyk, who continued to inspire with his play in the playoffs, even with the five-game ouster at the hands of the 76ers.
“The second kind of big they have are the bigs now that can step out and shoot,” Kammerer said. “Now people are stretch fives. They want people who can step out at least 17 feet and make those shots, like a Kelly Olynyk, those kinds of guys are still valuable if they can shoot.”
Carter said this next draft wave appreciates that the next big things have to be the next versatile things.
“The NBA is definitely changing in our era,” he said. “There’s no more true centers anymore. They want to have people who are versatile, who are able to shoot from outside, can guard the perimeter.”
What the playoffs, what the draft and even what the Heat’s demise show is that the NBA center is in the midst of an evolution and revolution, with Thursday at Barclays Center another reminder to the Heat and Whiteside of the challenges ahead.
“So there’s kind of still a need for bigs,” Kammerer said of his scouting in advance of the draft, “but they kind of have to fit one of those types, because that’s what everybody’s going with these days.”