He is not traditionally muscled, unable to jump all that high, but preternaturally aware of everything happening around him - his magical hands ready to dish, to dribble, to fire off to an open man be he cross-court or simply somewhere defenders aren’t. The old pleasures (and irritants) of isolation play, of open mid-rangers, of big men setting up at the block and waiting around to get the ball and make a move, feel lost in the miasma of modernity.īut in that swamp, a gigantic Serbian monster has emerged. In the last decade or so, the NBA (like all professional sports, sooner or later) has shuffled deeper into tactical conformity, with every team driving guards or big, gnarly forwards at the rim possession after possession, always looking to collapse the defense, force awkward switches on pick-and-rolls, scattering opposing defenses and looking to either draw a foul, score at the rim or kick out to open three-point shooters. Bill Russell was an innovator in the outlet passing space, the trigger man for the ‘60s Celtics’ fast-break attack, and Wilt Chamberlain, the other father of NBA big-man play, was unhealthily obsessed with notching decent assist totals, year after year. Heat big man Bam Adebayo is absolutely lethal at hitting cutters. Shaq, working out of permanent double teams, was low-key sweet with it. When you see that flash of the wrist, the explosion off the hands, the big man on top of his mountain, surveying something no one else could possibly see and producing a small movement, you are plunged into disassociation your idea of the big man as pure power is cast aside in favor of the idea of the big man as intuition, as skill, as a force for subtlety, intellect, tricksterism.īill Walton, Arvydas Sabonis and Marc Gasol are the historical standard-bearers for the tall dishman, but the flick of the wrist has been known to possess many of the greats of the position. The big man is the rarest of all commodities on a basketball court, but he is also the one who is most alien to the average viewer, most envied. “Get down there and dominate, big man!” cries the world basketball-watching population from their little couches, demanding dominance from a giant and unleashing hell whenever one doesn’t abide. We see the big man as non-athlete, in a way - a big, lumbering wall meant for devouring rebounds, setting bone-crushing screens and throwing down dunks over smaller, weaker players. In basketball’s garden of aesthetic delights, few are more cherished than the sweet-passing big man.
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