NBA Free Agency 2012: 10 Best Available Centers Not Named Roy Hibbert

The center is the most coveted position in the NBA and the hardest to fill. As a result, it’s also the position which tends to be the highest paid, particularly if you're seven feet with a modicum of skill.

Not all of this year’s free-agent centers are seven feet, and not all of them are particularly skilled either, but they're centers. They will end up somewhere.

On the other hand, there are some that are seven feet, and there are some that have skills. They will end up getting paid a lot of money. The most notable of these is the top free-agent center Roy Hibbert.

I have omitted players such as Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett who are actually predominantly power forwards. I’ve also excluded Greg Oden because there’s no assurance that he’ll even play next year.

Here are the top 10 free-agent centers teams will be targeting this summer who aren’t Hibbert. Bear in mind, this is not a particularly deep or adept free-agent class, so be ready for some disappointment. 

10. Nazr Mohammed

The 34-year-old Nazr Mohammed has a long and semi-productive career as a role player and a backup, averaging 6.6 points and 5.2 rebounds per game.

Last year, his production indicated that his age might finally be catching up with him as his production took a decisive dip, even on a per-minute basis. He averaged just 8.9 points and 8.8 rebounds per 36 minutes.

While he isn’t the Mohammed of old, and even the Mohammed of old wasn’t a great player, he probably still has value as the third center on a team. He has experience and makes up for in intelligence what he lacks in ability. 

9. Mehmet Okur

The big issue with Mehmet Okur is how many games he has left in the tank. The last two seasons have been injury-plagued, and he’s played a total of just 622 minutes. Nor have those 622 minutes been particularly productive.

On the other hand, there’s a glimmer of hope that Okur could return to where he was at in 2010 when he was worth 14 points and seven rebounds a game.

He's also a career 37.5 percent three-point shooter. That’s always a plus. There are advantages to a center who can hit from deep. It forces defensive centers to step outside and open up the lane.

Teams with perimeter players who like to drive the lane can always benefit from a player like that.

A team that's looking for a center who can step out and stretch the court could still be willing to take a gamble on him though.

8. Robin Lopez

Robin Lopez hasn’t had quite the success of his twin brother Brook, but he’s shown flashes of ability to be a solid contributor, averaging 14.4 points and 8.2 rebounds per 36 minutes over the course of his four-year career.

Lopez has room to grow. He finishes well at the rim, but he’s a poor rebounder and arguably the worst passing center in the history of the entire world. In his entire career, he has 43 assists.

That’s an average of 0.2 per game. That’s zero-point-two for those who need it spelled out. I think Steve Nash averages that per minute. 

7. Aaron Gray

Aaron Gray has one thing going for him. He’s a big man—a true big man. He’s a full 7'0", and while he’s listed at 270 pounds, he’s probably more like 300, and that’s after he shed a few pounds last season.

Because of his size and an understanding of how to position himself, he’s a good rebounder, averaging 11.4 boards per 36 minutes over the course of his career. Unfortunately, he also averages 6.4 personal fouls per 36 minutes over the course of his career, which sort of makes it hard for him to actually play 36 minutes.

He's only 28, though, so it’s not like he’s past his prime. He could probably develop his game a little bit more too, but pretty much what you see with him is what you get.

What he is is a reasonably adept low-post defender who rebounds well and doesn’t score that well. He’s capable enough to fill in backup minutes, but he’s never going to be a quality starter. 

6. Marcus Camby

Marcus Camby has been around since the 1996-97 season. That’s a little while. He’s never been a great offensive player. In terms of scoring, his career-best season was his rookie year, in which he averaged 14.8 points per game.

He’s not about offense, though. He’s been one of the best defensive centers year after year for most of his career, and there's always need for defensive help in the middle. He's 12th all-time in NBA history in total blocks. He’s also 12th in blocks per game.

Camby remains a stalwart defender, both in terms of man-to-man and in help defense. He’s getting too long in the tooth to be playing 30 minutes a game, but as a backup center, you can do a lot worse.

There’s always value for a defensive stopper.

5. Omer Asik

Omer Asik is going to generate some interest in free agency. There’s little question about that. He's an extraordinary defender. While he was on the court this year, the Chicago Bulls yielded just 89.7 points per 100 possessions.

Among players with at least 1,000 minutes played over the last two seasons, no player has a lower defensive rating than Asik. The only ones tied are Dwight Howard and Kevin Garnett. Let’s be honest, that’s some pretty solid defensive company Asik is keeping.

Asik might be the best non-starting defensive player in the game, although his teammate Taj Gibson would have an argument to make too.

In terms of your traditional defend-the-post big man, Asik is truly dominant. He has great instincts. He rarely gets caught out of position. His shot-blocking is superb, as he batted away shots at a rate of 2.5 per 36 minutes last year. He alters more shots than he blocks. 

He’s also a fantastic rebounder, grabbing 13.0 boards per 36 minutes last year.  

So why is he only fifth if he’s all that defensively? Because all that he is defensively, he isn’t offensively. He is a good offensive rebounder, but he has a maddening habit of bringing every ball down to his waist before going up and trying to finish.

