In the nineties power forward meant POWER forward. Today with what fans expect out of the position, we may as well call it Finesse Stretch Sort Of Power Forward. With how the game has evolved we expect our 4’s to be able to stretch the floor by hitting mid range shots (and three’s), create their own offense in the low post, clean up the boards, and protect the rim a bit as well. This is a tall task for guys who grew up being bigger than all the other kids, simply physically abusing them in the paint. With that said, the top of this list has those guys who “do it all” and play in the style of my re-labeled version of the power forward position. The traditional power forward isn’t dead, but if you wanna be a top tier power forward, you better be able to hit a J. The good thing; not everyone is born a shooter. It can be taught, crafted, and perfected. For players, the challenge on offense becomes finding the right balance of leaking out for an open shot, posting up down low, and working the weak side to clean up missed looks.
Here’s how I break down the games top power forwards.
1. Kevin Love – Minnesota Timberwolves (kind of, sort of, perhaps, I suppose)
Love is the top power forward, because he’s the perfect combination of everything listed above. Able to hit the three ball at a high clip, while still dominating the glass on both ends. His passing ability will be shown on a national level for the first time since his college days (I mean, come on… we all know he’s a LeBron teammate). His ability to laser outlet passes like a right fielder throwing home will be displayed every time they play on TV. LeBron will make it an instinct to cherry pick. Once these guys are in sync together it will be more beautiful to watch than LeBron and Wade ever were. But… but… but Love’s never led his team to the playoffs, he can’t be the number one power forward. Yes he can. If the T’ Wolves ever had a competent GM he could have had actual talent around him, based solely on their botched draft picks. Rubio AND Flynn were taken over Steph Curry (while literally EVERY pg selected after Flynn in the first round was better). The Wesley Johnson pick could have been the Wolves pairing Love with Cousins to create easily the best front court in the league. What I’m saying is, stop underrating Love’s ability and stop underrating Minnesota’s incompetency. They had every opportunity to build a contender. Instead they’ll see Love depart and start the process over of trying to build around a guy with potential in Wiggins. Love is the game’s best power forward, demonstrating every desirable attribute from the position, and then some.
2. LaMarcus Aldridge – Portland Trailblazers
Aldridge gets the nod at number 2. His mid range game is everything needed in today’s NBA from your 4, and he has great low post skill. Before you start jibber jabbing to yourself about how Blake should be above him, consider the following. Aldridge peaked last season offensively and turned in his best rebounding performance of his career. His field goal percentage was lower than Blake, because he’s forced to use him mid range game much more often, while Griffin gets looks around the basket and his mid range game is usually uncontested. Additionally, Griffin’s numbers get inflated by playing with the best point guard in the game (did that need spoiler tags for an upcoming segment?). As good of a young player Lillard is becoming, imagine Aldridge’s numbers playing with Chris Paul. Teams would be served a nice heaping dose of fundamentals, and Aldridge would improve his field goal percentage significantly, because more of his mid range shots would be uncontested. Aldridge is also a much better defender than Blake and averages more than one less foul per game. The Blazers are on the rise as long as Aldridge commits long term (which he has said he will do). And to think… Aldridge wasn’t even the best BLAZER selected in his respective draft. Oh how this team got screwed by the basketball gods. Luckily, they haven’t been incompetent in the draft like the team above.
3. Blake Griffin – Los Angeles Clippers
Griffin drops to three mostly because his numbers are a bit inflated playing with Paul. Don’t get me wrong, Blake has become much more than just a highlight reel dunker. He is a true superstar. He is a go to player in the post and started to significantly improve his jump shot last season. With the Clippers style of play, Griffin’s ability to hit the open shot will prove crucial. He’s proved that he can do that. To become the best power forward in the game, he needs to take his high post game a step further. If he can add a contested jumper out of the high post to his arsenal, he becomes the game’s best power forward. He would become literally unstoppable with the ability to hit the jumper or drive right past his man from the corner of the free throw stripe. His defense could use some improvement, but guys don’t usually peak defensively this early in their career. We all like to hate on him for his excessive flopping and his stare of death he gives the officials when he gets touched by another player. All this aside, he has potential to steal the top spot in the near future if he can improve on the aspects of games I have discussed.
