Does the impact of Bogut's absence lead to a resurgence of the NBA big?

[mr. dee]

It seemed every time Ezeli was in, the Cavs went on runs.

Fixed.

[meangreenmachine]

The big man is over - The kids don't even play big Man basketball anymore..  That lumbering back to the basket slow the game down to a crawl Goliath is no more.

The Big Man will be back. Eventually there will be a Big Man as good as Shaq except he can consistently hit north of 80% from the free throw line. That Big Man will be one of the most dominant players of all-time.

[Rosco917]

It's nice to have both, balance is the name of the game. Answers to counter your opponents strategy.

I'm not talking about the slow, stiff, 7-2 guy that can't run the floor, who has to play with his back to the basket. I'm talking about the 6-10 6-11 athletic center that can hit outside, defend the paint, and run the floor. I think the old aircraft carriers types of the 60's 70's are gone. 

If you can't play big, your exploited in the NBA, can't play small your also exploited. That's why coaches love long, athletic defenders that can defend multiple positions, they can handle both styles.

[wiley]

Golden State did need Bogut.  Badly.  As someone stated, a few minutes of Bogut helps keep the other team from getting into a stylistic groove...

but no his absence won't effect the current view on the value of other Boguts that are out there.

[crimson_stallion]

It's nice to have both, balance is the name of the game. Answers to counter your opponents strategy.

I'm not talking about the slow, stiff, 7-2 guy that can't run the floor, who has to play with his back to the basket. I'm talking about the 6-10 6-11 athletic center that can hit outside, defend the paint, and run the floor. I think the old aircraft carriers types of the 60's 70's are gone. 

If you can't play big, your exploited in the NBA, can't play small your also exploited. That's why coaches love long, athletic defenders that can defend multiple positions, they can handle both styles.

Thank you - somebody who thinks logically!!

The NBA is like fashion - it's always going to go through phases.  Every team is always going to push new ideas to try to give themelves a competitive advantage, and once a team finds something that works all the other teams out there are going to start to emulate it.

In the old days it was all about post dominant bigs like Ewing, Hakeem, Olajuwon and Shaq.  Then guys like Wade/Pierce/Kobe/KG proved that having a dominant midrange game was where it was at.  Then you had the phase where everything was moving towards the P&R game, with athletic bigs like Amare Stoudemire and Dwight Howard dominating.  Most recently it's started swaying heavily towards perimeter play and three point shooting.

See, soon enough there is going to be a great shooting team who is going to make it to the NBA finals, and will get eliminated by a team that isn't nearly as good at shooting - because the former team just happened to not be making their shots when it mattered most.  Then people will start to realize that depending too heavily on the three works fine in an 82 game season where sample sizes are large and things even out - but it's far too risky in a shorter 7 game series where one or two bad shooting nights can change the outcome of an entire series.

Oh snap...that just happened.

No matter what big fad comes when, at the end of the day there is only ever going to be one solution - balance.   You need a bit of everything, because putting all of your eggs in one basket never works - if you do that you're going to dominate against certain matchups and get slaughtered by others.

1) You need perimeter guys who can penetrate and get to the basket, because that forces the defense to collapse on the driver, which opens up guys in the paint and guys on the perimeter

2) You need guys who can score in the paint, so that if the defense sags off your interior guys to put pressure on your shooters, you can get the ball down low and make them pay

3) You need guys who can hit jumpers (long twos or threes) so that if the defense sinks in to protect the basket against your post guys and cutters, you can hurt them with the outside shot

4) You need guys who can get to line so that you can get the opposing players in foul trouble and so you have a way to get easy points when your shots aren't falling

5) You need guys who can rebound so that ou can get second chance opportunities if you're having a poor shooting night

6) You need guys who can make intelligent passes, so that you aren't always depending on isolation

7) You need guys who can protect the basket so that opposing teams who are dependent on driving see resistance when they attack the rim

8 ) You need versatile defenders who can cover multiple positions in case of mismatches or in case you get caught on a switch

9) You need quality ball handler who can control the tempo of the game when things are getting out of control

It's nigh on impossible to get ALL of the above things on one team, but the teams who cover as many of those bases as possible are going to be the teams who are the hardest to beat because they'll be able to match up well against any team, and they'll be very difficult to gameplan/exploit against.

Boston ticked a lot of those boxes last year which is why we had a record that was better then the sum of our parts for most of the season - but we're still missing a number of key pieces from that list.  Rim protection, rebounding, post scoring and outside shooting are probably the key points that need improvement, so if we can fill those areas we have a pretty strong shot.

[Endless Paradise]

Bogut was statistically a negative every time he stepped on the court for the Warriors this series. The foremost issue was Steph playing like trash.

[LatterDayCelticsfan]

It seemed every time Varejao was in, the Cavs went on runs.

It was an inside job?