Now that it's 2023, we’re looking at some stylistic trends that are starting to take hold in the NBA and could define the league in the calendar year to come. Today: the viability of tall ball.
Previously: The rise of offensive rebounding
If the latter half of the 2010s in the NBA was defined in part by a fixation with small ball, the early part of the 2020s has represented something of a snapback.
Smallness itself was never really the goal of small ball, anyway. The guiding principle behind the tactic was simply to put as much skill on the floor as possible, not to downsize for the sake of downsizing. It just so happened that the game was increasingly placing a premium on skills - such as speed, ball-handling, shooting, and passing - that were the domain of smaller players. The league's next natural evolution was for bigger players to collectively close that skill gap. Now that it's happening, teams are sizing up without some of the drawbacks that have come with doing so in recent years.
"I think the assumption that people make always is that if a trend starts, it's just going to continue to go in that direction forever," Stan Van Gundy told CBS Sports' James Herbert early in the season. "'Twenty years down the road, we're going to be playing small.' No. What we're going to really see is more skilled bigger people."
Of the league's 30 teams, 14 can reasonably be said to have offensive fulcrums who stand at least 6-foot-8 and/or have their primary positions listed as center or power forward. Because playing bigger typically means sacrificing offense in exchange for defense, those teams theoretically have a path to getting the best of both worlds. In reality, the results have been a mixed bag.
The Orlando Magic spent years stacking long, athletic forwards and versatile bigs, but it wasn't until they nabbed Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero - two dynamic creators who stand 6-foot-9 and 6-foot-10, respectively - in back-to-back drafts that the vision started to show real promise. Now Orlando regularly rolls out lineups with four players 6-foot-9 and taller, lineups in which the 7-foot-2 Bol Bol is functionally a shooting guard on offense. But as exciting as they are, the Magic still haven't quite figured out how to weaponize all their size on either end of the court.
They're 16-28 with the league's 26th-ranked offense and 23rd-ranked defense. They surrender a boatload of threes and, despite their size, can't seem to stop anyone at the rim. They also can't shoot, and they turn the ball over a ton. The early returns on their frontcourt have been terrific, and Wagner and Banchero have both flashed the ability to grow into primary initiators. But you still get the sense they'll need one of their young guards - Jalen Suggs, Markelle Fultz, or Cole Anthony - to pop in order for their rebuild to really get rolling.
The Toronto Raptors run a rotation in which 10 of 14 players stand at least 6-foot-8, and an 11th - O.G. Anunoby - measures 6-foot-7, 232 pounds with a 7-foot-2 wingspan. The stumbling blocks they've encountered in that team-building approach have been well-documented: For now, their dearth of shooting and off-the-bounce creation is the price they're paying for over-indexing on length. That length allows them to grab offensive rebounds and force turnovers, but not to protect the rim or create offensive advantages.
No other team has pushed quite as far as Toronto and Orlando have, but there are currently plenty of other experiments in upsizing. Two-big alignments continue to make a comeback, with particularly successful iterations in Memphis and Cleveland and a much less successful one in Minnesota. The Jazz also start two 7-footers in Lauri Markkanen and Kelly Olynyk while occasionally adding hulking rookie Walker Kessler to the mix. The Wizards have begun tinkering with a jumbo starting frontcourt of Kyle Kuzma, Kristaps Porzingis, and Daniel Gafford.
The Nets start three players who stand at least 6-foot-10 in Kevin Durant, Ben Simmons, and Nic Claxton - a setup that's powered Brooklyn's huge defensive improvement while Durant's singular shot-making brilliance papers over its offensive limitations. The Pelicans have rarely leaned all the way into their tall-ball capabilities, but they have the personnel to run lineups in which Zion Williamson is the shortest player. The Thunder could also be huge across the board when Chet Holmgren suits up next season.
So, is this trend here to stay? Probably, to an extent. Adding Victor Wembanyama to the league doesn't figure to reverse it. And the aforementioned lineup configurations have all produced encouraging results.
The Raptors' success with 7-foot-1 rookie Christian Koloko on the court suggests that the answer to their struggles may be more size, not less. In 155 minutes with Koloko, Scottie Barnes, Anunoby, and Pascal Siakam out there together, Toronto owns a plus-10.4 net rating, per NBA Advanced Stats.
The Magic are a plus-9.9 in 375 minutes with Wagner, Banchero, and center Wendell Carter on the floor. Add Bol to the mix, and it's a plus-13.8 in 127 minutes. In 326 minutes with Durant, Simmons, and Claxton sharing the court, the Nets are at plus-10.7 per 100 possessions. The Wizards' Kuzma-Porzingis-Gafford trio is a plus-18.4 across 140 minutes. The Jazz are a plus-12.8 in 104 minutes when Markkanen, Olynyk, and Kessler play together.
Also worth noting: Every last one of those groups has posted a better defensive rating in those small samples than the Grizzlies' current league-best mark.
At the same time, it's unclear whether those groups can, or will, pass muster in a larger sample or a playoff setting. While the gap is indeed closing, guards remain the predominant offensive engines in the NBA. With a couple of exceptions, big men and jumbo-sized wings still can't do what the league's best guards can do as ball-handlers and shooters even as they get more and more skilled. Thirteen of the top 15 qualified players in 3-point attempts per 100 possessions are guards listed at 6-foot-6 or under. Ditto for 12 of the league's 15 highest-volume drivers and 27 of its 30 most frequent ball-handlers, according to NBA Advanced Stats.
Even on defense, smaller players can be essential because they tend to be better screen navigators. They also generally have an easier time staying in front of shifty drivers and staying low enough to disrupt their opponent's dribble. (Part of the Raptors' vision for the future apparently involves having 6-foot-9 sophomore Scottie Barnes guard the point of attack, and that project has gotten off to an extremely rocky start.)
It's not even clear that all of those teams want to be building this way. Some may just be trying to make the most of a transitional phase, waiting for an opportunity to balance the roster. Most are young teams that don't need to have themselves entirely figured out right this second. But looking toward the future, skill-set diversification is always a good thing to strive for, regardless of size. Consider the Cavs and Grizzlies, who are thriving because they've balanced their huge, defensively dominant frontcourts with offensively potent backcourts led by small guards.
For all the talk about the game going positionless, role definition is still a major component of NBA basketball. The most successful teams tend to be the ones that fill those roles with distinct, complementary pieces rather than trying to mash together a bunch of overlapping ones.
The underwhelming Clippers - not a tall-ball team per se, but one that's butting up against the limits of like-sized roster construction - may be learning that the hard way. Paul George thought they were building the team of the future. But even with two all-time great wing creators in him and Kawhi Leonard, the Clippers' lack of passing and downhill punch - and health, sure - have them sitting at 23-22, as well as 28th in offensive efficiency.
Versatility is the name of the game in the league today, and being versatile is as much a collective trait as it is an individual one. In the context of NBA roster-building, sameness doesn't engender versatility; variety does.
