Turn the clock back roughly 12-15 years. Every expectation that you have for a modern NBA center is something you should throw out the window. Some of it is modern stat-flation, but a bigger part is that suddenly, overnight, the center position looked to have died.

Marc Gasol at this point does not shoot threes, but that doesn’t stop him from being a floor spacer compared to other bigs. Until his DPOY season in 2013, he hadn’t made an All-Defensive team (and never would again). There’s not really a consensus that he’s quite an all-world defender. He averages 14-8. And yet, for a lot of people, Marc Gasol was pretty justifiably the best center in the NBA.

If you put up a double double, you were a good starting center in the league, no other context needed. If you put up 16-10, you were a revelation.

After 60 NBA years dominated by centers, suddenly, in the late 2000s, Dwight Howard was the only true elite talent at that position. Then, when Dwight started a precipitous decline due to back issues, an open void emerged. And, I swear, for a brief time, in stepped Anderson Varejao.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ0jxFOLue8

Prime Anderson Varejao: An elite center in the league

In my mind, it helps Varejao’s case here that nobody thinks of his name when talking about underrated bigs. When people do think of Varejao, rarely, he’s remembered as the young Brazilian player with the floppy hair, a hustle guy with young LeBron in Cleveland, or when he was the first ever “pure flopper” archetype after a series of injuries in Golden State.

But his best years were in between. At 27 years old, he broke out a little bit in LeBron’s last year before The Decision - averaging 9-8, making an All-Defensive team and a run at the sixth man of the year award, where he finished third.

In 2011, in just 32 games, he took another step, nearly averaging a double double and being maybe the only positive player on a deeply depleted roster. When he got hurt, the Cavs lost 26 straight.

But the next two years are the interesting ones, where something very strange happened. Briefly, and suddenly, at an age (late 20s) where most NBA players have peaked, he dramatically expanded his skillset.

Suddenly, he was not just a hustle guy. He may well have been the best rebounder in the league. He was almost as good as the best passing bigs in the league (adjust for early 2010s center expectations). He was one of the more prolific scorers at the position (again, adjust). And he couldn’t really shoot looking back on it, but he had an ugly midrange shot that went in sometimes, and that genuinely stacked him well against any of the centers in the East.

In 2011-2012, Varejao averaged 11-11. In came Kyrie Irving, who immediately belonged to a class of point guards that he never really left. In his early years in the league, there was real expectations that the sky was the limit - that maybe one day he could make a run at an MVP, or be an all-time great. It never happened, but if you watched him you could imagine why.

The next year, Kyrie was an all-star, and about as good as any point guard in the East. And for 25 games, before Varejao’s inevitable injury, it was 1A, 1B.

Varejao’s numbers, 14.1 points, 14.5 rebounds, 5.5 offensive rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.5 steals stand out a bit today. But not like they did in 2012.

He was the best rebounder in the league - Dwight Howard ended up winning the rebounding title with an average of 12.4. He was by far the best offensive rebounder in the league.

It’s hard to explain to a modern fan again, but his passing, and his assist total were genuinely elite. He was still a strong defender.

It wasn’t the product of unsustainable shooting, or anything like that. Albeit on a terrible team, for a brief period of time, Varejao was an absolute monster.

He opened his campaign with 9 points, 9 assists and 23 rebounds, 12 of them offensive. Against the Big 3 Heat, he had 20-20, nearly leading an upset.

Then, somewhere in there he rattled off 15+ rebounds in ten straight games.

As of very recently, and I’m not sure if this is still true, there were two players in NBA history to have at least 10 points, 15 rebounds, and 5 offensive rebounds in ten consecutive games. Those are 3x MVP and six time rebounding champ Moses Malone, and Anderson Varejao.

For one more cherry-picked stat, those scoring, rebounding and assist numbers hadn’t been matched since 80s Charles Barkley https://www.fearthesword.com/2015/8/6/9099103/highlights-from-the-post-decision-pre-return-era?

Ended early due to his injury in late December, the 2013 Anderson Varejao All-Star campaign was a real thing https://www.fearthesword.com/2012/12/6/3732814/anderson-varejao-all-star

Look at who ended up making it in the East. There was Brook Lopez, an injury replacement, averaging 19-6, but he was then actually considered one of the worst defensive bigs in the league, and was on a disappointing team.

There was Tyson Chandler, an elite defender on a Knicks team enjoying the best season of the Melo era. He still was not a clear all-star, averaging 10-10.

Joakim Noah had started to establish himself as an elite defender, averaging 11-11-4-2 blocks.

Before the injury, there had been Varejao. Averaging 14-14, the best rebounder in the league, probably the second best playmaking big in the East behind Noah, a strong defender and enough of an offensive game to compare well to the centers of the time.

He might have been snubbed from the game, because the Cavs were bad enough that coaches may not have wanted them to get two all-stars, but we would have deserved it.

Prime Anderson Varejao is underrated because nobody would think to call him underrated. There are many people who watched parts of his NBA career who would not describe him as a good player. When he came back, he was a fraction of the same player. After another round of injuries, he was terrible.

But if you caught some 2012 Anderson Varejao, when he (even dubiously) put himself in the same sentence as Moses Malone and Charles Barkley, you would know that he belonged alongside some of the best centers in the league.