Small Ball to Tall Ball - Is NBA Resizing?

 

The recent memes being shared on social media hinted on the resizing of NBA which, apparently, seems true now.

"The memes are coming true," Orlando Magic guard Cole Anthony mentioned in his twitter feed. He had seen the memes on Twitter and TikTok - comically colossal lineups with the 6-foot-10 Franz Wagner at point guard and the 7-foot-2 Bol Bol on the wing. Lineups with the cumulative height of two fully grown male giraffes and the collective length of a full-sized school bus. Lineups you'd never see in a competitive situation outside of the 2K League.

Orlando started Wagner with Bol, Caleb Houston, Wendell Carter Jr., and Mo Bamba in the first quarter of their first regular-season game. On their first defensive possession, they lined up in a 3-2 zone and raised their arms to show off their 37-foot wingspan. Saddiq Bey of the Detroit Pistons missed a corner 3 with Bamba coming in on him, and Carter aggressively rejected Kevin Knox II's driving layup. Bey recovered the ball and shoved it to Knox, whose second try — a bricked 3 over Bamba's fully extended arm — confirmed Bey's judgement.

"It's a great lineup," Anthony stated. "It appears to be threatening."

It all started with summer pickup games. Wagner hadn't even arrived at the Magic's training facility yet, having spent the majority of September playing for Germany's national team at EuroBasket. However, No. 1 overall pick Paolo Banchero, as well as Bol, Bamba, and Carter, were present.

"It's funny," remarked Magic coach Jamahl Mosley. "They did it all by themselves."

The Bigs wanted to test how it would work, according to Banchero, a tremendously exceptional scorer and passer who is 6-10, weighs 250 pounds, and turns 20 this month. "It was a lot of fun," he stated. He was constantly aware that he had reinforcements near the rim to challenge shots and rebound when defending the perimeter.

"It flowed well because they knew what they were doing," Mosley added. "They liked it, and it's difficult to score on."

When Orlando goes super-sized, Wagner and Banchero normally initiate the offensive, but Mosley has given all of the Bigs decision-making power. Bol scored 19 points in 20 minutes against the New York Knicks last week, including a coast-to-coast layup and a crossover-spin-Eurostep combo that wowed the Madison Square Garden crowd. Because of early-season injuries to all four of their sub-6-6 guards, the Magic's minutes have been dominated by players 6-7 and taller.

That figure is an exception, but it would be incorrect to argue that Orlando is zigging while other clubs are zagging. According to data from nba.com/stats, the percentage of total minutes played by players 6-7 and above has increased this season for the first time since 2014-15, through games played on Oct. 30. The percentages of players 6-8 and above, 6-9 and up, 6-10 and up, and 6-11 and up have all increased, reversing prior trends. Seven-footers have been nearly twice as prevalent as last season (8.3 percent of total minutes, up from 4.3 percent), and have nearly returned to levels not seen since before 2019-20, the first season in which official heights had to be validated by team doctors.

The teams who have sized up are stylistically unique and have enjoyed widely disparate degrees of success. In general, the trend is a reaction to the one that came before it. The 3-point revolution opened up driving lanes and passing lanes for increasingly imaginative playmakers. Larger, lengthier lineups can shut those lanes by making the court appear "more packed than it actually is," according to Mosley, especially if everyone plays defense with high hands.

Mosley raised his fists in the air as he stated this. During games, he performs the same thing, and his accompanying admonition — "Show your hands!" — can be heard loud and clear on the broadcast. When asked how frequently he hears those three phrases yelled from the sidelines, Carter grinned as big as his 7-5 wingspan.