with my inside pivot<\/a>, was all based on the fact that my strength wasn\u2019t a power move. It was to create a little space and use the shooting as the weapon,\u201d Sikma told The Athletic. \u201cI was a late bloomer, really skinny, grew late.\u201d<\/p>\nHis late-career evolution to the 3-point line somewhat mirrored that of Marc Gasol when I worked for Memphis. (Full disclosure: I was the Grizzlies vice president for basketball operations from 2012 to 2019.)<\/p>\n
Sikma, like Gasol, was winning all the team\u2019s shooting games in practice (Sikma was a career 84.9 percent foul shooter and led the league at 92.2 percent in 1987-88), so they finally realized he should shoot some of them in a game. He went from making three 3s in 1987-88 to 82 in 1988-89. The league\u2019s other players listed as centers by Basketball-Reference that season made 88 3s \u2026 combined.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Del implemented it, where I was outside, basically pick-and-roll and pick-and-pop, it opened up the post,\u201d said Sikma, for teammates such as Terry Cummings and Ricky Pierce. \u201cIt has transcended into keeping the middle open, attack off the dribble, and the spacing is so big.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sikma pointed out one less-discussed advantage of having bigs at the 3-point line \u2014 namely, that they\u2019re big. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to leave the floor to shoot it,\u201d he said, and can easily launch it over a closeout.<\/p>\n
Sikma also noted two big changes in the game since he played that made it more of a skill game than a power game.<\/p>\n
\u201cAttacks off the dribble started to be more effective when they changed the hand-checking rules,\u201d Sikma said. \u201cThat was brought on by Jordan. They wanted more space.<\/p>\n
\u201dAnd then the post play changed when Shaq got in the league and they changed how you could guard the post with one hand on the back and the other elbow bent. That made it harder to score in the post. Those two changes made it evident that we should get the court spaced out. And if you had a big who could shoot, that\u2019s a big benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kevin Love can show you how the NBA has changed, 90 minutes before the game starts.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou watch guys warm up before the game, there\u2019s nobody in the paint!\u201d the veteran big man said when I caught up with him in Utah this January. \u201cWe have 10 guys on the perimeter shooting 3s now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only guys in the paint are rookies getting rebounds for the veterans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of the players in this generation, none mastered the dark arts of jousting for position around the basket quite like Love.<\/p>\n
Yet he, too, was one of the early practitioners of the big-man spacing game. Like Sikma, he realized he could go backward instead of forward, patenting one move in particular that befuddled opposing big men of that era: catching on the elbow near the free-throw line and then taking one dribble back to the 3-point line and launching.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt came out of the flow of the offense,\u201d Love said. \u201cRick Adelman, who is a genius, in his corner offense. He just opened up a whole different world for me offensively. I loved that shot. I still love that shot. And I was hitting stepback 3s and pick-and-pops, transition 3s.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it was something that I was looking for. But again, in today\u2019s game, I think I would have probably have three or four more attempts per game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Love\u2019s 505 attempts in 2013-14 ranked seventh in the NBA \u2014 nearly as many as his former Little League teammate Klay Thompson.<\/p>\n
Love had some resources he could lean on for that move and others \u2014 one of Minnesota\u2019s assistant coaches was a former player named Jack Sikma.<\/p>\n
\u201cKevin was always a great shooter,\u201d Sikma said. \u201cIt was a real weapon and had such a solid base, (he) could make some movement and still get under control and shoot it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, Love needed to have a reliable 3-point shot to make that work. He could always shoot, but he was so effective on the glass that Minnesota didn\u2019t want him far from the basket.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I came into the league (Wolves coach) Randy Wittman was like, \u2018I just don\u2019t see you shooting 3s right now,\u201d Love said. \u201cMaybe at some point you\u2019ll step out and take a couple, but that\u2019s not why we brought you here.\u2019 It wasn\u2019t really until Kurt Rambis, my third year, really pushed me into shooting 3s and kind of saw where the game was evolving and leading to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd for me, it started off by being trail 3s. I eventually got into the pick-and-pop. And that\u2019s where, like, outside of Dirk, I would like to think I was one of those first guys that ended up stretching the floor in a major way.<\/p>\n
![\"Portland's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260601-Donovan-Clingan-Brook-Lopez-scaled-e1780284598357.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Much of the action between Portland\u2019s Donovan Clingan and LA\u2019s Brook Lopez in a late-season game was away from the hoop. (Jaime Valdez \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an April game in Portland, and the Clippers\u2019 7-1 Lopez has just finished battling against one of the few players in the league who is even bigger than he is: the Trail Blazers\u2019 7-2, 280-pound Donovan Clingan.<\/p>\n
You might imagine this battle taking place in the trenches around the basket, with neither player venturing far from the paint, but you would be completely wrong.<\/p>\n