4. Anthony Davis – New Orleans Pelicans
I toyed with the idea of pushing Blake down to four and having Davis take his spot in the top three, but the idea of an army of pitchforks outside my house waiting to assault me was intimidating. That said, Davis is a once in a generation type of talent. He’s already an elite rim protector. He still has some work to do as a man defender, but would you really expect him to be elite at that two seasons in after only one year at the NCAA level? As a rebounder, he’ll continue to improve and will likely have double-double streaks in the vein of Kevin Garnett of the early 2000’s. Offensively he’s got soft touch on his shot and has a better offensive game two years in than anyone expected. He will need to improve his low post game a bit, but the guy is a fresh 21 years old. He already is well beyond where anyone expected on offense. If you told me that you predicted him to average 20, 10, and 3 blocks in just his second season, then I’d predict that you have a history of being a liar. Seeing where the young star takes his game next season will be exciting. He’s already one of the best power forwards in the game, and could very well become the best of this generation.
5. Tim Duncan – San Antonio Spurs
It hurt me to drop Duncan all the way down to five. The guy just won the NBA championship for the fifth time in his career and at 38 years old he’s showing no signs of slowing down. His numbers have declined slightly as he adjusts his game to play in a 38 year old’s body, but he still nearly averaged a double-double AT 37 YEARS OLD!! His defense is still superb. Duncan really is the guy that refuses to age. Even after a down year statistically in 2011, where it looked like his career could be dwindling, Duncan made proper adjustments to his game to keep the Spurs title chances afloat for another five years. The Spurs will compete for the championship again in 2015 and will likely enter the season as the favorite thanks to their future hall of fame power forward and future hall of fame coach. It may be unfair of me to drop Duncan all the way to five on the argument that we underrate him, because he’s been consistently effective for such a long time. He falls in the rankings, because of the rise of some great young talents, but nothing will tarnish the legacy of this iron man.
6. Serge Ibaka – Oklahoma City Thunder
Ibaka finishes in front of the three guys directly behind him for one reason. Ibaka is in a different world defensively than anyone else on this list. That is not just because he can jump really high and use his impressive wing span to swat shots away. Ibaka took his defense to a new level last season, improving his on the ball defense, his overall defensive awareness, and his defensive positioning on the floor. While being the best defensive player at his respective position is obviously a positive, his offense has improved every year he’s been in the league. Last season he averaged a career high 15.1 points per game while shooting at a consistent clip. He consistently hits open shots and can finish nicely around the rim. His one knock is that there is still room for improvement on creating his own shot, though he has made some progress in those regards. He could use some improvement in the low post, but according to Ibaka that’s not a completely necessary skill for OKC’s style of play. Regardless, his magnificent defense makes him one of the game’s top power forwards.
7. Dirk Nowitzi – Dallas Mavericks
Dirk’s game shows that he’s aging, but he’s still plenty effective scoring the basketball. In the playoffs vs the Spurs his game struggled and he shot just 1 for 12 from three point range. Still, it was a bounce back season for Nowitzki, after a slow and injury plagued 2012-13 campaign in which the Mavs missed the playoffs. At 36 years old, the speed that got Dirk plenty of easy looks right at the basket is gone. He relies more heavily on his arsenal of fakes and footwork in the high post to get his shot off. Luckily he has one of the prettiest high post games in NBA history and is still effective from there. Dirk took a massive pay cut to allow Dallas to give Parsons a horrendous contract which could catapult them to the second round, or could handicap them from any future moves. Either way, it’s become win now mode for the Mavs as their hall of fame power forward reaches the end of his career. We’ll see if Dirk can thrust the Mavericks for one more championship run, because it’ll have to happen soon.
8. Zach Randolph – Memphis Grizzlies
I considered having Randolph a couple spots higher up, but his defense is what hurts his positioning. He plays for a team that is able to effectively mask his poor defense, which was not feasible in New York or Portland, but that’s what stops him from rising up his list. Of course he’s still one of the games best power forwards so lets focus on the positives. Randolph is more of a traditional power forward that scores the majority of his points banging it out in the low post. He’s got sneaky moves down there and uses his size well to jockey for positioning. He’s also effective from the high post with deceiving speed to work his way around his guy and a tremendous ability to hit contested shots. Randolph slid a bit further than where I expected to put him when first thinking up this list, but he’s still one of the greats currently in the league and the Grizzlies were wise to lock him up as he accounts for a high percentage of their offense.
9. Pau Gasol – Chicago Bulls
One of the most captivating moves of the off season was Pau moving to Chicago to join the hopeful resurgent Bulls and create possibly the best front court in all of basketball. Joining Noah in the front court, the Bulls will have the best passing big men in the NBA paired up together. Despite a terrible season for the Lakers, Pau remained effective in the 60 games that he did play, putting up nearly 20 and 11. Dropping Gasol all the way to nine could prove to be vastly underrating him and how he’ll fit in with this Bulls team, but his recent injury history could be a bit of a concern as he missed 55 games in the last two seasons. Gasol had to be the man in LA last season with Kobe out with injury and proved at 33 he was still capable of putting up great numbers, but was unable to push the Lakers to anything more than terrible. Gasol is hardly at fault for that with the terrible roster that surrounded him. With the Bulls he’ll be able to take more of a back seat with a strong team already in place. Thibedeau should be able to get the most out of him defensively, so we’ll see just how good of a defender he can really be balls to the wall.
