Center (basketball)
The center, or the centre, also known as the five, the big or the pivot, is one of the five positions in a regulation basketball game. The center is almost always 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 typically close to tall; centers in the WNBA are typically above. Centers traditionally play close to the basket in the low post. The two tallest players in NBA history, Manute Bol and Gheorghe Mureșan, were both centers, each standing tall.
Centers are valued for their ability to protect their own goal from high-percentage close attempts on defense, while scoring and rebounding with high efficiency on offense. 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 a traditional center diminish. Modern day big men include elite playmakers and passers such as Nikola Jokić and versatile scorers such as Bam Adebayo and Victor Wembanyama.
History
1940s–1950s: Emergence and George Mikan era
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 George Mikan and the 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, 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.1960s: Bill Russell–Wilt Chamberlain era
In the 1960s, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain further transformed basketball by combining height with a greater level of athleticism than previous centers. Following the retirement of George Mikan, the rivalry of the two big men came to dominate the NBA. Between the two of them, Chamberlain and Russell won nine of the eleven MVP awards in the eleven-year period between 1958 and 1969; played against one another in six Eastern Conference Finals and two NBA Finals between 1959 and 1969. Many of the records set by these two players have endured today. Most notably, Chamberlain and Russell hold the top eighteen season averages for rebounds.Bill Russell led the University of San Francisco to two consecutive NCAA championships. 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 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.
His principal rival Wilt Chamberlain, listed at,, lacked Russell's supporting cast. Chamberlain played college ball for the Kansas Jayhawks, leading them to the 1957 title game against the North Carolina Tar Heels. Although the Jayhawks lost by one point in triple overtime, Chamberlain was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. Briefly a member of the Harlem Globetrotters before joining the Philadelphia Warriors of the NBA in 1959, Chamberlain won two championships, in 1967 with the Philadelphia 76ers and 1972 with the Los Angeles Lakers, although his teams were repeatedly defeated by the Celtics in the Eastern Conference and NBA Finals, including two NBA Finals loss to Willis Reed's New York Knicks in 1970 and 1973. He also won seven scoring titles, eleven rebounding titles, and four regular season Most Valuable Player awards, including the distinction, in 1960, of being the first rookie to receive the award. Stronger than any player of his era, he was usually capable of scoring and rebounding at will. Although he was the target of constant double- and triple-teaming, as well as fouling tactics designed to take advantage of his poor free-throw shooting, he set a number of records that have never been broken. Most notably, Chamberlain is the only player in NBA history to average more than 50 points in a season and score 100 points in a single game. He also holds the NBA's all-time records for rebounding average, rebounds in a single game, and career rebounds. While Chamberlain excelled in scoring and rebounding, he was also an adept passer for a big man. During his tenure with the 76ers, Chamberlain averaged around 7 assists per game, even leading the league in total assists in the 1967–68 season with 702.
A lesser-known center of the era was Nate Thurmond, who initially played the forward position opposite 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.
