San Antonio Spurs icon David Robinson played in an era when big men dominated the paint. Their tasks were to crash the boards, challenge those who drove to the paint, and post up against fellow bigs.
The game has changed drastically over the past 30 years since The Admiral’s retirement. Now, we see seven-footers swishing the net from the logo and dribbling the basketball like point guards.
The cycle of the sport
Even though more big men are working on their respective jump shots, Robinson believes that the rise of shooting big men will eventually reach its ceiling. Soon enough, centers and power forwards will return to their old ways.
“I do think that the NBA tends to go in cycles, though,” David said in 2018, per Hoops Hype . “Right now, it’s a fun, wheel-and-deal, shoot-crazy-shots time. But it’s to going shift back to the fundamentals and playing solid defense and making stops and getting the big guys who can control the paint. It’ll go back and forth. I see this new era of big guys coming into the league, and that’s exciting for me because I think a piece of my days are coming back again.”
The former Spurs center has a good point. One of the fundamental strategies of a team game is to find mismatches. The stretch bigs of today might be too fragile to match up against these players who rely on brute force to score and defend.
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Wemby kind of trumps Robinson's argument
It’s interesting that six years after The Admiral’s fearless forecast, more and more stretch fives and fours are entering the NBA. Perhaps the most impressive one is Victor Wembanyama , whom the San Antonio Spurs picked first in the 2023 NBA Draft.
If all goes well, Wemby will likely dominate the league for the next 15 years, which will push other teams to look for someone who could stop him. An alien can only be stopped by a fellow alien.
Whatever the case may be, it’s an exciting time to be an NBA fan, especially this upcoming season. While the 2024 NBA Draft class doesn’t look stacked on paper, we can never predict what will happen in the future. For all we know, the big man who will revert the game to its old style is a member of the 2024 batch.
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