The Biggest Innovators in the NBA
The game of basketball has come a long way since James Naismith's peach basket. And thanks to a number of forward-thinking minds in the NBA today, the game continues to progress.
The league's innovators can be found at all three levels. Players on the floor are showing things we've never seen before. Coaches are embracing new strategies and philosophies. And front-office executives are embracing statistical analysis in a way that's improving the quality of the game.
This slideshow will explore innovators in each of those categories, as well as one who doesn't fit any of those molds.
Dirk Nowitzki
1 of 8
When Dirk Nowitzki entered the NBA in 1999, the power forward position was still populated with lumbering near-giants who could do little more than rebound and score on the block.
As a 7-footer with legitimate guard skills, particularly his ability to shoot, Nowitzki was vastly different from the norm. And his arrival revolutionized the league.
It's been less than two decades since Nowitzki's debut, but you can already see his influence all over the NBA. For years, teams chased the next Dirk or the next stretch 4. But as is almost always the case when you're looking for the "next someone," there's nothing quite like the original.
Someone may join him eventually, but as of now, Nowitzki is the only player in NBA history with at least 25,000 points, 10,000 rebounds, 1,000 blocks and 1,000 made threes.
LeBron James
2 of 8
Consider for a moment that at 6'8" and 250 pounds, LeBron James is roughly the same size as prime Karl Malone or Charles Barkley.
For a man that large to essentially be playing point guard on the offensive end was incredible and almost unheard of when James debuted in 2003. But now, everyone wants the "playmaking 4," something Grantland's Zach Lowe described last season:
"A few executives have dumped the term "stretch 4" altogether and replaced it with "playmaking 4" — a term I’m officially stealing right now. Shooting is nice, but it’s not enough anymore as defenses get smarter, faster, and more flexible working within the loosened rules. Spot-up guys have to be able to catch the ball, pump-fake a defender rushing out at them, drive into the lane, and make some sort of play. If they can’t manage that, a possession dies with them.
"
What LeBron does goes even beyond that. He starts the possessions, something that's becoming increasingly common among players his size. When you look around the league at players such as Draymond Green and Giannis Antetokounmpo running offenses for their teams, you can clearly see James' influence.
Stephen Curry
3 of 8
What Stephen Curry is doing to basketball is truly remarkable. Behind previously unseen dominance from three-point range, several stats show that he's having the greatest offensive season in NBA history.
He's on track to finish with the highest Total Points Added (a metric developed by Bleacher Report's Adam Fromal) ever. He's already comfortably in the lead for the highest all-time offensive box plus-minus. And there's a chance he could break Wilt Chamberlain's record for player efficiency rating.
ESPN's Henry Abbott wrote about the influence this historic season is having and even responded to some of the old-school-loving critics:
"To be fair to the Jurassics, it's true: Most game-changing innovators aren't actually innovative. For every White Chocolate or Vinsanity, there's an old-timer harping that Bob Cousy used to make those moves or Darryl Dawkins used to dunk like that. The basketball gods have seen it all. The game doesn't tilt on its axis every time the wind blows. Of course, that thinking is smart, until it's not. Sometimes, the world really is changing. Curry is to hoops as armed drones are to war. The range. The unpredictability. The inescapability. He's destroying defenses that don't even know it is time to play defense.
And now that we know this exists, it's difficult to imagine the future could possibly look anything like the past.
"
It won't. Curry is inspiring scores of imitators, both on playgrounds and in the league. The three-point revolution isn't getting quashed, at least not without another once-in-a-lifetime player who shows us something better.
Daryl Morey
4 of 8
Like Billy Beane in baseball, Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey is among those behind an analytics movement that has changed the way NBA front offices approach team building.
Max Rothman of the New York Times wrote about Morey's background in numbers:
"Advanced metrics have been established as a requisite in baseball, but are honeymooning with basketball. Morey has served as a leading pioneer of the convergence. He read the abstracts of Bill James when he was young, worked as a statistical consultant with STATS Inc., earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science with an emphasis on statistics from Northwestern University and an Masters of Business Administration. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sloan School of Management. He has written articles on sports analytics in the Harvard Business Review and The Economist. He has also molded the Rockets into a near-ideal representation of his philosophies without mitigating the on-court knowledge of Coach Kevin McHale.
