The Lost Art Of Posting Up
We are living in the era of shooting, transitions, positionless basketball, ball handlers and interchangeable lengthy wings. The true big man’s significance and role in the NBA has been diminishing.
We are living in the era of shooting, transitions, positionless basketball, ball handlers and interchangeable lengthy wings. The traditional back-to-the-basket man’s significance and role in the League has been diminishing over the past years to reach its lowest points. Let’s dive into some numbers and cases which will tell us why it’s getting more and more difficult to find playing time in the NBA nowadays if you are a traditional back-to-the-basket big man and why some on-paper-looking dominant centers in college cannot find their places on NBA rosters.
Year by year the quantity of post up plays a team in the NBA averages per game has been steadily decreasing. There hasn’t been a team which used that play type in a double-digit number of possessions a game in the past three seasons and seems very likely the streak to stay alive with only the Bucks have been flirting with the double-digit number this season – 8.7 post ups a game (after 20 games played) exclusively thanks to Giannis (4.4 poss) and Bobby Portis (3.5 poss) who combine for 7.7 post ups per contest. More than half of the teams in the League post up only less than five times per game this season while the Hornets have been posting up only once a game.
The Sixers are a good example for a steady drop in that category throughout the last several seasons – 12.8 possessions in 2019-20, followed by 11.3 possessions in 2020-21 season and nine post ups a game in 2021-22. In all those three seasons, the Sixers led the league in the average number of that play type, navigated by the post-up machine, Joel Embiid himself. A quick look at the current season’s numbers of the team shows that the Sixers record once again a solid drop in that play type, averaging only 3.7 post ups per game.
The champions last season, Boston Celtics finished third in number of post ups played a game, averaging 8.1 a game as Kristaps Porzingis led his teammates with 3.2 post ups per contest while Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were the only two other players with at least two post ups a game. Meanwhile, the Celtics led the League in shooting attempts from long range (42.5 shots a game) in the 2023-24 season, their bread and butter, displaying perfect knowledge and capability of spacing the floor with the addition of Porzingis.
There are several reasons for the serious fall leaguewide over the years - the curtailment of hand-checking in 2004 might be the biggest one (if we don’t go way back to the Mikan Rule, the widened lane, goaltending rules etc.) which raised the value of the mobility at every position and gave great freedom and advantage to the ball handlers and of course the three-point era, simply three is more than two. Shooting threes, aggressive pick-and-rolls, driving toward the hoop, isolations against slower centers, the switching, all these naturally have decreased tremendously the value of the big, strong and often slow traditional centers in the League (check out Roy Hibbert’s end of career).
Archetypes the NBA teams look for when it comes to the center position
Modern big – versatility is the key word here; these big men are highly-talented and have a variety of skills which make them extremely valuable for an NBA franchise. They can bring the ball up and make plays, see the court and deliver dimes, score the ball in different ways etc.
Aday Mara – I know it sounds like a hot take or it doesn’t make much sense now for most of the non-Europeans reading this, but Mara’s potential and skill package had been viewed/projected differently by scouts before going to the NCAA. The Spanish center is a gifted passer who sees the court and would read the game very well. Despite the small sample sizes throughout his young career, I expect him to be a respectable shooter from long range and a solid one from mid distance at the next level. Playing in the era of shooting and given more space in the NBA could actually help his stock and change the narrative. Of course, he needs to keep working on his strength and conditioning and prove he belongs in the conference games this year at UCLA.
Stretch big – a spacing big who would be a threat from outside on top of the other usual stuff a big does.
Of course, the safe bet here is Zvonimir Ivisic but I’d like to mention Johann Gruenloh to that archetype as well. Game after game this season, Gruenloh’s been looking more and more comfortable shooting the 3-ball. He’s got intriguing rebounding activity blended with promising upside as a roller in pick and roll plays. Gruenloh’s energy and presence on the floor remind me of another Vechta’s product who’s been on the rise in the NBA, Isaiah Hartenstein.
Watch out for Khaman Maluach to space the floor pretty well in the NBA too. He already hit his first 3-pointer in college this season, while at a few tournaments with the NBA Academy Africa in the past years, he averaged more than four attempts per game from that range (4.7 and 5.3 attempts), shooting a combined 40.2%.
Rim-Runner – in most of the cases a fairly limited in terms of pure skills big man, usually high-level athlete, running the court exceptionally well, solid rim protector and pick and roll roller.
Joan Beringer is a perfect example of a rim-running big in the 2025 draft class. The French big displays great mobility, being a fluid athlete. I expect him to have a high upside as a pick-and-roll finisher thanks to his great deal of activity and mobility there. Beringer is among the youngest prospects in the class, he’s inexperienced, while his offensive game is raw, will need time to hone his shot/touch close to the basket but the promising physical tools are there.