1970s–1980s: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar era
In contrast to the Celtics dynasty of the 1960s, the 1970s were a decade of parity in the NBA, with eight different champions and no back-to-back winners. At the college level, the UCLA Bruins, under Coach John Wooden, built the greatest dynasty in NCAA basketball history, winning seven consecutive titles between 1967 and 1973. UCLA had already won two consecutive titles in 1964 and 1965 with teams that pressed and emphasized guard play. After not winning in 1966, Wooden's teams changed their style when Lew Alcindor became eligible. He led UCLA to three championships-in 1967, '68 and '69-while winning the first Naismith College Player of the Year Award. During his college career, the NCAA enacted a ban on dunking primarily because of Alcindor's dominant use of the shot. His entrance into the NBA with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1969 was timely, as Bill Russell had just retired and Wilt Chamberlain was 33 years old and increasingly plagued by injuries. After leading the Bucks to the 1971 NBA championship, teamed up with legendary point guard Oscar Robertson, Alcindor, who had converted to Islam, changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In 1975, Abdul-Jabbar was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, and, after the arrival of point guard Magic Johnson in 1980, formed part of a new Lakers dynasty that won five NBA titles. In addition, Abdul-Jabbar won six regular-season MVP awards. At 7'2", 235 pounds, he lacked the strength of Chamberlain in his prime, but had a longer wingspan and ultimately proved more durable, adhering to a strict physical-fitness regime that enabled him to play for twenty years, the longest career in NBA history at the time. Offensively, he was best known for his trademark 'Skyhook' hook-shot, almost impossible to block because of his height and wingspan. His regular season career scoring total of 38,387 points was an NBA record for nearly 39 years. Defensively, the 1973–74 season was the first in which the number of blocked shots were kept, and, over the next seven years, Kareem led the league in this statistic or finished second.Another product of John Wooden's UCLA program, Bill Walton, appeared poised to join the ranks of great centers. He led UCLA to back-to-back NCAA titles in 1972 and 1973, he also led the Portland Trail Blazers to the NBA championship in 1977, and won the NBA MVP the following year. However, his career was plagued with injuries, most infamously a broken bone in his left foot suffered during his MVP season that he never fully recovered from, and he spent most of the following decade on the bench, although he eventually did win a second NBA title as a backup for the Boston Celtics in 1986, when he received the Sixth Man Award. Willis Reed won two championships with the New York Knicks in 1970 and 1973, teamed with point guard Walt Frazier; although undersized for the center position at 6'9", he had the strength to play inside, was a highly skilled jump shooter and was effective at setting picks, a key element in the Knicks motion-oriented offense. The undersized but scrappy Dave Cowens, drafted at the recommendation of Bill Russell, helped the Boston Celtics win two more NBA titles, in 1974 and 1976.
Leading centers of the late 1970s and early 1980s include Wes Unseld of the Baltimore/Washington Bullets, Artis Gilmore of the ABA Kentucky Colonels, Chicago Bulls and San Antonio Spurs; Moses Malone of the Houston Rockets and Philadelphia 76ers; and Robert Parish of the Boston Celtics, who was acquired from the Golden State Warriors in 1980 for the top overall pick in the NBA Draft. Unseld led the Bullets to four NBA finals appearances and one championship, in 1978. Using his strength and determination to compensate for his lack of size, he was famous for his rebounding, shotblocking, and bone-jarring picks. Artis Gilmore, often overlooked because of the mediocrity of his teams, established himself as the best low-post scorer in the league. He set the NCAA Division I record for career average in rebounds at tiny Jacksonville University, and enjoyed an illustrious ABA career before joining the NBA's Chicago Bulls in 1976, playing there until he was traded to San Antonio in 1982, for whom he played until his retirement in 1987. He remains the NBA's career leader in field goal percentage with a 59.9 percentage. Malone, the first high school player to turn professional, was drafted by the Houston Rockets after several years in the ABA, and won two MVP Awards and led Houston to its first NBA Finals in 1981, before joining the Philadelphia 76ers, where, teamed with Julius Erving and Bobby Jones, he won an NBA Championship in 1983, as well as a third League MVP. Never a dominant defender, his quickness and tenacity made him one of the best rebounders in NBA history, particularly on the offensive end; he led the league in rebounds six times in a seven-year period and still holds the NBA record for offensive rebounds.
In the mid-1980s, the Mark Eaton was the most prolific shot-blocker in the league, and, although never a major offensive contributor, won two NBA Defensive Player of the Year Awards while helping transform the lowly Utah Jazz into a playoff contender. Of all these players, none enjoyed the success of Robert Parish, who, with forwards Larry Bird and Kevin McHale, formed the legendary frontcourt of the Boston Celtics team that won three titles. The Celtics' fierce rivalry with the Lakers dominated the NBA during the decade and helped basketball reach an unprecedented level of popularity. Nicknamed "Chief" after a character in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest because of his stoic demeanor, Parish was known for his trademark arching jump-shot—leading many experts to consider him the best medium-range shooting center of all time—and his ability to finish fast-breaks with his surprising speed. Playing until the age of 43, Parish broke Abdul-Jabbar's record for career games played.
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, players such as Bill Laimbeer and Jack Sikma developed a reliable outside shot later in their career, hitting around the 30% mark.