10. Paul Millsap – Atlanta Hawks
The Hawks signed Millsap at great value last off season and he proved to be a terrific addition. They only got him at a two year deal, so they’ll have to renegotiate if they’re going to keep him past 2015, but I wonder if a behind the scenes wink-wink extension was a part of the deal to nab him at two years. The Hawks just squeezed into the playoffs, but Millsap had limited help with Horford missing most of the season and the rest of the roster being rather weak. Millsap and Horford together should formulate one of the best front courts in the league if they can remain healthy. Millsap earned his first career all star selection last season, although that could be somewhat tainted by the fact that… well… it was in the East. Advanced statistics showed his usage rate take a big leap after the Horford injury. Defensively he ranked well finishing 9th in the league in steals with a keen ability to get into the passing lanes. He’ll continue to be the Hawks best player, but it’ll remain to be seen if a mediocre Hawks team will be enough for him or if he’ll choose to bolt to a contender after this year.
11. Kenneth Faried – Denver Nuggets
12. David West – Indiana Pacers
13. David Lee – Golden State Warriors
14. Derrick Favors – Utah Jazz
15. Thaddeus Young – Philadelphia 76ers
The Manimal is still a beast and turned out the best season of his career last year, playing in all but two games. Now in a contract year in 2015, he will try to make the jump to a 16-10 type of double-double guy to maximize his first non-rookie contract. He’s a beast on the boards and his offensive game is coming along nicely. His mid range J is effective enough, but he’s best when attacking the basket and using his surprising array of post moves. David West took a bit of a backseat offensively for Indiana last season lowering his point total to 14 per contest. He was still one of the few players on that team that could create his own shot. With the Paul George injury look for him to be a valuable chip if the Pacers aren’t in the playoff race and look to build toward a future contender around George. Two of the guys on this list had stat stuffing seasons. David Lee’s 18 and 9 looks great on paper. When you parlay that with the fact that him being on the court is an open invitation for opposing wings to slash to the basket for free points, it’s not so great. With Bogut having a mostly healthy season as the Warriors rim protector, they were able to mask Lee’s defensive inefficiency. Essentially if you can gamble on Bogut to be healthy (history’s not on your side for that bet), then it increases Lee’s value immensely. Young was the other stat stuffer, scoring 18 for one of the worst teams in NBA history. He looks like another candidate to be moved this season and if he plays for a real team (not the T’ Wolves), then we’ll see his real value. Favors is on the verge of becoming the guy that Nets hoped he would when selecting him third in 2010. He nearly averages a double-double and his defense is coming along great, though he still finds himself a bit lost sometimes. Thaddeus Young could be the next Sixer finding a new home. He was the most consistent member of that team (albeit one of the worst teams in NBA history) last year and would be a worthwhile addition to a contender.
16. Markieff Morris – Phoenix Suns
17. Greg Monroe – Detroit Pistons
18. Terrence Jones – Houston Rockets
19. Tristan Thompson – Cleveland Cavaliers
20. Carlos Boozer – Los Angeles Lakers
The next four guys on the list are all born 1989 or later and were drafted between 2010 and 2012. Markieff starts in front of his younger brother Marcus Morris and is primarily used as a floor stretcher, thus allowing the Suns to let Channing Frye walk this off season. Both Morris brothers’ style of play fit nicely with what the Suns are trying to do, but ultimately leaves them without any answer for top tier power forwards. Monroe took a qualifying offer to stay with the Pistons this year for cheap. It’s been proven (especially this off season) that offense gets you paid more than defense does, so if Monroe puts up big statistics again this season he’ll be due a big contact. Monroe has missed only three games in his first four seasons, a good sign for the longevity of the near seven footer. His defense still leaves a lot to be desired which is what allowed him drop down this list. Jones for the Rockets showed some nice flashes in his first season getting real meaningful play time. He frequently finds himself well positioned for put back dunks and often flies through the air to block seemingly open weak side layups. Still his lack of consistency hitting a mid range J and his lack of basketball IQ is what made him the front runner to go from starter to sixth man next season. With the Rockets failed pursuit of Bosh, Jones should remain the starter unless Motiejunas can really impress during camp. Tristan Thompson wouldn’t even be on this list if the Love trade had already went through as he won’t start, but regardless he’ll be a great glue guy off the bench for the Cavs next season. Playing with LeBron will allow him to develop his offensive game further and his defense is already coming along nicely. Boozer would be higher on this list if he played for a playoff team that he could be a major contributor on, but instead he’ll just put up some empty stats for a Lakers team that is sure to miss the playoffs, taking away from Julius Randle’s development. His inadequacy on defense is something a contender can live with if they really need a veteran that can shoot over long forwards, but being stuck in LA will make 2015 a wasted season for Carlos. All aboard the Booze Cruise? Not so much this year.
