The Sports Fanatic's Blog
  • 10:36 AM ET  06.13
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Alot of people have been extremely angry and dissapointed at Kevin Garnett lately for his lack of agression, his lack of rebounding, and his lack of posting up.  This large group of people has constantly included me, especially last night in the first quarter when lamar Odum was able to post up on him and make the basket.  At the time of this play I was incredibly furious with Garnett, and felt that it was those plays that will end up defining his career as an NBA player.  After a few minutes of this anger I began to reflect on past high school, college, NBA, and European games that I had seen.  I then realized that the NBA is going towards players like Kevin Garnett.  I think there are countless reasons for this transition, but I will just name a few.  First, American sports have began to put more and more focus on athletecism.  With this focus young NBA players learn at a young age that they don't want to be the man that drops down into the low block, and gets 20 rebounds and fifteen points.  They want to be the people leading the fast break, and drifting out to hit the shot from around the foul line.  I think this is quite apparent if you are to go and look at the other seven footers around the league.  Very few of them are built like Shaq or any other of the dominant centers in NBA history.  Another reason is that every era in NBA basketball has a different strength, and playing style.  This era's playing style is quick athletic players that can drive to the basket, and get to the foul line.  A big seven footer that just plants his butt on the low block is a definant hinderance to this style of play, because he cramps everything up inside.  A third reason for this is the recent struggles by the U.S. national team against International competition.  Since international leagues have the tarpezoid key, it does not allow a player to really be effective posting up, so they have gone to this mold of the big center just sort of hovering around.  Any time that a team does not live up to expectations they fell like their is something wrong with the style of their play, and its not just that they had a bad tournament.  This is the case with the U.S. when they have begun to not dominate like they used to they have changed their style and gotten away from the big strong low post player.  My final reason is that players realize that they don't want to be as big as Shaq.  If kevin Garnett was to want to assert himself more on the low post he would probably put on some wheight.  He would do this because the NBA is a long and grueling season especially if you play on the low block.  Playing in that post position lead to a lot of physical punishment that would be tough for a player of Kevin Garnetts stature to withstand.  If he were to put on this wheight this would also lead to a short injury proned career, because a human body is not meant to hold that much wheight.  If the Nba wants to bring back these huge dominant players they would have to shorten the season, but I don't think that they want to because fans find a game going up and down the court much more entertaining.  I know some of you are saying that the Nba has always had these long of seasons and it hasn't stopped a dominant center before.  For the answer to this you must look at the evolution of the player, especially in the last ten years, instead of being just the few players on the floor with legitimate strength there are now ten players on the floor with legitimate strength.  Bottom line is if you aren't happy with the way that KG plays then you better find something else to pass your time, because a dominant big man isn't coming anytime soon.      

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