<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Miami- Shaquille O'Neal, Alonzo Mourning and Zydrunas Ilgauskas are part of a dying breed in the NBA -- centers who play with their back to the basket. The days of Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain battling in the paint or Patrick Ewing going toe-to-toe with Hakeem Olajuwon down low has faded. Today's big men take 3-pointers and dribble as much as guards. "I've noticed [the changing face of centers] because most of the time when you're guarding a center you're out by the 3-point line," Ilgauksas said. "A lot more guys are coming into the league as shooters. They're only a few post-up guys like Shaq and Yao [Ming]. Guys choose to play on the outside and coaches may encourage it also so they can have the luxury of a center with the ability to play both inside and outside." Magic Johnson, a 6-9 point guard, had plenty of influence on bigger players playing positions other than center. Ilgauskas said younger players in Europe, no matter what their size, are encouraged to learn how to shoot from the outside and dribble. "Europe has the U.S. beat on how they prepare their players," Ilgauskas said. "The U.S. has more talent and better athletes, but in Europe they teach the kids fundamentals so when they do play for the pro teams everything is second nature to them like passing, screen setting and back cutting." </div> Source
Since when have guys like Yao Ming, Brendan Haywood and Jamaal Magloire been face-up centers who dribble and take three-pointers as much as guards?
Since the NBA has become more of a guards game I think the big man try to imitate that. Being that the "big men" of these days are more athletic and can do more I think they just go out and try to do what guards do and they think they will be succesful. I'm not sure, but that's the reason everyone even talks about Eddy Curry. Honestly I think he is a BUM, bottom line but the fact that he rather the physical player over the finese stuff unlike majority of the bigs today is what keeps people raving about him.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Locke:</div><div class="quote_post">Since when have guys like Yao Ming, Brendan Haywood and Jamaal Magloire been face-up centers who dribble and take three-pointers as much as guards?</div> The article includes Yao Ming as a back to the back to the basket centre. But I agree with you that there are some glaring omissons. I actually think the the trend is toward athletic running centres (what I mean is centres that are more athletic than skilled). I think the powerforward position is the one that is being changed the most radically.
