Last week's retirement by Houston Rockets center Yao Ming will bring two major, yet somewhat obvious by now, changes when the NBA returns from its current lockout.
The first being the popularity hit the league will take in China and even throughout Asia now that the continent's most recognizable star and sole reason for interest has decided to hang them up. Even with Yao sitting the sidelines for the better part of the last two years, the NBA still benefited from the millions of eyes watching from the Far East hoping that their 7'6 icon would make a triumphant return.
He didn't.
The second change is something that has manifested throughout the league slowly over the last few years and is now something that is going to be punctuated even further with guys like Yao and Shaquille O'Neal gone for good: Traditional centers are becoming extinct. Today's game has seemed to evolve without the traditional big man in the middle. Gone are the days of Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson. The reason for that is three-fold. For one, guards have become faster than in the heyday of "The Admiral" and "The Dream", so thus there's a need for quicker, albeit shorter, big men to get down court quick to stock guys like Derrick Rose and Chris Paul in transition. Two, teams have become fascinated with the slick-shooting of big men like Dirk Nowitzki and Mehmet Okur. Seven-footers who would be back-to-the-basket pivot men in the mid-90's have traded in their hook shots for 15-foot jumpers. It's why guys like Tim Duncan and Chris Bosh fancy themselves more as power forwards than centers.
The third and final reason is the lack of durability of young guys who fit the old style of big man. Greg Oden was supposed to be the next Bill Russell. Instead, he's the next Sam Bowie. Andrew Bynum was supposed to be the heir apparent to Shaq. Instead, he's a risky upgrade over Chris Mihm. As bodies have become bigger, stronger, and more athletic, they've also become a threat to break down even after something as simple as grabbing a defensive rebound.
Look around the league. How many old-school big men are getting starter minutes in the league right now? 10, maybe? Out of 30 teams? And, of those 10, how many are stars? Dwight Howard.....Bynum, when healthy.....Nene....and....waiting...waiting.....Kendrick Perkins, perhaps? The NBA has morphed into pickup games at the Rucker, where teams play small ball with glorified small forwards like Chuck Hayes get to pose as centers because their rebounding acumen. Traditional centers are falling by the waist side because they are either too slow, too brittle or aren't athletic enough to step outside the paint and guard their seven-foot counterparts who prefer to make their living beyond the arc.
It makes you wonder how the '96 Bulls would compete with those early-2000, Shaq-Kobe Laker teams if Dennis Rodman had to step out and guard Robert Horry instead of patrolling the paint. When Dirk first emerged, many skeptics wrote off long-range, European-style big men as a fad that will inevitably pass like John Stockton short-shorts or hand-checking and, after the flops of guys like Darko Milicic and Nikoloz Tskitishvilli, the doubters looked like they might be right as teams were tired of getting burned by falling in love with young kids dominating on grainy, surveillance footage. However, now that Nowitzki is finally a champion and guys like Yao and Shaq are retiring while the Odens and Bynums of the world seem destined to join them, the focal point of utilizing your center will once again be shifting back to a combination of three-point shooting seven-footers and quick, undersized-forwards manning the five spot.
It's why some team will overpay Carl Landry to be their starting center. Or David West. Or Troy Murphy. The retirement of Yao Ming and even Shaq, eventhough Shaq has been a shell of himself over the last few years, was not only the nail in the coffin to their own careers but a farewell to the outdated model that they once were the poster children for. Ballers don't have to worry about being a little bit taller anymore.
You win, Skee-Lo.
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