[h=1]Ranking this season's top centers[/h][h=3]In ever-evolving position without many true 5s, Joakim Noah comes in at No. 1[/h]
By Bradford Doolittle | Basketball Prospectus
Throughout the season, we've been ranking the league's "big men," with the quotes required because we stretched our definition to include small forwards who often play out of position in small lineups. The small-ball revolution hasn't been quite as overwhelming as we might have thought in the wake of the Miami Heat's championship run, which featured LeBron James logging most of his minutes as a 4. Other than James and New York's use of Carmelo Anthony, teams have continued to rely heavily on traditional lineups, and even James and Anthony have seen fewer minutes out of position lately.
That's not to say that the evolution of the big man has ebbed. The starting lineups for this weekend's All-Star Game were selected from ballots that for the first time did not include players specifically designated as centers. The league was merely trying to keep up with the times, but nothing has really happened to the center position. The position hasn't disappeared, it's just that there are fewer players who fit our platonic ideal of "center" these days.
<!-- begin inline 1 -->[h=4]Big Man Barometer[/h]Week of Feb. 5-12
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</tbody>Ranked by Winning Pct. (minimum of 30 minutes as center or power forward). For more Barometer details, click here.
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The skill set for centers has tilted away from traditional low-block, back-to-the-basket big men. They still exist, but there just aren't very many of them. Dwight Howard is one, kind of, even though he's much better diving toward the basket than he is with his back to it. Andrew Bynum was/is the best post-up center in the NBA, but he has missed the entire season with knee trouble. Al Jefferson (who ranks fourth among bigs on this week's barometer) is an excellent low-block scorer, but he doesn't much resemble a center on the defensive end.
The past couple of seasons, the question of "Who is the best center in the NBA?" was easy to answer. It was Howard overall, with Bynum taking the honors in the West. Not only were they the most productive and efficient centers, but they fit the die cast for the position. Even when Howard and Bynum switched coasts in the offseason, they were expected to continue their domination of the position in 2012-13.
With Bynum out and Howard battling an awkward, injury-dulled transition to the Lakers, the bragging rights are up for grabs. Those guys might still be the "best" centers in the league in a big-picture sense, but when you factor in playing time and productivity strictly for this season, neither ranks as the most valuable at the position in 2012-13. So who does?
The answer would be San Antonio's Tim Duncan, but his coach, the always-entertaining Gregg Popovich, has long refused to call Duncan a center. And it's true that often he's not. For one, he's played 30 percent of his minutes alongside Tiago Splitter this season, and Splitter is the center in those lineups. Duncan has also shared the court with Matt Bonner for about 100 minutes, and while Bonner is the rarest of birds -- a stretch 5 -- he's still a 5. Anyway, let's acknowledge that Duncan is the best center in the league this season if you consider him a center.
How about the guys who are unquestionably and unconditionally considered centers? Here's a look at the top five true centers as calculated by WARP, which underscores just how much value today's pivots are contributing in ways that have nothing to do with low-post scoring.
1. Joakim Noah, Chicago Bulls (6.66)
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Chris Palmer recently made a case for Noah as the league's top center, and it's a good one. The numbers certainly suggest that Noah has been the league's most valuable center this season, and he does it with an overstuffed tool belt of skills. However, one of them is not low-block scoring. According to Synergy Sports Technologies, Noah has posted up just 84 times this season. That's fewer than Arron Afflalo.
2. Marc Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies (6.60)
Gasol is a better-shooting version of Noah, but doesn't defend or rebound as well. Actually, he defends quite well, but let's just say he lacks Noah's defensive versatility. Gasol posts up pretty frequently, just not as often as teammate Zach Randolph.
3. Brook Lopez, Brooklyn Nets (6.44)
Lopez used to shun most of the duties required of the center position, but he's changed his tune this season, and it's been a tremendous boost to his value. Only Duncan and Anthony have averaged more points per play on post-ups (minimum 200 plays), though the Nets arguably don't put him on the low block often enough. Only 29.4 percent of Lopez's looks come on post-ups; most premier low-block players are in the 40 percent range.
4. Tyson Chandler, New York Knicks (6.32)
Chandler's value has always come from ways other than post scoring, and the Knicks don't use him in that capacity at all. Synergy has coded him with post-ups on just 14 plays all season.
5. Dwight Howard, Los Angeles Lakers (5.68)
Andre Drummond should rank between Chandler and Howard, but there's enough question about who is actually playing center when Drummond (out for up to six weeks with a stress fracture in his back) shares the floor with Greg Monroe that we'll leave him out. Call it rookie hazing. Besides, it gets Howard onto the list, lest we forget that even if he's not quite as good as he's been in the past, he's still really good.
