The fact that Euros can play in the NBA is evidence to me that the talent level in the NBA has dropped to their level. There are 50,000 golfers in the USA who are scratch handicap. Only a handful of those are able to play on the PGA tour, where the guys basically shoot scratch golf. Why is that? Because those handful are truly elite among those 50,000 and they're rare and few. This is true of NBA players or NFL player or MLB players, etc.
Yeah, sorry, still don't get it. You say there's a serious lack of big men, and then cite as an example a 6'7" forward. Who with a much faster pace, put up 22 and 13. So if we had MORE big men, we'd have 6'7" guys getting 13 rebounds? Or we need more little "big guys". If height isn't relevant, why say what we lack is big men?
But surely you realize that if there were 100,000 golfers in the USA who were that good, there'd be around twice as many who'd have elite talent. You seem to think elite athletic talent is somehow related to the acreage of the United States. There's only so much land, so there's only so many elite players. When you expand the number of teams but aren't expanding the surface area of the United States, you have fewer elite players spread out over more teams. That's lunacy. A tiny proportion of the US populace can play at an elite level. If you expand the US populace, you necessarily expand the number of players who can play at an elite level. That's how proportions work. What's changed is that Dan Issel wouldn't be able to run up big numbers against the myriad of smaller weaker defenders he faced back then. Even the worst modern NBA team can afford to pay a defensive wing a million bucks a season. That million bucks buys a guy with more physical talent than 99.9% of Americans, somebody who has busted his ass for years to become an elite defensive player. How much do you think the 1977 Hawks, a decent .500 team with an average attendance of 7400 fans at home games and minimal television and merchandising revenue, had to spend on paying a defensive specialist? My guess is that guy made more than the janitor, but not by a factor of 20. How fierce was the competition to get that job in 1977?
I would counter that the 80's and 90's had an even better crop of centers. Ewing, Olajuwon, Robinson, Shaq, the tail end of Kareem's career... And the league size wasn't much different then than it is now, so expansion is a distant second explanation to there simply being a lack of quality post players nowadays. Lots of 6'11" perimeter players, mind you, just not many classic centers. I attribute that to the game having changed, rather than dilution due to too many teams.
Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh, Blake Griffin, Dirk Nowitzki, Lamarcus Aldridge, Brook Lopez...we have quite a few pretty decent big men nowadays too; most of them are simply classified as forwards instead of centers. If they played in 1977, they would all have been centers, because there are MORE big guys today, not fewer. EDIT: Figured I should confirm the accuracy of that statement. 1977--44 players in the NBA 6'10" or taller (playing at least 100 minutes in the year). This year--over 100.
Nice piece of research. Also works to look at guys 6'3 or shorter. There were 71 in 1977, there are 76 this year. Given that the league has 23% more franchises now than then, that means the average number of short players per team has gone down by roughly 20%. Think a guy like Andre Miller or Chauncy Billups wouldn't lick his chops at the opportunity to play against a significantly shorter league?
Andre Miller would have been a fantastic Power Forward in 1960... he has a strong post-up game, surprising rebounding skills, and a floor general quality. He'd likely have 4 rings and a seat in the Hall if he'd only been born 30 years earlier.
Hell, I could've played in the league in 1960. I'd probably have been a bench warmer and had to work two jobs in the offseason, but I could've been there!
Just had to correct my math there. There were 276 NBA players in 1977. There are 382 this year. So the pool of players overall have expanded by 27%, while the pool of short players (guys listed at 6'3 or less) has grown by 6%. It's a much taller league now.
