Which is rarer, pure greatness or a great center? This question came up after Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel posted the vexing question in anticipation for the Cleveland Cavaliers-Orlando Magic game on Thursday night. Essentially the article was asking what is more valuable to a championship team, a player with pure greatness like LeBron James or a player with an incredible set of skills for a true center?

I began this question by looking at the obvious, height. LeBron is 6 foot 8 and Howard is 6 foot 11. However people in general over the height of 6 foot 4 are such a small portion of the population that the only verifiable charts I found were for the population of the United States broken down by age and the ceiling was a bit short at 6 foot 4.

Basically, tall people are rare and tall people with enough balance to run down a court for 40 minutes a game and turn with lightening quickness (or penetrate with a crab dribble) are supremely rare. The basic thought among the team builders is that a center with All Star skills is simply so rare he is to be chosen above any other player when building a team.

The height and size allow the player to get easy baskets close to the rim and allow the team to protect the easiest part of the court on the end with game changing defense. Let’s face it. It is much more difficult to hit 50 percent of your midrange jump shots than finish even 50 percent of your layups. With a big man like Howard, teams will struggle to finish 40 percent of their interior baskets.

King James is not just a wing player. He is a powerful player built like a football player, but with a basketball mentality. He also qualifies for the Jordan-exception. Experts may like to say that 7 of the last 10 championships have been won by teams with dominate players in the middle. Shaq and the Los Angeles Lakers and the Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs have dominated this last decade.

Meanwhile stupendous guards like Kobe and Steve Nash have come up championship-less when they have no dominant player in the post.

Still, Lets not forget that Michael Jordan (listed at 6 foot 6, but I believe he was really closer to 6 foot 4) was the single greatest force in the NBA during the ‘90s. He won six championships in eight seasons. This was a decade with a young Shaq, a Dream Machine Hakeem Olajuwon, a great defending and shooting Patrick Ewing, the Admiral David Robinson, and Alonzo Mourning. Those are five truly great centers with good supporting casts that could not overcome Jordan’s pure greatness (and his supporting cast).

Even Schmitz notes in his article that NBA great Bill Walton (a center himself) will take such greatness at any position. On a side note Walton talks about MJ as an example yet I remember him exclusively picking any team but the Bulls each championship year because the Bulls had no real serviceable big man.

Anyway, I have to agree. James already took a Cavs team to the NBA Finals. True they came out of the height of the Leastern Conference moniker and the Spurs made them look like an unprepared malnourished team talent wise, but still James took a team with very little help to the big series already.

If you give Howard and James two guys who can play at least near All Star levels then I have to give the edge to James because he is simply so transcendent as a player.

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