Where's the NBA's Depth at Center Anymore?

There was once a point in NBA history when there were one or two big men each year who didn't make the All-NBA Team, but still eventually made it to the Hall of Fame (the names Walt Bellamy, Nate Thurmond and Bob Lanier come to mind).  

Now, we have one good, future Hall of Fame center in Dwight Howard.  Last's year's second-team All-NBA center (Amar'e Stoudemire) is really more of a power forward; this year's All-Star centers will be players like Andrew Bynum and Roy Hibbert who only infrequently have moments of brilliance.  That's nothing like in, say, the 1990s, when you had four clear Hall of Famers in Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquille O'Neal, and a possible fifth and sixth in Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo.

Another interesting stat that indicates the decline of the man in the middle is the lack of hardware they seem to be getting.  Since 1996, only O'Neal has won the NBA's Most Valuable Player award while playing primarily at the center position.  During that time, it has twice been given to small forwards and at least thrice to the other three positions, including six times to power forwards.  

O'Neal is also the only center to win an All-Star Game MVP during that time (although he did it thrice).  By contrast, from the period 1960 to 1980, only Oscar Robertson won the MVP without playing at the center position.

So, why aren't there as many good centers as there used to be?  The easiest answer I can think of is that potentially top-caliber centers have gone down to injury.  In the last two years, we've lost three former All-NBA centers (Yao Ming, Andrew Bogut and Al Horford) for extended periods of time due to injury.  There are numerous other big men, such as Greg Oden, who never were able to develop into high-caliber players because they suffered early injury.

And why are centers getting injured more often?  For one, because they enter the league with between two and four fewer years of development than they did 20, 30 or 40 years ago (Moses Malone being the exception).  For two, increased strength and conditioning has led to harder hits in all sports, including basketball.

And the other reason is the type of offense teams run nowadays.  They often forsake a strong man in the middle for uptempo forwards or perimeter-shooting guards.  

Teams that both do and don't run that type of offense rely on forwards to do work normally reserved for centers.  

Half of the top 20 in rebounding are non-centers; cornerman Josh Smith averages both more rebounds and more blocks than the majority of starting centers in the league.  Even dunking is shared between centers and shorter players like Smith and Blake Griffin.

Bottom line: The age of dominant big men has come and gone.