Which team has the best starting frontcourt in the NBA?
Depending on how you value the top player compared to the depth of the trio, there are several contenders including:
- Nets (Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Brook Lopez)
- Bulls (Luol Deng, Carlos Boozer, Joakim Noah)
- Nuggets (Danilo Gallinari, Kenneth Faried, JaVale McGee)
- Warriors (Andre Iguodala, David Lee, Andrew Bogut)
- Pacers (Paul George, David West, Roy Hibbert)
- Grizzlies (Tayshaun Prince, Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol)
- Heat (LeBron James, Udonis Haslem, Chris Bosh)
- Timberwolves (Chase Budinger, Kevin Love, Nikola Pekovic)
- Thunder (Kevin Durant, Serge Ibaka, Kendrick Perkins)
- Spurs (Kawhi Leonard, Tim Duncan, Tiago Splitter)
I’ll offer one other wildcard option: the Pistons with Josh Smith, Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond.
Those three have a lot of talent, though it’s not clear how they will fit together. None is a good shooter outside the paint, but perhaps they can create other matchup advantages by being big. Really big.
If Smith adapts to playing small forward, if Monroe develops defensively, if Drummond can handle big minutes, they could be excellent. Obviously, their partnership relies on a lot of ifs.
Joe Dumars realizes that too, and he addressed them in a fantastic Q&A with Zach Lowe of Grantland:
I’m sure you anticipated the spacing concerns everyone has raised since you signed Josh Smith, a non-shooter who has played mostly power forward the last few seasons. Why did you go with Josh, another big, instead of chasing someone like maybe Andre Iguodala on the wing? Or are you not all that worried about the spacing stuff?
We just thought we needed to get better from a pure talent standpoint. And that’s where Smith and Jennings and KCP [rookie Kentavious Caldwell-Pope] and Chauncey [Billups] come in. That was first and foremost — just to raise the talent level.
Of course, you don’t have the stretch [power forward] or the 3-point shooting [small forward] in that lineup, but what you do have in Monroe and Smith are two guys who really have high basketball IQs, and are very, very good passers. Even if you’re not spreading to the 3-point line, when you have high IQ guys playing together, they make plays for each other.
And I don’t know how many minutes we’ll have that front line [Drummond, Smith, Monroe] on the floor together, once you get past the first six minutes for the first quarter. It’s not like it’s going to be 40 minutes a night with that front line. Monroe will slide to [center], Josh will slide to [power forward]. It’s not a concern of ours.
Did you look to Memphis as something of an inspiration — another team that struggles for spacing, but that managed to squeeze out enough points after the Rudy Gay trade by just moving the ball and using a great passing big in Marc Gasol to run a lot of the offense?
We looked at that. We actually talked about them a lot. There are definitely similarities. We watched a lot of film of them, and what they were doing after Tayshaun [Prince] got there, and how it worked. And it clearly worked.
Smith and Al Horford ran a mean big-big pick-and-roll in Atlanta.
Exactly. That’s because Josh can really pass the ball. He can deliver. When you have frontcourt guys who can pass the ball … that’s why Marc Gasol is so, so good. That’s why with Vlade Divac and Arvydas Sabonis, centers who could really pass it, you don’t worry about what the system is, because whatever it is, they are going to figure it out.
But, as Dumars said, the Grizzlies and Hawks – and even the 1980s Celtics of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, whom Dumars alludes to elsewhere in the interview – provide a blueprint, and the Pistons have a real chance of overcoming their fit problems.
If Detroit’s frontcourt does that and allows its talent to shine, maybe, just maybe, it could be among the NBA’s best.
