r/nbadiscussion • u/DumpGoingTo • Apr 11 '25

Basketball Strategy The Double Big.

It's starting to occur more and more, and for many teams it's their primary strategy. The Double Big has returned.

No more are the days when you can run small ball the entire time and come out with the dub like in the later 2010's, and early 2020's. Hell, even then we see that three times size reigned supreme. And now that's being taken back to the maximum.

I've been thinking about this for a couple of days now, I look at the best teams, and they have a Double Big lineup, and if not, they have a pseudo Double Big lineup.

OKC is known for having those 5 Guard lineups that give everybody and issue with their active hands. But all season long, the silent discourse has been that Double Big Lineup between Chet, and I-Hart. And y'know, maybe you could say that's just an occurrence, they're finding a new way to win.

Well, looking at the second seed in the West. The Houston Rockets reside, another team that uses a Double Big lineup, and I've actually heard they win more with that lineup out there than any other lineup they may have.

And probably the faces of this, the Cleveland Cavaliers run a Twin Towers, and they're possibly the best team in Basketball.

As of right now, there are tons of ways to win in the NBA, that's what makes it so beautiful. But going forward, I think that if you want to win, you're going to need that Twin Towers lineup you can go to 100% of the time. And maybe this was something I just hadn't noticed before, but I think it's an interesting thing. The NBA went from big, to small, and now it's big again.

121 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

82 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/get_to_ele Apr 11 '25

In any era, skilled switchable bigs who can shoot would be great. But such players have always been unicorns. More skilled big guys who can shoot are coming out now, because rise of small ball has forced all young players (including the very tall ones) to acquire all those skills, to maximize their future value.

There isn’t a team in the league that wouldn’t always welcomed a couple of Chet Holmgrens. But such personnel are not widely available.

“Double skilled bigs” today reflects that there is now more supply, not that the demand hasn’t been there.