Howard just makes it into the top 25 big man projections for the week of Feb. 18-24, which are below:
<!-- begin inline 2 -->[h=4]Fantasy Projections for week of 2/18-2/24[/h](Qualifiers played at least 30 minutes at center or power forward last week; minutes based on usage over last 10 games)
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By Bradford Doolittle | Basketball Prospectus
Throughout the season, we've been ranking the league's "big men," with the quotes required because we stretched our definition to include small forwards who often play out of position in small lineups. The small-ball revolution hasn't been quite as overwhelming as we might have thought in the wake of the Miami Heat's championship run, which featured LeBron James logging most of his minutes as a 4. Other than James and New York's use of Carmelo Anthony, teams have continued to rely heavily on traditional lineups, and even James and Anthony have seen fewer minutes out of position lately.
That's not to say that the evolution of the big man has ebbed. The starting lineups for this weekend's All-Star Game were selected from ballots that for the first time did not include players specifically designated as centers. The league was merely trying to keep up with the times, but nothing has really happened to the center position. The position hasn't disappeared, it's just that there are fewer players who fit our platonic ideal of "center" these days.
<!-- begin inline 1 -->[h=4]Big Man Barometer[/h]Week of Feb. 5-12
| Rank | Big Man | Team | Pct. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LeBron James | MIA | .891 |
| 2 | Chris Bosh | MIA | .861 |
| 3 | Enes Kanter | UTA | .789 |
| 4 | Al Jefferson | UTA | .770 |
| 5 | Anthony Randolph | DEN | .758 |
| 6 | Robin Lopez | NOH | .717 |
| 7 | Ryan Anderson | NOH | .709 |
| 8 | Tristan Thompson | CLE | .694 |
| 9 | Samuel Dalembert | MIL | .689 |
| 10 | JaVale McGee | DEN | .688 |
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The skill set for centers has tilted away from traditional low-block, back-to-the-basket big men. They still exist, but there just aren't very many of them. Dwight Howard is one, kind of, even though he's much better diving toward the basket than he is with his back to it. Andrew Bynum was/is the best post-up center in the NBA, but he has missed the entire season with knee trouble. Al Jefferson (who ranks fourth among bigs on this week's barometer) is an excellent low-block scorer, but he doesn't much resemble a center on the defensive end.
The past couple of seasons, the question of "Who is the best center in the NBA?" was easy to answer. It was Howard overall, with Bynum taking the honors in the West. Not only were they the most productive and efficient centers, but they fit the die cast for the position. Even when Howard and Bynum switched coasts in the offseason, they were expected to continue their domination of the position in 2012-13.
With Bynum out and Howard battling an awkward, injury-dulled transition to the Lakers, the bragging rights are up for grabs. Those guys might still be the "best" centers in the league in a big-picture sense, but when you factor in playing time and productivity strictly for this season, neither ranks as the most valuable at the position in 2012-13. So who does?
The answer would be San Antonio's Tim Duncan, but his coach, the always-entertaining Gregg Popovich, has long refused to call Duncan a center. And it's true that often he's not. For one, he's played 30 percent of his minutes alongside Tiago Splitter this season, and Splitter is the center in those lineups. Duncan has also shared the court with Matt Bonner for about 100 minutes, and while Bonner is the rarest of birds -- a stretch 5 -- he's still a 5. Anyway, let's acknowledge that Duncan is the best center in the league this season if you consider him a center.
How about the guys who are unquestionably and unconditionally considered centers? Here's a look at the top five true centers as calculated by WARP, which underscores just how much value today's pivots are contributing in ways that have nothing to do with low-post scoring.
1. Joakim Noah, Chicago Bulls (6.66)
<offer></offer>
Chris Palmer recently made a case for Noah as the league's top center, and it's a good one. The numbers certainly suggest that Noah has been the league's most valuable center this season, and he does it with an overstuffed tool belt of skills. However, one of them is not low-block scoring. According to Synergy Sports Technologies, Noah has posted up just 84 times this season. That's fewer than Arron Afflalo.
2. Marc Gasol, Memphis Grizzlies (6.60)
Gasol is a better-shooting version of Noah, but doesn't defend or rebound as well. Actually, he defends quite well, but let's just say he lacks Noah's defensive versatility. Gasol posts up pretty frequently, just not as often as teammate Zach Randolph.
3. Brook Lopez, Brooklyn Nets (6.44)
Lopez used to shun most of the duties required of the center position, but he's changed his tune this season, and it's been a tremendous boost to his value. Only Duncan and Anthony have averaged more points per play on post-ups (minimum 200 plays), though the Nets arguably don't put him on the low block often enough. Only 29.4 percent of Lopez's looks come on post-ups; most premier low-block players are in the 40 percent range.
4. Tyson Chandler, New York Knicks (6.32)
Chandler's value has always come from ways other than post scoring, and the Knicks don't use him in that capacity at all. Synergy has coded him with post-ups on just 14 plays all season.
5. Dwight Howard, Los Angeles Lakers (5.68)
Andre Drummond should rank between Chandler and Howard, but there's enough question about who is actually playing center when Drummond (out for up to six weeks with a stress fracture in his back) shares the floor with Greg Monroe that we'll leave him out. Call it rookie hazing. Besides, it gets Howard onto the list, lest we forget that even if he's not quite as good as he's been in the past, he's still really good.
