Nylon Calculus: A referendum on the center position
Between the twin retirements of Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan, this past offseason saw an exodus of some of the best and most storied big men in basketball history. Duncan and Garnett were all-around beasts, equally as capable of striking terror into a driving guard as they were piling up buckets in a hurry. However, the game of basketball no longer reveres the interior kings as it once did. The league’s fancy has shifted to the Steph Curry’s of the world.
On first glance, the center position is clearly no longer what it once was. Those pining for the era of dominant post players are going to be disappointed. From 2001 to 2010, the average VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) for big men was 1.42. Since the 2011-2012 season however, the average VORP has dropped to 1.22. In eight of the 10 seasons from 2001 to 2010, the NBA saw more than at least six big men with a VORP of 3.0 or higher, including a whopping 10 in the 2002-03 season. In the seasons since, we’ve only had one season with at least six big men posting a VORP of 3.0 or higher once — 2014-15 season which famously saw Anthony Davis shatter all sorts of productivity records for young big men.
The 2014-15 season, though, is instructive in that it may have taught us to wait before writing off the center position altogether. Of the nine big men with a VORP over 3.0, five of them were under 28-years-old — Anthony Davis, Rudy Gobert, DeAndre Jordan, DeMarcus Cousins, and Al Horford. The 2015-16 season then saw an infusion of more young big men talent in the likes of Karl-Anthony Towns (VORP of 3.1) and Nikola Jokic (VORP of 3.0). And of course, Joel Embiid is now finally healthy and has teased his franchise-altering potential throughout the preseason. It is very possible, and likely probable, that we are currently in the midst of a revival for the center position. Dominant big men are back; they just don’t play like their predecessors.
Teams used to flow through and build around their men in the middle, however teams now build around guards and wings, with centers expected to be much more specialized in their roles. It’s no longer enough for a star center to be tethered to the paint. They must also be able to stretch their shooting range and be mobile defenders, able to switch effectively in a pick-and-roll heavy game.
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On the cusp of the 2016 season, I took a look at the profiles of the modern center. Using a clustering algorithm based on 15 different statistics (hat tip to Basketball-Reference) from last season encompassing offense and defense, we are able to identify the various types of centers in the league and see how the projected starters going into the season were categorized. The starting centers were determined using RealGM’s projected depth charts, with two exceptions – Kevin Love and Anthony Davis were plugged in as the ‘starters’ for their respective teams since they played over 50 percent of their minutes at center last year. Although Draymond Green plays center for the most dangerous lineup in the league, he doesn’t spend enough minutes there to be considered for this exercise.
All in all, clustering returns five types of starting centers. The Crashers are our typically hyper-athletic glass cleaners who make a living on offense by attacking the boards and being highly efficient near the rim. The Defense-First Trench Warfare category is typified by players who, as they are so aptly named, earn their paychecks by altering their opponent’s offensive game plans more so than being relied on as scorers. The JAG’s are the players who we’d refer to as the jack of all trades, masters of none. They are mediocre to good players who bring a variety of skills, just very rarely at a high level. The Well-Rounded Offensive Skill Players can be centerpieces of a team’s offense with their scoring gifts, able to serve as playmakers as well as put up points in multiple ways. And then of course, we have our Unicorns, the two way monsters with Hall-of-Fame potential who can change the direction of a franchise and have very few statistical weaknesses.
Below are radar charts for the statistical profiles of players who exemplify each of those categories: DeAndre Jordan, Andrew Bogut, Marcin Gortat, Al Horford, and Anthony Davis.
Some really intriguing observations emerged as a result of the clustering. First of all, Karl-Anthony Towns, as a rookie, was the closest player to entering the realm of the Unicorns, and barring injury, should become one this season. Second, the one standout amongst the JAGs was Joakim Noah, who separated himself from the rest of the pack with his incredible assist numbers. Though he may not be a talented scorer, Noah’s ability to facilitate from the pivot could prove invaluable to New York this coming season, provided he can stay healthy.
Steven Adams and Rudy Gobert enter the season as legitimate contenders for Defensive Player of the Year. Additionally, all four of the Crashers are going to be making over $20 million next season (!), indicating that if you aren’t a Unicorn, the two most valuable ways to specialize as a center are to either be a crasher or develop three-point range. Of course, besides Unicorns, Crashers are also the rarest types of players, and scarcity breeds demand.
By looking at the nuances of the modeling itself, I found that centers are expected to rebound, and that the model did not simply reward a player heavily just because they could rebound well. On the flip side, players are penalized more for bad defensive indicators like Defensive Box Plus-Minus, steals, and blocks. Stats like rebounding are defining factors, not necessarily distinguishing factors, meaning that if you can’t rebound, you better be bringing a lot of extra heat somewhere else.
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Ultimately, the resurgence of the center position may be one of the biggest storylines of the upcoming season. Although centers today don’t necessarily resemble the behemoths of a bygone era, this season will feature arguably the best collection of top level center talent that the league has seen in over a decade, a diverse mix of rim-rollers, glass-eaters, playmakers, shot-blockers, and versatile scorers. Whether it’s Anthony Davis’ wingspan blotting out the sun, DeAndre Jordan posterizing someone, or Karl-Anthony Towns shaking and baking his way up the MVP ladder, it’s time to see how the next generation of big men will shape their teams’ aspirations.