The two behemoths combined to take 18 3-pointers on this evening, with each player leading his team in attempts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s wild to see,\u201d said Lopez. \u201cIt\u2019s been interesting being a part of the ride, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lopez could always shoot, partly because he had an equally huge twin brother, Robin, on his teams and thus often had to be the one out on the perimeter. Lopez also intersected with two coaches who were a huge part of his evolution \u2014 Kenny Atkinson and Mike Budenholzer \u2014 and the greater trend line in the league in the 2010s.<\/p>\n
\u201cKenny Atkinson, when he got to Brooklyn, it was his idea because he was with Coach Bud in Atlanta when they were in that five-out offense.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, when he came over, he asked me if I\u2019d be comfortable doing it. I was like, of course, yeah. And so, I just put a lot of work in that summer behind the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
From that point, developing confidence was an underrated factor in getting the shot game-ready.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first time I made one that season was in the preseason. I made it from the top of the key, and I looked at the bench and they\u2019re like, \u2018Keep going, keep going.\u2019 Without their confidence behind me, who knows what would happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lopez wasn\u2019t too bashful, though. He tried a 3 on the first play of his first preseason game under Atkinson in 2016.<\/p>\n
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Horford wasn\u2019t a natural shooter. While for others it was simply a matter of taking shots in games that they were always able to make in practice, Horford\u2019s pathway to the 3-point line was a more torturous matter of existential survival.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s mid-February in San Francisco, and Horford has just finished a game against Wembanyama where the two players combined to take 13 3-point attempts. This is the same guy whose entire offensive game consisted of left block post-ups when he came to the Hawks nearly two decades ago in 2007.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could have never imagined even shooting 3s, to be honest,\u201d Horford said. \u201cI always tell this story, but I used to see Joe Johnson practice with the Hawks in my first few years, and I would just see him shooting 3s, and I\u2019m like, \u2018Man, that\u2019s such a deep shot.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI never imagined that I was going to be taking it.\u201d<\/p>\n
For big men like Horford, it was almost taboo to even try.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think one time I shot a 3 in Florida \u2026 I never even worked on a 3-point shot, but I shot one, and we were up like 20 or 30, and Billy (Donovan, then the head coach of the Gators) just kind of looked at me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horford soon found more organizational encouragement, as other bigs around the league began drifting away from the basket. That\u2019s where Horford\u2019s story intersects with Lopez\u2019s \u2014 not just the fingerprints of Atkinson and Budenholzer, but how important confidence was at the start of the long process.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Coach Budenholzer got to Atlanta (also in 2013), he really encouraged me to work and shoot the 3s,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Much as with Lopez, Horford said the mental part was as important as the physical part when he was working behind the scenes to build the shot before it was game-ready \u2014 especially since, unlike today, not many other players were doing it yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely, opponents were just kind of looking at me sideways when I was getting ready to shoot,\u201d Horford said.<\/p>\n
But the biggest push came, perhaps unwittingly, from his own teammate Kyle Korver, a knockdown shooter who shot an unfathomable 47.2 percent from 3 in that 2013-14 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t say much, but he literally one time he was like, \u2018Hey, your shot looks good. Keep shooting it. When you\u2019re open, shoot it,\u2019\u201d Horford said. \u201cJust him saying that helped me tremendously. He had no idea the impact that had on me confidence-wise.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then, sure enough, in the game, I think the first time I made it, the whole bench just kind of lost it. Everybody went crazy. It was one of those things that it was like, oh, OK, I\u2019m doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Al](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260601-Al-Horford-Mike-Budenholzer-scaled-e1780286648737.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Al Horford started shooting 3s at Mike Budenholzer\u2019s urging and with encouragement from teammate Kyle Korver. (Jason Getz \/ USA Today)<\/p>\n
So, let\u2019s talk about Atkinson, Budenholzer and those Hawks teams, because they were involved in a crucial moment in that process: the 2014 first-round series between Atlanta and Indiana.<\/p>\n
It was still early days in the big man 3-point revolution; Horford only had 10 career 3s to his name when that series began and was out with a pectoral injury.<\/p>\n
Facing the top-seeded Indiana Pacers and the towering rim protector Roy Hibbert, the underdog, 38-win Hawks came up with the idea of having all their big men launch 3s.<\/p>\n
Atlanta took 230 3s in seven games, a jaw-dropping total for that time. No team took more than 26.6 per game in the 2013-14 regular season or more than a third of its shots from 3, but the Hawks took 41.6 percent of their field goals against Indiana from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n
Even more notable was who shot them: 27 from Paul Millsap, 31 from Mike Scott, 25 from Pero Anti\u0107. Those three were the Hawks\u2019 frontcourt rotation.<\/p>\n
