www.sportingnews.com/nba/articles/20030820/488669.html August 20, 2003 Ira Winderman, Sporting News (CD's quote is the last, BTW.) (Near the end, Riley's comments were the exact same as he made when he drafted ACGreen!) This is not the petulant Derrick Coleman of his New Jersey and Charlotte days. Rather, when speaking of again being force-fed a pivot role with Philadelphia, this is a 36-year-old realist who appreciates that, as a 6-10 jump shooter, he is as much a center as the majority of centers in the Eastern Conference. "If that's what I have to do, then that's what I have to do," he says. "Do I like it? No." It is the same concession Kurt Thomas has been asked to make with New York, Brian Grant with Miami and Antonio Davis with Toronto. It is why Orlando has accepted that Juwan Howard was the best it could do on the free-agent market to address its lack of a low-post presence and why, at 6-8, Michael Sweetney still measured up as a lottery pick for the interior-lacking Knicks. It is why, at 6-9 and 6-7, Kenyon Martin and Malik Rose were two of the more efficient post threats in the NBA Finals. "The change," Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson says, "is not about the height. It's about athleticism." Magic coach Doc Rivers, whose center-less team came within one victory of upsetting the top-seeded Pistons in the first round of the East playoffs, believes that change has taken effect in the past four or five years. Like most, Rivers began his coaching career believing there had to be beef inside. Then, he says, there was an epiphany. "I was thinking, 'We all could put out 7-footers who can't run or jump, but give me a 6-10 guy, a 6-9 guy who can run, jump, shoot,' " he says. "Even though it's a matchup problem on one end, that guy forces a matchup problem on the other end." But no longer is the matchup in the middle viewed as the entire story. That's why Nets coach Byron Scott continually shied from using 7-2 Dikembe Mutombo, even when height seemed right, in the playoffs. "Now, with some of these teams with talented wing players, you don't necessarily have to have the inside presence," Magic G.M. John Gabriel says. In the June draft, 7-foot Central Michigan standout Chris Kaman was the only player among the top 26 picks listed as a true center. The top post presence in next year's draft, Connecticut's 6-9 Emeka Okafor, heretofore never would have been viewed as a long-term answer for a center-starved team. "I think we're years beyond, as Eastern Conference teams, trying to draft and sign someone where there's no one to compete against at that position," Gabriel says. "We're more concerned with guys that double-jump as quickly as Kenyon Martin does." Not everyone, however, has adopted the philosophy. Having guided rosters that featured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning, Heat coach Pat Riley still focuses on the middle. "The only trouble in the failure to pursue or to get or to acquire a great center," he says, "is that one day, if you go the other way and play against 'em, you're going to lose." Still, Riley acknowledged he could do worse than going with Grant. It also is why he lavished so much attention this offseason on free-agent forwards Elton Brand (6-8) and Lamar Odom (6-10). "I think the thinking now is that five very good basketball players, with overall height, at 6-9, 6-10 across the board, can get the job done," Riley says. Even the Rockets' Dawson, the ultimate winner in the 2002 draft with Yao Ming, appreciates what seems to matter in today's NBA. "Even though he's 7-5, he doesn't move like that," he says of Yao. "He has the footwork of a 6-8 power forward." Ira Winderman covers the NBA for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
