Along the way, while Oklahoma City rose and Golden State fell, while Cleveland marched into the NBA Finals with just two losses, while there were entertaining playoff thrillers and more than a few boring blowouts, something else was quietly taking place.
A subtle shift back toward the center.
Without looking back or even sideways, the NBA was on a crash course where almost nothing but the 3-pointer ruled, where all centers were going to stand 6-foot-9 and where playing big was considered so Flintstonian.
Maybe not so much anymore.
The NBA final four served as a reminder that this game can still be played to a successful level in a number of ways.
We saw:
- An all-star guard (Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan) put up 32 points without the use of a single 3-pointer — in a win.
- A Cavaliers team that could win by making as many as 15 3-pointers or as few as five.
- Oklahoma City show that the antidote to combating small lineups … is going big.
These things will resonate with insiders and decision-makers in a way they simply won’t with others, who will summarily dismiss this as many exceptions to the inevitable rule. Coaches always were a bit reluctant to hand over full control of the sport to a paint-by-numbers formula that began boxing the sport into taking only “these” types of shots on only “these” spots on the court in order to be successful in basketball’s space age.
Well.
Golden State’s small lineup, dubbed the Death Lineup for its ability to decimate any five opposing players, was neutralized by a bigger, longer set of Thunder players. And that started in the middle, where Steven Adams saw to it that the Warriors’ biggest advantage in that lineup, Draymond Green at center, became manageable, if not a flat-out liability on some nights. And, no, Adams is not a “stretch” five. He does not shoot 3-pointers. He patrols the paint, rebounds, protects the rim and scores mostly from the free-throw line to the baseline, in traditional post-player fashion.
In fact, going small was nothing more than a figure of speech for the Thunder, which put 6-11 small forward Kevin Durant at power forward. Because thatap not small at all.
Diversity in approach and play is peeking back through the curtain, which should be met with a big sigh of relief by executives across the league who have their own ideas about how to go about winning games.
It should be freeing as well. If a team’s personnel is led by behemoth in the middle, that team can feel comfortable building around that player if thatap the route agreed upon. If you want to go all small all the time, you can do that too. If you want to mix the two, itap fine. Find the most dynamic players you can, and get to building.
The bigger winners, eventually, will be players still coming through the pipeline who don’t stretch the court out to the 3-point line. Dismissing their worth because of that will be a fool’s errand. Adams and Enes Kanter were big matchup advantages for Oklahoma City. So much so that Golden State had to turn, in earnest, back to its bruising center, Andrew Bogut, to counter.
Toronto’s Bismack Biyombo is expected to pull in at least $15 million per year on his upcoming new contract. He will have achieved this by blocking shots and soaking up nearly every rebound around him — and doing it all with an infectious smile.
The league will always covet shooting, and it should. There was not enough of an appreciation for the power of putting three, four or five players on the court who could all knock down a shot and stretch a defense. There is now.
But Golden State’s success nearly pushed the copycat league into a frenzy.
Free agency this summer still will pay knockdown shooters a king’s ransom, but instead of blindly collecting talent that doesn’t match the coach’s style or revamping rosters with substandard talent just because they can hit from long range will be easier to avoid.
Mindful team-building has been given new life. And it’s thanks primarily to a quartet of conference finalists that were successful this season in their own way.
