We have been in an age of specialization in the NBA for a while now. Regrettably, this specialization has hurt the center position more than any other. We went from talking about basketball players to talking about a one, a two, a three, a four or a five. Basketball has become a game played by people who do a limited number of things. It's only getting worse through over-coaching at one extreme and under-coaching at the other. Another problem is that many young, talented players don't even go to college anymore. Imagine if Tyson Chandler had gone to Duke or if Eddy Curry had attended Kansas or if Amare Stoudemire had gone to Arizona.

A Vote For Vlade

Divac would've been a good guard, too. Who is the second-best center in the league? After Shaquille O'Neal, Vlade Divac is without question the most skilled and complete center in the league right now. In the early 1980s, the NBA made a distinct change in what it was looking for in players. Teams started to look at athletes who had measurable physical skills but no real basketball ability. All you needed was size, strength, leaping ability and power. Most of the other centers in the league now were recruited to the game just because they were big, not because they could necessarily play the game. These guys are products of the ever-present optimism of coaches who think they can teach a brick wall to become a good basketball player. Around draft time these guys are referred to as "projects." But Divac grew up in an environment where all players were totally skilled. He is a complete player who happens to be big. Think of Shawn Bradley, Manute Bol, Michael Olowokandi ... an endless list. Divac is the antithesis of these guys. But Vlade can pass, think, shoot and defend. He can catch the ball and he can move. His offense is extremely imaginative. He has limitations, yes, but he is one of my favorite players because he plays a thinking man's game. You can tell he understands basketball when you watch him play. He'd be a terrific basketball player if he were 6-foot-4. The same was true of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Hakeem Olajuwon. Divac does not have the exquisite physical skills of the legendary centers. But the position has completely changed. Center used to be the glamour position, the position that everyone wanted to play. Center is also the easiest position from which to dominate the game. Now it seems that Shaquille O'Neal is scaring everybody off. Imagine how good a center Kevin Garnett could be? Rasheed Wallace? Tim Duncan? They all claim they are forwards, and to me forward is the hardest position from which to dominate the game.

There has also been a cultural change in which the top players are unwilling to recognize the advantage of great teachers and of being part of a team. To be an outstanding center you have to be on a great team. For the ball to be brought to you requires a great amount of organization, discipline and team structure.

This change can be traced back to when Michael Jordan took over the league in the early 1990s. The game went from a passing game to being played off the dribble. While everybody was trying to be like Mike, they totally missed his other great strengths: the team game, the complete skill package and the dedication to physical fitness.

So where is the next great center? I have no idea. It's a totally unanswerable question right now. While Hakeem Olajuwon had as great a physical package as anyone, he worked relentlessly on developing a skill game. Hakeem never played basketball as a kid so he never had the chance to learn the game as a small person, as most of the great centers did. So Hakeem studied film of guards to develop moves and footwork. He did not rely solely on power. His footwork eventually rivaled some of the greatest players of all time, not just centers.

I don't see that kind of dedication to improvement, or to a total game, in any of the young centers right now. Today's centers take the attitude of "I'll just shoot" or "I'll just rebound" or "I am just going to be a screener" or "I am a shot blocker." It's just tall guys doing one or two things. Where is the creativity or imagination? Where is the leadership that comes from loving to play the game or loving the competition? But that's what you get when your center is only there because he is tall and some coach told him "I'll teach you the game and I'll make you millions."

There are candidates for the next great center, I suppose. Zydrunas Ilgauskas has potential but he can't stay healthy. I am not a big fan of Michael Olowokandi. He doesn't like basketball. He's like Shawn Bradley. He's playing for the money. And there has never been a great basketball player who did it for the money.

It's easier to talk about great players than great players by position. One of the problems is that today's players spend critical years of their lives, say from 16 to 22 roughly, worrying about money, shoe contracts and endorsements as opposed to working on their game.

The greatest gift we received at UCLA from John Wooden was that he taught us how to learn. He gave us a foundation and a structure from which we could develop. We practiced relentlessly on footwork drills, shooting drills and moves. We did it constantly, endlessly. But these guys today who skip college and go straight to the NBA end up sitting on the bench, often for years. Kwame Brown wasted last year. You don't learn to play by watching. Forget about practices because NBA practices are geared toward the stars anyway (who actually need to rest but that's another story). So Brown did some nice traveling last year and saw the country, but his basketball game progressed little. Now he's a year older; lost and wasted time, the bane of my existence.

I do see a little hope that we are getting away from the big stiffs. The importance of skilled play is returning with the introduction of the zone defense. To beat the zone defense you need mobility, passing and shooting -- things that a lot of today's centers do not have.

Why was this rule change so long in coming?

Bill Walton, who is an NBA analyst for ESPN, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.