NBA Position Rankings: Top 10 centers in the NBA

With so much talk about the center position fading away, we rank the top-10 centers for the upcoming season and their value to their respective teams.

There is not a lot of centers in today’s NBA that can do it all consistently on both ends of the floor.

When NBA writers coronate the top 10 centers in the league at the beginning of the year, the majority of the players are only great on one side of the floor.

What happened to the NBA center who can pass, shoot, block shots, rebound and hit free throws effectively?

Although the Houston Rockets are in need of an effective center with Dwight Howard‘s departure to Atlanta, Hakeem Olajuwon is not walking through any practice doors.

Now it seems as if the top 10 centers in the NBA are only effective on one side of the ball, thus the notion that the position is fading away.

It is only fading away because there is so many non all-around centers that critics question the position’s value. And we are at the point were a defensively gifted center has more value than an offensively gifted center.

For example, one of the best centers in the NBA is the Los Angeles Clippers’ DeAndre Jordan. He is dominant only on the defensive side of the court, although he is not bad catching lobs and rebounding on the offensive glass. He could not hit free throws consistently if his life was on the line.

Another example is the Detroit Pistons’ center Andre Drummond. He is the mirror image of Jordan, although he might be a better post-up player on the left block.

The majority of these top-10 centers of today are not all-around centers on both ends of the court like they might have been in the 1990s or before, but they all are the most valuable player to their respective teams.

We begin with a player who just missed the top-10 list but is unquestionably valuable to his team.

Next: Biz-ness time