21. Amir Johnson – Toronto Raptors
22. Nene – Washington Wizards
23. Ersan Ilyasova – Milwaukee Bucks
24. Brandon Bass – Boston Celtics
25. Josh McRoberts – Miami Heat
Amir Johnson could work his way higher up this list as his tremendous defensive positioning is exactly what’s missing from many of the guys above him. The guy knows where to be on the court, blocks about a shot per game, and can be trusted with the duty of defending some of the games top bigs. Nene spent another season missing significant time and hasn’t had a totally healthy season since his days in Denver. His numbers are effective when he plays, but he’s missed about a third of the games in his career mostly due to injury. Ilyasova had a disappointing season for Milwaukee with a significant drop off in his three point shooting (he went from elite at 45% to piss poor at 28%). The drop off in three point shooting can be attributed to a lack of play makers and overall team cohesiveness for the Bucks last season. If Jabari Parker can step in and immediately be the play maker that we think he can be, Ilyasova should be able to return to his 2012 self. Bass is one of those polarizing types that’s a great glue guy for any team, but not a great starter for any team. For the rebuilding Celtics to trot him out as a starter is fine, but you’d rather see his spot go to someone with more upside such as Sullinger. If Bass started for a contending team, fans of said team would be blasting management for not finding an upgrade at the position. That gets him a bad rap, because he’s not meant to be a jack of all trades, but is out there to provide energy, defense, and knock down open looks. McRoberts had his best season yet, becoming a three point threat for the first time in his seven year career. While he’ll round out a nice starting line up that Miami put together despite LeBron leaving, the Heat overpaid him after seeing him provide consistent and high energy minutes against them in the playoffs.
26. Amare Stoudemire – New York Knicks
27. Channing Frye – Orlando Magic
28. Jason Thompson – Sacramento Kings
29. Kevin Garnett – Brooklyn Nets
30. Cody Zeller – Charlotte Hornets
Former Rookie of the Year, Amare Stoudemire has fallen off so much that he’s become nothing more than a valuable expiring contract this season. Making over $23 mill in the 2014-15 season, Stoudemire certainly doesn’t regret signing a contract when he only produced for one season under that contract, but will have to dominate next season to have a chance to even earn a fraction of his previous contract. Even as a superstar, Stoudemire was always a bit one dimensional, and now with his athleticism failing him, what once made him a star has led to his decline. Channing Frye was a polarizing signing for Orlando this off season. After revitalizing his career with a four year stint in Phoenix, he joins the Magic as a stretch power forward. Frye will score some points for the rebuilding Magic, but between him and Vucevic, rim protection will be very limited in Orlando. He defends well in the post, but will be forced to defend closer to the wing when playing against other stretch forwards, where he struggles. Jason Thompson will most likely be the starting power forward in Sacramento, but he’s not even the best at the position on his team. Carl Landry will be used as an energy guy and sixth man for the Kings and will likely push Thompson to the bench in key moments and the fourth quarter. Garnett has started to become a sad story for a late career guy as he enters his twentieth pro season. His final year in Boston he was still successful, and perhaps used too much of his remaining gas as his first season with the Nets was a disaster. His shot was flat, his lateral quickness on defense is gone, and the once formidable dominance that you could see in his eyes became a wary look of an old veteran playing with kids too quick for his game. He won’t be heavily relied on if Lopez comes back healthy with the rise of young big men, Mason Plumlee and stretch 4 Mirza Teletovic. He may be best served playing about 15 minutes per game and saving his energy for one more playoff run as the locker room leader. Finally, Cody Zeller (sorry Zeller bros, I had Tyler as the 30th starting center too), will move into the starting spot with McRoberts headed to Miami. Rookie, Noah Vonleh, will compete with Zeller for this spot in camp, but may still be a bit of a project right now. Zeller will have an opportunity to embrace the role and turn heads and while he showed flashes in his rookie season, he’ll need to bulk up and improve his field goal percentage if he’s going to keep the job.
Look for small forward rankings to be out next Sunday.
Dropping Dimes 
T jones shoulda be higher!!
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