I’m not going to sugar coat this one. Ever since Rudy Gobert took over as the starting center for the Utah Jazz, the front office has struggled to have a reliable backup behind him. And that’s not for lack of effort or prioritization. In fact, the opposite is true. I doubt any team has spent as much money or as many assets on arguably the least important position in basketball.
Let’s start with the financial commitments first. I did a quick back-of-the-napkin calculation on how much money each team spent on the center position last year.