When the NBA regular season starts on Oct. 31, there will be some seven-foot voids on the court. For the first time in a while, there won't be a dominant center tearing off his warmups for the opening tip in the Eastern Conference.
A trade, a retirement and two rare diseases have left the East both centerless and wide open. Patrick Ewing, Rik Smits, Alonzo Mourning, and Dikembe Mutombo will, at least for a while, all be out of the Conference once known for its bruising style of play.
Mutombo will only miss two weeks with malaria, which he contracted from a mosquito bite on a trip to the Congo, but the other three are gone for good.
Ewing, for years a staple in the middle for the New York Knicks, has been shipped off to Seattle, where he will get to clog up the lane and shoot fadeaway jumpers on the opposite coast. In his place, less intimidating defenders such as Travis Knight and Luc Longley will patrol the center spot for the Knicks.
For Smits, it was time for the "Flying Dutchman" to call it quits in Indiana. He had a very productive career, but anyone who watched the center play in recent years knows that he had become a liability on defense, a non-factor on the glass, and ineffective on offense. That means new coach Isiah Thomas will get the illustrious job of choosing between the five centers the Pacers currently have on their roster - Bruno Sundov, Joe Kleine, Jeff Foster, Zan Tabak, or Sam Perkins. Fortunately for the rest of the league, it appears that Perkins, who himself contemplated retirement in the off-season, will get the starting nod. Not many teams have won a championship with a center that shoots more threes than blocks shots.
In Miami, Pat Riley had his team primed to make a run at the NBA Championship by signing Eddie Jones to play alongside Mourning. You could see Riley already plotting his run against the Los Angeles Lakers. Mourning could play against Shaquille O'Neal while Jones could guard his former teammate, Kobe Bryant. All those plans have tragically died, for this season at least, as Mourning is suffering from a curious kidney ailment and will miss the season. To spare you the details, Mourning has focal glomerulosclerosis, which leads to kidney failure in half of its victims. His overall status is stable right now, but it is certain that the Heat will be without him all season.
So Riley now has to look at a bench whose top two centers include Duane Causwell and Todd Fuller, but he'll probably start a power forward - Anthony Mason or Brian Grant - in the five spot.
And in Atlanta, Mutombo's sub on opening day will likely be Lorenzen Wright, the fourth year center out of Memphis.
If you throw the Orlando Magic into the mix - a team many consider one of the top five in the East - you get an even less impressive name in the middle. The Magic seemingly signed everyone they could in the off-season, but wound up with John Amaechi as their center. The two-year man from Penn State has averaged 8.5 points and 2.9 rebounds in his career. Not exactly the impressive pedigree of teammates Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady.
So what does this roll call of centers mean for the rest of the league? A few things, actually. For starters, it means a big man will not required to win the East. When the opening day lineups include Sam Perkins, Travis Knight, Duane Causwell, Lorenzen Wright, and John Amaechi, you don't exactly need to continually feed it into the low post every time down the court.
The Knicks, with Latrell Sprewell, Allen Houston, and Glen Rice will be able run and gun their way to the Eastern Conference Finals. Reggie Miller, Jalen Rose (who will be out a month with a broken wrist), and Austin Croshere can shoot the Pacers far in the playoffs. Hill and McGrady may be able to earn the big bucks Orlando is paying them. Plus, teams that haven't been written about all summer - like the Philadelphia 76ers and the Milwaukee Bucks - will have a better chance showcasing their talented shooting guards (Allen Iverson and Ray Allen) without fear of them getting swatted every trip into the lane.
Secondly, and most importantly for basketball purists like myself, the pace of play will pick up considerably in the East. Without big, lumbering centers like Smits and Ewing blocking things up in the middle, guys like Jones, Allen, Iverson, and Sprewell will be able to open it up. I'm not saying the shooting will be better - days of good jump shooting seem to be beyond us - but the games will be better. We will finally get to see teams run it up the court, play pressure defense, and score more than 80 points a night.
Although, in the end, the lack of big men in the East will mean only one thing for the NBA - Shaq will have an easier time running all over the rest of the league.