"
All of that knowledge has poured into a philosophy known as "Morey-Ball," which is highlighted by a desire to get as many looks at the most efficient scoring plays possible: threes and free throws.
His Rockets are doing just that, as they're second in the league in three-point attempts and first in free-throw attempts per game.
Steve Kerr
5 of 8
It's reasonable to believe that we never would've seen the otherworldly exploits of Curry if not for the coaching of Steve Kerr, who fully unleashed his phenomenal point guard the last two seasons.
Prior to Kerr's arrival in Golden State in 2014, the Warriors were more of an isolation team, akin to the offenses of the late 90s and early 2000s.
Kerr brought the ball-movement-centric philosophy he learned from Gregg Popovich, elements of the triangle he learned from Phil Jackson and his own penchant for threes as a sharpshooter himself to create an offense unlike any we've ever seen before.
Sure, it helps to have two of the greatest shooters of all time in Curry and Klay Thompson, and one of the league's best point forwards in Draymond Green, but Kerr still had to be the one to put the pieces in motion.
Jason Kidd
6 of 8
There's been a lot of talk about the game of basketball getting smaller, when in fact the opposite might be true. "Small ball" is really just bigger guys embracing the need to have guard skills. Guards, meanwhile, really are getting bigger.
Wing-sized playmakers such as John Wall (6'4"), James Harden (6'5") and Emmanuel Mudiay (6'5") are increasingly common. And Milwaukee Bucks coach Jason Kidd, one of the original big point guards in his playing days, is taking that trend one step further.
Kidd has recently fully embraced the new wave of position-less basketball by making 6'11" Antetokounmpo his point guard on offense and a utility knife on defense.
Since Kidd benched Michael Carter-Williams and gave the reigns to Antetokounmpo on February 9, the Greek Freak is averaging 18.2 points, 8.7 rebounds and 6.8 assists.
By trusting his center-sized player to do things that used to be left to players a foot shorter, Kidd is showing that basketball skills are basketball skills, regardless of height.
Years from now, we may see a lot more players similar to Antetokounmpo.
Gregg Popovich
7 of 8
During the 2000-01 season, 13 players averaged over 40 minutes per game. During 2005-06, there were nine. This season, the league leader in the category is James Harden at 37.9.
Gregg Popovich could be considered an innovator for a lot of reasons, but his influence in the above trend will be the focus here.
The acknowledgment of wear and tear on the bodies of NBA players and and emphasis on rest have helped the Spurs maintain their dominant play for an incredible amount of time. And those same factors have preserved the careers of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker in a way that may not have been possible elsewhere.
Popovich and his staff have been monitoring the minutes of the team's stars—even holding them out of entire games—for years. The Spurs were fined $250,000 for doing so in 2012. But it's been well worth it, as San Antonio's still one of the league's best teams, nearly 20 years after its first title in 1998.
Adam Silver
8 of 8
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has only been on the job since 2014, but he's already shown a penchant for innovation.
In his first year-and-a-half at the head of the league, Silver has pushed the idea of a midseason tournament, struck a partnership with FanDuel (previously taboo as a daily fantasy sports outlet) and considered the idea of seeding the playoffs one to 16, regardless of conference.
That's just a small sampling of the ideas Silver has put forth, something he talked to USA Today's Jeff Zillgitt about in 2015:
"I'd like to think I've always been receptive to new ideas, but I'd also say I've learned, as much through osmosis — from owners who've been incredibly successful in their own right and from executives at partner companies of the NBA — that great ideas can come from anywhere. I've learned that you need to look broader than the traditional decision-making processes that businesses follow, especially with a sport like basketball, where there are so many people who follow it passionately and have great ideas about how to improve the game.
"
Silver's willingness to explore and sometimes embrace new ideas has already been a hallmark of his commissionership. And there's no reason to believe it won't continue to be.
Advanced stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