Other international bigs who are worth keeping a close eye on throughout the season in this draft class are Rocco Zikarsky, Tomislav Ivisic, Mohamed Faye and Motiejus Krivas.
Constant improvement and ability to adjust – the key to your stay in the League
Al Horford is one of the good examples of a roll man, being able to completely transform his game and keep the value of his stock despite the change of playing styles in the NBA throughout the years. During his first eight seasons in the League, Big Al was averaging way under one shot a game from long distance, while spending primarily his time within the paint, on the block or at the free-throw line. Nowadays he makes the game easier for his younger teammates by spreading the floor, popping out or spotting up, being among the most efficient shooting bigs, hitting 2.2 of his 5.4 (40.7%) attempts a game from long range.
Being capable of changing your game and adding new features into it in order to adjust it to the constant moving environment in the League seem to be among the most important abilities a player must have if he wants to hang on for a longer period of time in the League and Horford totally proved it.
Another stretch big man who didn’t enter the League with that label but adjusted at a later stage his game given the changed direction the League was heading to, is Brook Lopez. The seven-footer who was dominating the paint in his first six seasons in the League thanks to his big frame and good back-to-the-basket moves attempted only a total of seven shots from deep during that time of his career. In his years seven and eight he took a combined number of 24 attempts from long distance, connecting on only three of them but was able to storm the League in his 10th year in the NBA due to his greatly improved shot from outside and its eye-popping increased volume (took 387 shots in that season, hitting 134 of them). Since then, he’s been attempting at least four shots from deep a game.
The Montenegrin walking double-double, Nikola Vucevic wasn’t a 3-point savant entering the League in 2011. In his first five seasons, the 6-foot-10 USC alumni took only a total of 26 shots from long range, hitting seven of them. His year 6 in the League was kind of a transition to the next chapter in his game – he shot 23-of-75 from deep. After that season his 3-pointer took a major leap, turning into one of his main weapons, allowing him to open up the floor for his teammates. This season he averages 4.7 attempts, converting on 2.2 of them.
The Lack of year over year improvement – your short way out
The lack of year over year improvement has hurt the stock of once dominant college players like Kofi Cockburn, a leader of the Fighting Illini and Gonzaga star Drew Timme. The 7-foot consensus first team all-American in 2022, Cockburn has been having such massive limitations on the offensive end of the floor that practically he hasn’t had game outside of a few feet from the basket – 96.3% of all of his shots were taken at the rim, while the others 3.7% were mid-range shots. Cockburn attempted only one shot from long distance during his collegiate career. It’s not a surprise that his college game and dominance were not translatable to the NBA and the Illini benchmark went undrafted and now he’s playing for a team in South Korea.
Similarly to Cockburn’s style of play, the game of Timme seemed more of a fit for the college game than the modern shooting era of NBA basketball and switchability and length on defense – limited range-wise, questionable how much of his effective low post scoring game in college could be translatable to a League where the team, using post ups the most plays that action in only less than nine possessions a game. On the defensive end, Timme’s lack of required quickness or athleticism to stick with players at the perimeter and proper size to guard most centers in the post created major concerns in the eyes of NBA scouts.
Final thoughts on the Big-man picture
Because of the shooting era we are living and the presence of such versatile stretch big men like Horford, Lopez and Vucevic, aged traditional non-stretching centers like DeAndre Jordan and Andre Drummond find more and more difficult getting solid playing time and role in the NBA anymore. Non-stretching centers like Rudy Gobert, Mitchell Robinson, Dereck Lively II, Nic Claxton and Walker Kessler have been extremely valuable for their teams due to their elite ability to protect the rim, disrupt opponent’s plays, run up and down the floor and put great amount of pressure on the glass, dunking everything flying above the basket.
Last but not least the presence of small ball lineups and tough as nails players like Bruce Brown, PJ Tucker, Draymond Green, Josh Hart, who play way bigger than their size on both ends of the court and provide their teams with way more versatility and skills don’t make the survival in the League of one dimensional rely-on-the-others-to-score centers like Vernon Carey Jr., another standout player in college, any easier.
Despite living in the positionless era of basketball, it’s worth mentioning that more and more small forwards (Jayson Tatum, Paul George, Kevin Durant) play as power forwards and power forwards (Anthony Davis) play minutes as fives, so there isn’t much room for the traditional centers who cannot guard multiple positions and/or are non-shooters from long range.
Looking at the constantly evolving NBA one thing is crystal clear – you need to keep honing your craft and be tuned in to the new trends that come and go every once in a while, otherwise you could be out of the League in a blink of an eye – there are plenty of examples in that negative category. Remember another non-stretch big man – the 3rd overall NBA Draft Pick in 2015, Jahlil Okafor. Once labeled as one of the best in his class, Okafor is now trying to get back into the NBA via the G League.
Adjustments and ability to add new features to your game year over year seems to be everything, if you want to survive in this League.