Introducing the 2017-18 NBA Little Big Man Award
By Ian Levy
Generally, taller is better in basketball. The basket is 10 feet high. The closer you are to the rim, the easier it is to get the ball to go through. All those things the little guys can do — beat their man off the dribble, hit a 3-pointer, throw a fancy behind-the-back pass — it’s a bit more special when it comes in a bigger package (see: Porzingis, Kristaps or Embiid, Joel).
But good things come in little packages too. And for all the time we spend celebrating the NBA’s unicorns, the bigs who play like guards, it’s worth remembering that uniqueness runs in the other direction too.
This season The Step Back wants to recognize those Little Big Men. Throughout the season, we’ll be keeping an eye out for extraordinary plays made by littles, the kind of plays we’d normally associate with bigs. It could be a thunderous dunk, a monster block, a clutch tip-in, or a sick post-move. It just has to be a Big play, from a Little Player. (To qualify, a player has to be listed at 6-foot-2 or shorter, which creates a pool of roughly 50 players, or a little more than 10 percent of the league.)
We’ll be collecting nominee plays throughout the season and sharing them on our Twitter account using the hashtag #LittleBigMan. You can help us out by using the hashtag and sharing great Little Big Man plays with us when you see them. At the end of the season, we’ll narrow it down to five nominees and let our readers vote on which one deserves the Award.
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To get an idea of what we’re talking about, here are a few examples from early in the season.
AVERY BRADLEY BIG-TIMES THE KINGS
JEFF TEAGUE GETS BIG AT THE RIM
ERIC BLEDSOE DOES BIG THINGS
PATRICK BEVERLEY GETS BIG IN THE PAINT
FRANK MASON IS A RIM PROTECTOR
ERIC BLEDSOE KEEPS HIS GLASS CLEAN
This is our chance to recognize the basketball players who haven’t won the genetic lottery (or at least not the mega-jackpot). The players who look like you or I, but play much, much bigger. It’s time to celebrate the NBA’s Little Big Men.