Sunday, August 10, 2014

The evolution of the NBA frontcourt

Zach Lowe has another intriguing column out -- "The NBA’s Bigs Problem:
How the evolving nature of the frontcourt has created confusion about the value of players like Greg Monroe, Tristan Thompson, and Kenneth Faried"

It begins:

As we fly toward the Halloween deadline for players entering their fourth season to sign contract extensions, two guys are especially intriguing: Kenneth Faried and Tristan Thompson.

The NBA market is always evolving, and sometimes it’s hard to separate real trends from random noise. Free agency is a business, but it’s a nontraditional one with weird anticompetitive restraints, and sometimes it appears more like 30 schizoid teams acting in unconnected ways. The restrictive collective bargaining agreement and uncertainty over how fast the cap will jump, and how high, have added layers of confusion.

Some trends have emerged over the last three summers. The price of shooting at all positions has gone up. And one player type has become less and less desired, to the point it may already be a market inefficiency: the power forward who can’t shoot 3s and can’t protect the rim or provide real fill-in minutes at center...

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