Nick Crain | 12/25/22

    The NBA is constantly changing. One of the most evident trends over the past several years is the shift away from formal positions.   In the modern NBA, most players don’t simply fit in a single bucket. For example, there’s very few guys that are pure shooting guards. Furthermore, many undersized players who would have traditionally played power forward can now play either frontcourt spot.   The most versatile players in the league even play up to four different positions.   As such, the way the league chooses All-NBA Teams is outdated. Every season, there’s three groups of five players that earn these honors, which include two guards, two forwards and a center.   At this point, it likely makes more sense to open these awards up more broadly. It’s difficult to truly pinpoint many of the best players in the league as a guard or forward in many instances.   Furthermore, over the past two seasons, centers have been the face of the NBA. In fact, in back-to-back seasons Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid have finished first and second respectively in MVP voting.   As such, Embiid has landed on the All-NBA Second Team despite being a top-five player in the game.   While this may not seem like a big deal, there’s actually quite a few players that have incentives in their deals for earning All-NBA honors.Many of the top young players around the league sign rookie max extensions that have massive escalators for making All-NBA status.   For example, players like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Trae Young and many others have received contracts with an incentive of up to a 30% pay increase for making one of these teams. While these players are guards that are more defined to a position, up and coming centers like Evan Mobley could potentially miss out on this type of opportunity with only three spots. Especially for centers, there’s half of the opportunity to make an All-NBA Team relative to guards and forwards.   If the league is going to continue seeing more contracts with these types of incentives, perhaps it’s time to more loosely define the criteria to make the team positionally.   There’s real money on the line.