Center (basketball)
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Center Basketball
Center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar performing his signature move, the sky hook.

The center (C), also known as the five, or the big man, is one of the five positions in a basketball game. The center is normally the tallest player on the team, and often has a great deal of strength and body mass as well. In the NBA, the center is usually 6 feet 10 inches (2.08 m) or taller. They traditionally have played close to the basket in the low post.

Centers are valued for their ability to protect their own goal while scoring with high efficiency. In the 1950s and 1960s, George Mikan and Bill Russell were centerpieces of championship dynasties and defined early prototypical centers. With the addition of a three-point field goal for the 1979-80 season, however, NBA basketball gradually became more perimeter-oriented and saw the importance of the center position diminished.[1] A center with the ability to shoot outside from three-point range is known as a stretch five.[2]

History of the center position

Emergence of the center and the era of George Mikan

George Mikan

The center is considered a necessary component for a successful team, especially in professional leagues such as the NBA. Great centers have been the foundation for most of the dynasties in both the NBA and NCAA. Until the 1940s, even dominant centers such as Moose Krause were not extraordinary tall. Then, the 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) George Mikan and the 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m) Bob Kurland pioneered as exceptionally tall centers, shattering the widely held perception that tall players could not develop the agility and coordination to play basketball well, and ushering in the role of the dominant big man. While Kurland never played professional basketball after his time at Oklahoma State, Mikan turned professional in 1946 after leading DePaul to the NIT title. He went on to win seven National Basketball League, Basketball Association of America and NBA Championships in his ten-year career (1946-56), nine of them with the Minneapolis Lakers. Using his height to dominate opposing players, Mikan invented the hook shot and the shot block; as a consequence, the NCAA, and later NBA, adopted the goaltending rule, and, in 1951, the NBA widened the foul lane, a decision known as the 'Mikan rule'.[3]


Bill Russell (left) and Wilt Chamberlain (right)


Bill Russell led the University of San Francisco to two consecutive NCAA championships (1955, 56). He joined the Boston Celtics and helped make them one of the greatest dynasties in NBA history, winning eleven championships over his thirteen-year career (1956-69) as well as five MVP awards. Russell revolutionized defensive strategy with his shot-blocking, rebounding and physical man-to-man defense. While he was never the focal point of the Celtics offense, much of the team's scoring came when Russell grabbed defensive rebounds and initiated fast breaks with precision outlet passes, primarily to point guard Bob Cousy. As the NBA's first African-American superstar, Russell struggled throughout his career with the racism he encountered from fans in Boston, particularly after the 1966-67 season, when he became the first African-American in any major sport to be named player-coach.[4]


A lesser-known center of the era was Nate Thurmond, who initially played the forward position opposite Wilt Chamberlain for the San Francisco Warriors but moved to center after Chamberlain was traded to the new Philadelphia franchise. Although he never won a Championship, Thurmond was known as the best screen setter in the league, and his averages of 21.3 and 22.0 rebounds per game in 1966-67 and 1967-68, are exceeded only by Chamberlain and Russell.


Kareem Abdul-Jabbar





The 1979-80 season saw the introduction of the three-point shot. While the concept of the 'stretch five' would not come until the new millennium, one of the first proponents of the position was Bill Laimbeer. Though he was better known for his brute physical style of play with the 'Bad Boys' Detroit Pistons, Laimbeer also possessed a reliable three-point shot, hitting 33% from long range in his career.

Centers in the 1990s: Olajuwon, Ewing, and Robinson

Hakeem Olajuwon

Coach John Thompson, once a seldom-used backup to Bill Russell with the Celtics, developed the Georgetown Hoyas into a chief pipeline for talent at the Center position, producing a succession of great defensive big men in Patrick Ewing, Dikembe Mutombo and Alonzo Mourning. In 1984, Georgetown, led by Patrick Ewing, defeated the University of Houston, led by Hakeem Olajuwon, to win the NCAA championship. The number one picks in the 1984, 1985, and 1987 NBA Drafts would all be used on centers who made major impacts in the NBA of the 1990s and eventually became members of the Basketball Hall of Fame: Olajuwon in 1984, Ewing in 1985, and Navy's David Robinson in 1987.




Centers in the 2000s: The Shaquille O'Neal era

Shaquille O'Neal


In the 1990s, an increasing number of smaller forwards, most notably Dennis Rodman and Charles Barkley, excelled at the traditional center functions of rebounding, shot-blocking and low-post defense, anticipating a trend towards relying on shorter and quicker post players that has continued into the 2000s, as exemplified by perennial Defensive Players of the Year Ben Wallace. In the fast break oriented style of offense employed by a growing number of teams, the traditional role of the center is diminished, if not done away with altogether. Many talented big men choose to play the more versatile power forward position, giving them more room to run the floor and play outside the paint. Under the influence of European basketball, the offensive role of big men has been redefined to include more emphasis on perimeter play, as exemplified by 3-point shooting big men like Dirk Nowitzki, Mehmet Okur, Andrea Bargnani and Channing Frye.

The 7 feet 6 inches (2.29 m) Yao Ming was drafted by the Houston Rockets with tremendous hype in 2002. Yao proved to be a highly efficient rebounder and scorer, particularly with his mid-range jump shot, and showed the potential to be an elite defender. However, he would retire in 2011 due to a string of foot injuries that caused him to miss all but five games in his final two NBA seasons. Another heralded young prospect, Dwight Howard, has used his exceptional vertical leap to become one of the top rebounders in the NBA.

Centers in the 2010s: The rise of "stretch five"

The low-post functions of the center position continued to dwindle in the 2010s as the NBA embraced small ball and a more perimeter-oriented style of play. While there are still a few centers that play a more traditional style, some centers begin to adapt to the outside game.


The Golden State Warriors then won three championships in 2015, 2017 and 2018 with a smaller and quicker group known as the Death Lineup. In this case, 6'7" forward Draymond Green was often slotted into the center position, creating matchup problems for larger centers with his defensive versatility, speed, ball-handling skills, and perimeter shooting.


Another byproduct of the small ball revolution is the emergence of so-called "unicorns", or big men who possess guard-like skills. An example of a "unicorn" is Nikola Joki?, whose passing ability for a player his size made the Denver Nuggets contenders in the late 2010s.

Centers in women's basketball



See also


  1. ^ Goldsberry, Kirk (2019). SprawlBall: A Visual Tour of the New Era of the NBA. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
  2. ^ Feldman, Dan (April 17, 2017). "Five out: NBA entering era of 3-point-shooting centers". Pro Basketball Talk. Retrieved 2018.
  3. ^ "NBA.com: George Mikan vs. The Knicks". www.nba.com. Archived from the original on 2012-05-22. Retrieved .
  4. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-10-09. Retrieved .CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. ^ "NBA.com: Wilt Scores 100, Averages 50". Nba.com. Archived from the original on 21 February 2010. Retrieved 2017.
  6. ^ "Basketball: Lew's Still Loose". Time. 1967-04-14. Retrieved .
  7. ^ "NBA.com: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Bio". Nba.com. Retrieved 2017.
  8. ^ "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Stats - Basketball-Reference.com". Basketball-Reference.com. Retrieved 2017.
  9. ^ "NBA.com: Artis Gilmore Summary". Nba.com. Retrieved 2017.
  10. ^ "It Was All A Dream". Nba.com. Archived from the original on 13 December 2006. Retrieved 2017.
  11. ^ "Statistics: All-time leaders: Blocks". Wnba.com. Retrieved 2012.

Further reading




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