Howard just makes it into the top 25 big man projections for the week of Feb. 18-24, which are below:
<!-- begin inline 2 -->[h=4]Fantasy Projections for week of 2/18-2/24[/h](Qualifiers played at least 30 minutes at center or power forward last week; minutes based on usage over last 10 games)
| No. PLAYER | POS | GP | FG% | 3M | REB | AST | STL | TO | BLK | PTS | SCORE | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LeBron James | SF | 4 | .560 | 1.2 | 8.0 | 6.6 | 1.7 | 3.0 | 0.8 | 27.1 | 23.9 | 95.5 |
| 2. David Lee | PF | 4 | .508 | 0.0 | 10.7 | 3.9 | 1.1 | 2.7 | 0.3 | 20.0 | 15.8 | 63.3 |
| 3. Marc Gasol | C | 4 | .501 | 0.0 | 8.5 | 3.4 | 1.1 | 2.1 | 1.7 | 15.5 | 14.1 | 56.5 |
| 4. Brook Lopez | C | 4 | .510 | 0.0 | 7.4 | 1.3 | 0.6 | 1.9 | 2.1 | 17.9 | 14.1 | 56.3 |
| 5. Greg Monroe | C | 4 | .475 | 0.0 | 10.9 | 3.1 | 1.4 | 3.1 | 0.9 | 17.3 | 14.0 | 56.1 |
| 6. Kevin Garnett | C | 4 | .515 | 0.0 | 8.8 | 2.8 | 1.3 | 1.8 | 1.1 | 16.5 | 14.0 | 55.8 |
| 7. Zach Randolph | PF | 4 | .480 | 0.1 | 11.5 | 1.7 | 0.9 | 2.0 | 0.4 | 17.0 | 13.8 | 55.0 |
| 8. Joakim Noah | C | 4 | .487 | 0.0 | 11.0 | 3.6 | 1.0 | 2.5 | 2.1 | 12.5 | 13.3 | 53.3 |
| 9. Chris Bosh | PF | 4 | .519 | 0.1 | 7.5 | 1.9 | 0.8 | 1.8 | 1.0 | 16.3 | 13.1 | 52.3 |
| 10. Ryan Anderson | PF | 4 | .428 | 3.0 | 7.7 | 1.4 | 0.7 | 1.2 | 0.4 | 17.8 | 13.0 | 51.8 |
| 11. Carmelo Anthony | SF | 3 | .436 | 1.9 | 6.8 | 3.1 | 0.9 | 2.8 | 0.5 | 26.4 | 17.0 | 51.1 |
| 12. LaMarcus Aldridge | PF | 3 | .488 | 0.0 | 9.2 | 2.7 | 1.0 | 1.9 | 1.1 | 22.6 | 17.0 | 51.0 |
| 13. Rudy Gay | SF | 4 | .424 | 1.0 | 6.2 | 2.8 | 1.6 | 2.3 | 0.8 | 18.3 | 12.4 | 49.5 |
| 14. Anthony Davis | PF | 4 | .503 | 0.0 | 9.4 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 2.5 | 11.7 | 12.3 | 49.1 |
| 15. Al Horford | C | 3 | .560 | 0.0 | 10.4 | 3.6 | 1.1 | 1.8 | 1.1 | 17.2 | 16.3 | 48.8 |
| 16. Carlos Boozer | PF | 4 | .498 | 0.0 | 9.1 | 2.1 | 0.8 | 2.1 | 0.4 | 16.2 | 11.6 | 46.4 |
| 17. Josh Smith | PF | 3 | .475 | 0.7 | 9.6 | 4.5 | 1.5 | 2.8 | 1.9 | 18.5 | 15.3 | 46.0 |
| 18. David West | PF | 3 | .484 | 0.1 | 8.2 | 2.7 | 1.1 | 2.1 | 1.1 | 19.5 | 14.9 | 44.7 |
| 19. Marcin Gortat | C | 4 | .539 | 0.0 | 8.9 | 1.3 | 0.7 | 1.6 | 1.4 | 12.1 | 10.7 | 42.9 |
| 20. Nikola Vucevic | C | 4 | .490 | 0.0 | 11.0 | 1.6 | 0.7 | 1.5 | 1.2 | 11.8 | 10.6 | 42.3 |
| 21. Dwight Howard | C | 3 | .590 | 0.0 | 11.3 | 1.5 | 1.1 | 2.5 | 1.7 | 16.2 | 14.0 | 42.0 |
| 22. DeMarcus Cousins | C | 3 | .465 | 0.0 | 10.7 | 2.9 | 1.6 | 3.1 | 0.8 | 18.3 | 13.9 | 41.8 |
| 23. Tiago Splitter | C | 4 | .593 | 0.0 | 6.4 | 1.6 | 0.9 | 1.4 | 0.8 | 11.2 | 10.3 | 41.0 |
| 24. Danilo Gallinari | SF | 3 | .417 | 2.1 | 5.7 | 2.5 | 0.9 | 1.6 | 0.7 | 18.3 | 13.5 | 40.6 |
| 25. Robin Lopez | C | 4 | .527 | 0.0 | 6.5 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 1.4 | 1.6 | 12.0 | 10.1 | 40.4 |
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