Back in the 1980s, the game was a lot simpler. NBA teams were guaranteed to have a big man around the basket on offense. And that meant the defense would have a giant patrolling the paint. We didn’t see many teams have centers venture away from the paint.



The most extreme version of this might have been Mark Eaton. For 11 seasons, the 7-foot-4 Eaton stood at the rim for the Utah Jazz and blocked shot after shot. The human mountain swatted 456 shots in his third season, the 1984-85 campaign. At the time, it was the most blocked shots in NBA history. Nearly 35 years later, it still stands. Nobody has even cracked 400 blocks in a season and nobody ever will.



It’s as unbeatable a record in the NBA as Wilt Chamberlain’s 50.4 points per game in 1961-62 (although maybe James Harden’s insane streak of scoring can let us daydream about that one). Blocking shots doesn’t happen in high volume anymore. Since the league changed its defensive rules in...