In the late 1990’s, the NBA was hit with a new wave of innovation with the advent of the stretch four, which forced defenses into areas they had never had to worry about before with extra shooters on the court.
Now that floor spacing and shooting talent are more prevalent than ever, with almost every offense playing 4-out or even 5-out at times, the novelty (and therefore peak effectiveness) of one-dimensional stretch bigs has more or less stagnated.
Teams are now employing lineups featuring combo forwards in place of big men in order to take advantage of the often-shoddy perimeter defensive skills of the stretch bigs.