{"id":139200643,"date":"2023-11-29T13:30:51","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T13:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=139200643"},"modified":"2023-11-29T13:30:51","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T13:30:51","slug":"the-nba-big-is-dead-long-live-the-nba-big","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=139200643","title":{"rendered":"The NBA Big Is Dead, Long Live The NBA Big"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI was out-of-doors, eating snowballs \/ for dinner & sleeping by Lake Michigan.\u201d – Adrian Matejka, \u201cBlues His Sweetie Gives To Me\u201d<\/h2>

But first, your weekly <\/em>Vine: we\u2019re in the last week! Plagues still happening, tho: Monday was Chapter 62: \u201cThe Plague of Bullets.\u201d<\/a> Tuesday was Chapter 63: \u201cThe Plague of Planning.\u201d<\/a> Today is Chapter 64: \u201cThe Plague of History.\u201d<\/a> Thank you to everyone who has read or otherwise supported <\/em>Vine. There\u2019s still time to catch up\u2014Thursday and Friday\u2019s stories are bangers. <\/em><\/p>

You go from eating snowballs outdoors to purposefully getting gold teeth and bragging about how it makes every bite of food extra expensive. I\u2019m reading about Jack Johnson and boxing this week, but let\u2019s talk basketball. <\/p>

We\u2019ll bring it back to writing, though. <\/p>

All you The Line Break<\/em> listeners who turn the podcast off for the last 15 minutes, you\u2019re absolutely within your rights, I\u2019m just promising this column is more metaphor than straight sports talk. <\/p>

\"Green<\/figure>

Everyone thought the big had gone the way of the dinosaur. This was around 2010-2016, an absolutely hilarious time to think a crisis was occurring, in retrospect. Sure, the nation was still reeling from the recession and Dwight Howard was running away with All-NBA First Teams. Sure, Charles and Shaq where on TNT every night, saying things like \u201cwhy don\u2019t the Warriors let Andrew Bogut pound the ball down low?\u201d and \u201cthe Spurs do too much damn passing. Give the ball to Timmy down low!\u201d and \u201cDwight Howard will never win a champion if he can\u2019t pound it down low!\u201d Did the Spurs, Warriors, and Dwight Howard win any championships in the last 10 years? Don\u2019t ask the TNT crew, they don\u2019t remember. <\/p>

\"File:Charles<\/figure>

Now, we have Nikola Jokic redefining the position with passing, three point shooting, and yes, low-post dominance. Joel Embiid, last year\u2019s MVP who \u201ccan\u2019t help but lead the lead in scoring,\u201d per , is awesome even if his career does parallel Patrick Ewing\u2019s too much. Giannis Antetokounmpo might be a power forward<\/a>, but he\u2019s been (not incorrectly) called the Modern Shaq and can initiate an offense. Karl-Anthony Towns is a player I don\u2019t respect, but his self-proclaimed \u201cbest shooting big man of all time\u201d assessment isn\u2019t demonstrably <\/em>false. Mitchell Robinson just decided a playoff series simply by having a bigger ass than Evan Mobley (thought by some to be Diet Kevin Garnett). We\u2019ve gotten this far and not even mentioned All-NBA winners Domantas Sabonis, Anthony Davis, and Rudy Gobert. Nor have we climbed the beanstalk to check in on rookie phenoms Victor Wembanyama or Chet Holmgren. Thinking Basketball<\/em> can discuss them for us. <\/p>

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