When it doesn’t get stripped, it gives opponents time to block his shots. His field goal percentage is .529, but it could easily be .600 or higher if he were to learn how to finish.

Furthermore, since he has no moves inside he rarely catches the ball in a position to score.

When he does score it's almost exclusively at the rim. He only made 45.7 percent of his layups. The .529 field goal percentage is misleading because for a player who only made 13 shots away from the rim, that’s really low.

Still, because of his defensive acumen, he’ll get some real interest in the free-agent market, but the Bulls are expected to match any offers according to Aggrey Sam of CSN Chicago. How high are they willing to go though?

4. Spencer Hawes

Spencer Hawes was arguably one of the more underrated players this season. The Philadelphia 76ers were 22-15 when he played and 13-16 when he didn’t. That’s a difference of a winning percentage of .594 compared to .449, which is pretty significant.

Simply put, Spencer Hawes made the Philadelphia 76ers a better team.

The attraction of Hawes is that he actually has an offensive game, and there are fewer and fewer big men who can make that claim. He actually can make shots away from the basket, which is a nice quality to have.

I’m not saying he’s the next Dirk Nowitzki or anything, but he’s competent. It would be nice to see him get to the free-throw line every now and then though. He gets to the charity stripe on less than one-sixth of his field goal attempts which is just sad for anyone, much less a seven-foot center.

Hawes has room to grow, and he’s grown since he came into the league. Chris Thomason of FoxSports states that Philadelphia offered him a “not really long-term deal.” It sounds like his return to Philadelphia might be up in the air. 

3. JaVale McGee

If JaVale McGee were half as smart as he is athletic, he would be twice as smart as he is.  The thing about McGee is that he’s actually not a bad guy, he’s just a complete and total knucklehead.

I have a philosophy that there’s one story that will explain every person perfectly. Once you know that about a person, you understand them. For McGee, it was the way he hustled back on defense when his team had the ball.

On the one hand, he made a dumb play, but on the other, he at least played hard. That's McGee. It's not about effort. He brings that. It's about keeping his head in the game and thinking about what he's doing. 

The same goes for his triple-double when he took about five shots to get his 10th point and then celebrated when he got it in spite of the fact that his team was down by 20.

He still got 12 rebounds and 12 blocks that game. Only nine players have done that since 1985. That’s still a heck of an accomplishment, whether the team lost by 20 or won by 20. That still takes talent and effort. 

McGee tries, and that gets lost sometimes amid all the knuckleheadery. 

Sometimes, McGee does silly, knuckleheaded things, but he’s a real talent. Just as there are times where you see him do things that make you yell “THINK!!!,” there are times where he just blows you away with his potential, such has his extraordinary performance in Games 3 (16 points, 15 rebounds) and 5 (21 points 14 rebounds) this year against the Lakers in the playoffs.

If DeAndre Jordan can make $43 million, so can McGee. 

2. Chris Kaman

Am I the only one who can’t read Chris Kaman’s name without yelling “Captain CAAAVVVEEEMAAAN!!!”

Kaman is possibly the best center available when healthy. It’s the "when healthy" part that bodes a problem. Kaman has missed an average of 31 games a year for the last five years. In 2010, he only missed six games, but apart from that, he’s in and out of the lineup.

When he stays healthy, like he did in 2010, he's a borderline All-Star. He averaged 18.5 points and 9.3 rebounds then. Over the last two seasons, he’s just played a total of 79 games, and he’s averaged only 12.8 points and 7.5 rebounds in those games, but he’s also only played 28.0 minutes.

His per 36-minute numbers are actually pretty solid, scoring 16.5 points and 9.6 boards. He’s also a pretty adept passer for a big man dishing 2.4 assists per 36. As a starter, he averaged 14.8 points and 8.2 rebounds.

Kaman will only be 30 next year, which is not too old in the world of big men. He has plenty to contribute if—and that is a mighty big if—he can stay healthy.

1. Brook Lopez

The best center not named Roy Hibbert available this year in free agency is Brook Lopez, which says as much about the free-agency market as it does about Brook Lopez. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Lopez is a franchise player. He’s not.

Is he an All-Star? Not yet, but he could be. This year doesn’t really help matters. He played five games, and even then, he was basically trying to get back in shape. The two games in which he played significant minutes, he played significant ball, scoring 38 points and 28 points respectively.

He also grabbed six and three rebounds respectively. That's the other side of Lopez, which is that he's rebound challenged. 

Over the last two seasons, there are 24 players who are 6’8” or shorter who grab more rebounds per minute than Lopez, including Dwyane Wade who is generously listed at 6’4”.

And therein lies the frustration with Brook Lopez. Lopez averages 7.5 rebounds per game over the course of his career. There are 80 centers in NBA history that are at least seven feet and have played at least 5,000 minutes. Lopez is 71st among them in rebounds per minute.

The frustration with Lopez is that he’s also 15th among them in terms of points per minute played.

How can he be so skilled offensively and so awful at rebounding the ball? You would almost figure that he would just accidentally get more rebounds than that. The Nets or whoever ends up having him should hire Dennis Rodman to come and teach him how to rebound.