Can 2 big men lineups succeed in today's NBA?

[Tabitha]

You know what succeeds in the NBA? Lineups with talented big men

[TwentyOne920]

The Clippers have two traditional big men in Griffin and Jordan, and they're 31-8...

[Lakerfan17]

The Lakers won titles with pau as a center but once Bynum joined him Dallas killed them.

What the hell are you talking about? We won titles with both of them starting....

[Marvin Martian]

All of those championship lineups mentioned in that post had a HOF in the frontcourt. All of the lineups mentioned in the OP are either washed up, old, or untalented

[DetroitPistons]

The most frustrating thing is when big teams go small to match up with small ball teams when they should be destroying them in the paint.

[KingCuban]

The Lakers won titles with pau as a center but once Bynum joined him Dallas killed them.
Memphis has struggled this year as teams just pack the paint against them.
The celtics only began to play well last year after kg moved to center
The finals teams had absolutely no inside presence. Neither did the spurs or the celtics.
The clippers routinely bench Jordan in the 4th last year and this year
Etc.
The last team to win with 2 true post presence was the spurs a decade ago
Is the league so fast and zone heavy having 2 big men is a curse but only 1 a blessing? Has no hand checking and pick and roll play elimated or negated a second post presence?

The Celtics began to play well in 2008 as well when they had KG and Perk.

[Mk0]

Andre Drummond & Greg Monroe have barely seen the floor together this year. Guess, we'll see before the season ends at some point (more than likely)..

I cannot wait to see those two develop together. It is surprising they don't get much burn together considering how ridiculous they can be.

[Basileus777]

Yes. One of them just needs to be able to shoot well enough to space the floor and be quick enough to guard the pick and roll. An easy example would be Kevin Garnett. He is a big man over 7 feet tall and you could absolutely win a title playing him next to a traditional center.

And if you want to look at recent history, other then the Heat, all recent NBA champions have had big frontcourts.

[anish23]

why not..

most of Memphis's success is due to the play of the bigs,
it really depends on the QUALITY of the 2 bigs, rather than "2 bigs"..

if you have quality like Marc and Big-Z.... its possible.

Quality of 2 bigs, Robinson-Duncan... now that was quality.

[TwentyOne920]

The most frustrating thing is when big teams go small to match up with small ball teams when they should be destroying them in the paint.

So.... 2007 first round?

[SF_Warriors]

I think he means with two star bigs.
In that case, it is just really hard to match two bigs like that due to salary reasons, lack of touches, etc.


Look what Duncan and Robinson achieved.
Bynum and when Gasol was a star was pretty successful up front.

Memphis is 4th in the wild West right now relying mainly on their frontcourt.
Clippers have one of the stronger starting PF C combos in the league and are 2nd.
Boston had NO ONE to play center. KG was/is the best/only choice.
There was a lot of optimism for Love/Pekovic and still is.
Jefferson Millsap are doing well even though their wing situation sucks and PG is okay at best if Mo williams was healthy.

But usually, only one top notch big and solid role playing big is enough:
Shaq Horry/Haslem/Grant
TD Horry/Nazr
KG Perk
Dirk/ Tyson

Last year's finals teams were wing dominated, but they were not exactly that thin up front:
Perk (see 2008) Ibaka Durant can slide to the 4 dude is 6'11.
Bosh Haslem (see 2006) and Lebron can easily play PF in the NBA.

[Froob]

Why did Pau/Bynum work so well but Pau/Dwight doesn't work? Is it just Pau not playing as well?

[bbms]

Yes. Depends on how good they are. The league is becoming more small ball because of lack of skilled low post bigmen. Small ball will always fail if you have bigmen that punishes the opposition down low.

[Dr Pepper]

Yes, but it depends on the personnel. We can look at the past Olympics and see that Team Spain was mainly competetive because of their behemoth frontline. A late 90's Duncan/Drob duo would wreck havoc on the league since they were both still mobile and greatly talented 2-way bigs

[Marvin Martian]

why not..

most of Memphis's success is due to the play of the bigs,
it really depends on the QUALITY of the 2 bigs, rather than "2 bigs"..

if you have quality like Marc and Big-Z.... its possible.

Quality of 2 bigs, Robinson-Duncan... now that was quality.

No it wasn't. It was the play of Mike Conley that made MEM look good in November. The reality is Marc Gasol is as soft as his brother and Z-bo is too old and slow for him to return to his 2011 form.

The Spurs on the other hand, had dominant 2 way big men that heavily impacted the floor. That is what you need to win. Simply throwing any 2 big men on the floor is not playing big. You need guys who can play defense and have a legit post game. That is the only way to beat small ball. When you look at all of the championship caliber frontcourts, they all consisted of at least 1 dominant big man