Ralph Sampson blames the media for the NBA becoming a three-point shooting league: "They don't show low-post moves on SportsCenter"

Back in the day, NBA big men camped in the paint on offense and defense. Their duty was to crash the boards, be the last line of defense, and provide an offensive presence down low.

Over the last 10 years, times have changed. We have seen seven-footers hanging around the 3-point line, jacking up shots from the logo, and even running the break like point guards (hello, Nikola Jokic).

Where are the post players?

The great Houston Rockets center, Ralph Sampson , misses those days when players like him were legitimate low-post threats. From his point of view, the media is partly to blame for this radical change. They have painted the low-post game as a boring and corny playstyle.

"Now name the top five low-post players in the league today," said Sampson in 2013, per Sports Illustrated . "It's hard to even get to five. It's an epidemic. All the big guys want to get on the perimeter, put the ball between their legs, and shoot threes because they don't show low-post moves on SportsCenter. They don't show you Al Jefferson back, back, backing somebody down and putting up a jump hook."

Sampson played in an era where bigs were regarded as lethal weapons and important ingredients for success. He was paired up with Hakeem Olajuwon in the '80s, and together, the two goliaths wreaked havoc on the league.

From the '80s up until the early 2000s, great low-post players like Kevin McHale , Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O'Neal , Tim Duncan, Yao Ming , and many more entertained fans with their brute force and sweet finesse down low.

The offensive style of play mostly had an inside-out philosophy. The first option was to feed the big man and if that didn't work, then that's the only time the team will settle for a perimeter shot or a 3-pointer.

Related: Julius Erving believes no player is similar to him in the modern NBA: “I was a small forward, but I really played like a power forward”

Things change

Now, it's the complete opposite. Teams do not regard 3-point shots from anywhere (even the logo) as horrible choices.

It seems that head coaches even push their players to work on their 3-point strokes more and more as the shot, regarded as a last option back then, is now considered a lethal weapon. Analytics have shown that your win percentage will grow as your team's three-point percentage grows.

Sampson, now 64 years old, probably closes his eyes when he sees a player tossing up a 3-point shot with 20 seconds remaining on the shot clock. But that's how the game will look like for quite some time.

Related: "I always try to start at about 15 foot from the basket" - Larry Bird once talked about how he practiced shooting