There have been 6 expansion teams since 1988: Charlotte, Miami, Minnesota, Orlando, Toronto, and Vancouver (Memphis) I don't agree that the Ewing, Olajuwon, Robinson, Shaq era was better for centers than the 1970s to mid 1980s. I named 8 centers, you named 5. I can name quite a few more - like Robert Parrish, Swen Nater, Wes Unseld, Mark Eaton, and if you want to play the "tail of the career" game, Wilt. Just about every team had a great one or a very good one. Those that didn't had guys like Tree Rollins, who'd be an all-star at C in the modern NBA. FWIW. One of the reasons the talent pool was so concentrated was the merger of the ABA with the NBA. There's no longer a competing professional league in the US, one that steals #1 picks from the NBA (and the ABA took hardships as well).
Fine, throw Mourning, Mutumbo, Smits, etc. into the discussion and the numbers remain pretty much even...
Throw those guys in, and you're still nowhere close to the number of true centers I named. I can name more as well: Nate Thurmond, Mychal Thompson, Tom Boerwinkle, Ewing, Olajuwan, Mutombo, Ralph Sampson... While you guys are naming PFs to get a quantity of names going, I haven't even gone there. Maurice Lucas is the tip of that iceberg. To get the league this diluted with talent, we're taking in a bunch of Euro players. Toronto is basically all Euro players and they suck. Should be an indication of how they're (elsewhere) diluting the overall talent.
So it's OK to name Kareem in the 90s. Gotcha. Though he retired after the 88-89 season. Alvan Adams, who I haven't mentioned so far. Regardless, there aren't anywhere near the number of quality bigs today. There always were perimeter bigs. Larry Bird was a PF who played SF and shot from 3pt range. Bill Laimbeer is another obvious big who shot from outside. McAdoo made his living from range. Dave Cowens. Dan Issel. Mickey Johnson. There always were big players at the skills positions. Guys like Magic, Oscar Robertson, George Gervin, Marques Johnson, Pippen, Cornbread Maxwell...
Quality bigs who often got to go up against smaller talent. A guy 6'8" nowadays gets called an undersized PF. In the 70s, they played C. Going off of the 76-77 season you listed earlier, teams like Boston, starting C 6'9" 230. Biggest guy on their team. That's David West sized. NY, McAdoo? 6'9" 210. Buffalo's leading rebounder was 6'9". Nets leading rebounder? 6'9" 200. I mean, Darius Miles probably had 20 pounds on the guy. You want to just name Cs from the current era, but PFs nowadays would be Cs then. Aldridge, 6'11", 257? He'd be dominant playing against midgets half the time. I think Gerald Wallce would likely play C. Again, PFs nowadays are undersized if they are as tall as some Cs then. Naming a few doesn't make the league full of them. Wes Unseld, 6'7" 245. Cleveland's leading rebounder? You guessed it, 6'9", 210. Issel, 6'9", 235. It goes on with PFs masquerading as Cs. So yes, the league was FULL of great big men. And so it is now. But when looking at the list now, make sure to add the likes of Bosh, Aldridge, Amare, Boozer, West, Millsap, Jefferson, Z-Bo, David Lee, Kevin Love, etc., because they'd all be Cs then.
They may well have been C's back then, but we're really playing PFs at C these days, and have been for a while. Dave Cowens was considered an undersized center in his day. Wilt was 7'1". Kareem was maybe 7'4" - he was freakishly tall and didn't ever let anyone measure him. He's listed at 7'2". Artis Gilmore was 7'2". Swen Nater was 6'11" 240 lbs - same size as Dwight Howard. Moses Malone was 6'10. Boerwinkle was 7'0". Sampson was 7'3", but skinny as a toothpick. Hakeem was 7'0". Bob Lanier was 6'11" 250 lbs. Bill Walton was 6'11". Tree Rollins was 7'1". Robert Parish was 7'. Mark Eaton was 7'4". Nate Thurmond was 6'11". Unseld was amazing because he was so short (6'7"), but his ass was wide and he was a terrific defender, rebounder, a gifted passer, and particularly great at the outlet pass. In that 76-77 season, the top 5 rebounders were: Walton, Kareem, Malone, Gilmore, McAdoo. Caldwell Jones, 6'11" was among the blocks leaders.
