Is the NBA Headed Toward Another Big-Man-Dominated Era?

There's no escaping Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins, now that they're seemingly everywhere in the basketball world.On the court, both individually and in opposition to one another. On magazine covers. In conversations and debates, not just about which young player is best, but of who belongs in the NBA's MVP race.

In these regards, though, they tower over their predecessors and competitors—quite literally, in fact. Davis is a lanky 6'10", albeit reportedly 25 pounds bulkier than before. Cousins, at 6'11" and 270 pounds, is an absolute load.

Both have taken the Association by storm, just a handful of years removed from short stints in John Calipari's cocoon for big men at Kentucky. Both also rank among the top 10 in points, rebounds and PER, with Davis adding similar statistical accolades in blocks, steals and field-goal percentage.

Each has elevated his team to the fringes of the Western Conference playoff picture, but by vastly different means. Cousins is, in many ways, old-school: a hulking center who commands double-teams, demands the ball down low and has proved prone to emotional outbursts, for better or worse. Davis, on the other hand, is the new-school prototype: long, quick, athletic, capable of dominating a game without the ball in his hands and with a flurry of face-up moves when he does.Just ask the Philadelphia 76ers, whose top prizes from each of the last two drafts have been centers with serious injuries: Nerlens Noel in 2013 and Joel Embiid this past June.

There's no guarantee that Noel and Embiid will lead the Sixers out of their self-inflicted slog. Nor can the franchises that end up drafting Okafor and Towns be assured that they'll have the next Boogie or Brow on their respective squads.

One thing is clear, though: The NBA has been and will likely always be a big man's league. Whether Okafor and Towns fit into that lineage or flop their way to the "bust" files will have as much to do with their ability to find a niche that suits them as it does with their development into the players they could become.

Not that the league's lineage of legendary big men—from George Mikan to Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, to Olajuwon, O'Neal, Tim Duncan and beyond—needs any help sustaining itself for the foreseeable future. So long as Cousins is carrying the Sacramento Kings back to respectability and Davis continues to soar past a ceiling that might not actually exist, this particular torch should be in good hands.

Source http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2278708-is-the-nba-headed-toward-another-big-man-dominated-era