Is the Center Position Dying in Michigan HS Basketball?

Position-less basketball is all the rage, starting with the NBA and trickling down even to youth levels. But the new fad has left one position in the dust: the center.

Basketball players need to be versatile in today’s game. Bigs need to stretch the court and shoot threes. Guards need to be able to rebound and do almost everything on the court.

In Michigan high school basketball, point guards and combo guards have ruled the roost for decades, but now teams sometimes put five of them on the court at once.

Gone are the days of the rugged post player dominating touches like Xavier Tillman (6-8), Amir Williams (6-10), Joshua Southern (6-10), Arthur Johnson (6-9) and former Mr. Basketball Derrick Nix (6-9). Those types of big-bodied post players are becoming extinct.

But why?

One reason I’ve noticed is that Michigan high school coaches play the kids who are most ready to win right now. Post players take a little longer to develop whether its poor hands, troublesome footwork, or the inability to stay out of foul trouble, post players take extra time to be court ready.

It seems like Michigan high school coaches don’t always have the patience to take some lumps developing centers any more, so teams feature four guards and maybe one 6-5 forward to do the dirty work.

The post touch has become a lost art to the point where it’s almost extinct. The first reason for that is that “bigs” are now being taught at an early age to be more versatile. Take Joey Angok (6-9) for example. The Forest Hills Northern star is huge, he might be taller than 6-9, in fact, but he never gets a post touch. He’s a good shooter so he essentially plays on the wing. He can also handle the ball. He’s basically a 6-9 guard, which is what the modern game asks of him.

Grand Ledge’s Braden James (6-9) does get some post touches, but even he is built more like a wing or forward and has the skills most colleges are looking for as a “stretch-4”.

Same with Byron Center’s Camden Karel (6-9), one of the best players in the state as a Bowling Green signee. Karel can shoot and dribble and he’s ferocious on the offensive boards. But he rarely, if ever, gets a true post touch.

Then there’s Detroit King's Tyler Hunter (6-9), who looks like a center from the past. As a sophomore, he’s still waiting his turn for more minutes on a top-15 team. But even when he plays, you can tell he’s being asked to drift further outside and hit shots - not dominate the post and get easy buckets.

Is the center position really dead?

Like all fads in sports, position-less basketball will likely eventually subside. Having a big-bodied post player get easy buckets is just too alluring to completely take out of the game. Centers still play a vital role in college hoops - just ask Purdue and UConn.

Having a great point guard is so important in high school basketball that it appears sometimes coaches have lost the patience with centers and focus on playing small lineups that have more versatility on the court.

I can’t say I blame them - but it would be nice to see the post touch, post moves and a dominant center position work its way back into the game.