Scott, in particular, took half his shots in the series from 3 as a small-ball five, and the impact was phenomenal: Hibbert, the 7-2, 280-pound Defensive Player of the Year runner-up because of his size and rim protection, was a fish out of water against pick-and-pops.<\/p>\n
Hibbert played 12 minutes in Games 5 and 6 as Atlanta\u2019s spacing rendered him ineffective. While Indiana survived the series, teams rapidly copied what the Hawks were doing. Within three years, Hibbert was out of the league.<\/p>\n
Which takes us to the half of this that people don\u2019t really talk about: The big man 3-point revolution also changed entire lives on defense, rendering the plodding big men of yore virtually unplayable. Now, big men had to slide their feet at the 3-point line.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were taught your entire life to run back to the rim,\u201d Love said. \u201cYou have to load up for guys like Giannis (Antetokounmpo) all the way to (Jalen) Brunson. So you have a guy that\u2019s 6-11, putting pressure downhill, or Brunson who\u2019s always trying to get into the paint and play off two (feet). And you find yourself looking, trying to help, and he\u2019s pivoting and kicking out for a 3 for Towns. You kind of have to pick your poison. That\u2019s why it\u2019s such a luxury having a big that\u2019s able to shoot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Few players made that adjustment better than Horford, who became one of the league\u2019s best switch defenders and still capably moves his feet as he closes in on 40.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that the league was changing, and offensively and defensively things were going to change,\u201d Horford said. \u201cI understood that playing perimeter defense, as a big guy, I was going to have to do those things, and it really became relevant to me in my later years because we went from drop coverage to switching<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like \u2018I\u2019m gonna have to be able to move my feet, hold my own, teams are gonna challenge me\u2019 and that\u2019s how it was for many years, and I started having a lot of success with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sikma noted the combination of IQ and mobility that the modern game was asking from centers. Often it\u2019s been the smart bigs \u2014 Gasol, Horford, Lopez \u2014 who held up the best.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s two parts to it, your physical skills, how well you can move, and then the second thing is how well you anticipate that the danger is over and it\u2019s time to get your secondary responsibility,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lopez, who had to rely on feel more than his feet to become one of the league\u2019s best defenders in Milwaukee, felt like the changes almost forced him to improve.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking at the different ways to cover it, I think it\u2019s made me a better defender, a smarter defender,\u201d Lopez said. \u201cObviously, communication is so key, because you have to be on the same page, otherwise guards and a pop big is going to eat you alive, you know? It\u2019s so fast. But I think it\u2019s definitely made me a better defender.\u201d<\/p>\n
Talking to the veteran players, there was a certain wistfulness in how the game has evolved. It was clear that Lopez, Love and Horford all still relish their rare chances to mash in the paint. Pulling big men out from the middle opens the floor for everyone else, but it also takes away a lot of what they do best.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played my whole life establishing myself in the post and then working my way out,\u201d Love said, but that abruptly changed when he joined up with LeBron James and Cleveland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat adjustment was hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those chances are fewer and farther between now, though.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a flip side to that, too. These same bigs relish the bygone days of banging in the post \u2014 each of these players evinced clear pride in his ability as a post player \u2014 but they also wonder what a problem they would have been if they had come into the league in 2025 and let their perimeter games flourish.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I was shooting eight 3s a game,\u201d Love said, \u201cand the ball was in my hands and the game was played like this? Yeah, I think with my skill set, I could have done a lot of damage.\u201d<\/p>\n
And if Sikma played today, nearly half a century since his rookie season?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I would have to really work on my mobility,\u201d he said. \u201cI would fit as a four as well or not better than a five in this day and age. It\u2019s amazing \u2026 the bigs grow up learning how to handle. Two dribbles was about my limit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole approach has changed as far as skill development. I was a farm boy that played Friday night for the high school team. Now the amount of time that\u2019s spent, it\u2019s so organized. It\u2019s creating more skilled basketball players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Giant skilled basketball players such as Wembanyama and Holmgren. And, like Sikma, they\u2019re continuing to change the big man\u2019s role in the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve gotta be athletic, you\u2019ve gotta be able to move now,\u201d Sikma said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut being 7-5 helps.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs met in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,590,85],"class_list":["post-711627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Hall](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260601-Jack-Sikma-scaled-e1780269880594.jpg\")
<\/p>\n