Section 1: Introduction

Most people will say that when it comes to basketball, height is one of the most important factors, and the taller a player, the better. In general, this is true: the average NBA player is 6’7”, 10 inches taller than the average US man at 5’9”. However, most of the best players in the NBA aren’t the tallest ones, and NBA big men aren’t dominating the game in the way that one might expect them to. Almost no teams are focusing on building around their big men, and big men continue to face reduced opportunities and production year after year, slowly seeing the game shift away from them. The crazy part is that things weren’t always like this. For the majority of the NBA’s existence, tall players were the face of the league, and almost every team built around their big men because they were simply more valuable than everyone else. This post will detail the stunning transformation of NBA big men, analyze the most probable causes for the phenomenon, and predict what the future holds for these players.

Section 2: Exploring the Apparent Decline of NBA Big Men

(above) 5 positions in basketball. The term “big men” refers to centers and most power forwards.

 

2.1: Has the Value of Big Men Changed?

Teams have always played the same five positions, but that doesn’t mean that the values of the players in each position have remained constant. This can be broken down into two categories: how the best players in each position have performed and how the average players at each position have performed. The first can be measured by NBA awards, and the second can be measured by average production.

2.1.1: MVP’s Throughout NBA History

The NBA introduced the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award in the 1955-56 season, and it was awarded to one player in the league each year. Going up to the 1982-83 season — when teams began shooting non-negligible amounts of 3-pointers — centers and power forwards accounted for almost all MVP awards.

Distribution by Position for First 28 NBA MVPs

Position	Number of MVP’s won from 1956-1983
Point Guard	2
Shooting Guard	0
Small Forward	1
Power Forward	3
Center	22

Being that the MVP was meant to measure the best player in the league, these unbalanced figures show that big men disproportionately dominated the NBA up to the 1983 season. However, when past the 1983 season to the modern day, there is a stark contrast in the positions of players who won MVP. Not only does the imbalance vanish, but centers actually become the least represented position.

Distribution by Position for the last 36 NBA MVPs

Position	Number of MVP’s won from 1984-2019
Point Guard	9
Shooting Guard	8
Small Forward	8
Power Forward	8
Center	3

It becomes obvious that there has been a shift in the values of positions, and the NBA is no longer being dominated by big men in the way it once was. At least for the best NBA players, big men have gone from running the league to usually having to defer to smaller players. The side-by-side breakdown below shows how truly extreme the difference is.

Sharp Contrast in MVP’s

2.1.2: Win Shares by Position

MVP’s do a good job of showing who the face of the league is, but they don’t fully explain the average value of each position. One way to gauge the average value of a player is to look at the amount of estimated wins added to their team. This can be done with the win shares statistic, and looking at the positional data again shows a similar trend.

This shows that while centers were noticeably ahead in terms of wins produced leading up to the 1983 season, they’ve since had a decline and are now just an average position. While they score the least amount of points in the league, win shares still give them credit for rebounding and defensive impact, showing that they still provide real value to teams. Even though average big men seem to have a similar impact as average players of other positions, there is no denying that they’ve still experienced a tremendous decline.

This shows that while centers were noticeably ahead in terms of wins produced leading up to the 1983 season, they’ve since had a decline and are now just an average position. While they score the least amount of points in the league, win shares still give them credit for rebounding and defensive impact, showing that they still provide real value to teams. Even though average big men seem to have a similar impact as average players of other positions, there is no denying that they’ve still experienced a tremendous decline.

Comment what you think and check out Part 2 and Part 3.