NBA centers are some of the most physically imposing athletes on the planet. They usually stand at least 6 feet 10 inches tall with arms and legs that are longer than some teenagers’ entire bodies. Having a dominant center at the forefront of your team is a practice that has gotten less popular in today’s NBA, thanks to the rise of versatile power forwards and non-stop three-point shooting, but these giants are almost mythical in how they ruled the game in the league’s early years.
We’ve made our selections for the greatest centers to ever play in the NBA, using a combination of stats, career accomplishments, legacy and advanced metrics used by the NBA stat keepers at Basketball-Reference.com as of January 2019 to rank them in order of greatness. Where did your favorite big man end up?
3Jack Sikma (1978-1991)
Arguably the greatest center to not be enshrined in the Hall of Fame, Jack Sikma dominated the paint with the Seattle SuperSonics and Milwaukee Bucks during his career. This big blondie averaged 15.6 points and 9.8 rebounds per game in a career that included seven All-Star Game appearances and an NBA title. Sikma was a great shooter, sinking about 85 percent of his free throws, which made him even more dangerous than other centers. Unlike other big men, Sikma was also nearly unbreakable, playing at least 80 games in 10 out of his 14 seasons in the NBA.
