Pick your center (poll)

[Joe Mama]

I've been pushing to draft Okafor, but I never believed he would be a full time center. Still Ben Wallace isn't much taller...

I read somewhere today that some unknown person (we hear a lot from this guy this time of year) who has personally seen Okafor measured said he is exactly 6'8 1/4" in socks. I think most of Wallace's teammates would say that's about an inch taller than Big Ben.

Joe

 

[Goldfield]

I read somewhere today that some unknown person (we hear a lot from this guy this time of year) who has personally seen Okafor measured said he is exactly 6'8 1/4" in socks. I think most of Wallace's teammates would say that's about an inch taller than Big Ben.

Joe

I would also think Big Ben would be damn good even if he was an inch shorter...

 

[Errntknght]

"Sure, there are problems--for scrub players, you can pretty much throw +/- out the window. However, the Warriors used Dampier pretty much the same way the Suns are planning to use him, and it seems clear that he wasn't helping to prevent them from being a lousy team when he was on the court."

The idea of +/- stats is to find lineups that work well together, that is to say, lineups for which the whole is better than the sum of the parts. For that it is a good tool, though there are always sample size considerations. and it doesn't make a lot of sense to compare two lineups which were intentionally used in different game situations. Applying +/- stats to individuals is a whole different ball of wax - to begin with the underlying assumption of using it for individuals is that each of them is represented by a single number which is the same regardless of who he is playing with on the floor! Even if that were true, computing those values from the information available is difficult and individual +/- scores are particularly bad at it because guys playing time is not scattered over a large enough variety of lineups.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Joe, If Shaq was 60lbs heavier than Bosh (who is 210) my compairison is good.

Shaq was very slender(compaired to now) in college & his first year in the NBA. Bosh has that same frame "type". I am not saying he will be the size of shaq, I am saying he will become a pretty big body when all is said & done. I would no be suprised if he added 50-60lbs of good bulk in the next 5 years. If he does that he will be a very dominant center IMO.

shaq was never "slender." i met him briefly during the summer after his junior year (i think). it was when he was in nyc to collect the tanqueray amatuer athlete award. by comparison to his current 350+ lbs you might say "slender" but not by any other measure. he was an immense man-child back then.

bosh will not fill out in a similar manner to shaq. they don't have similar body types. bosh is much more similar in frame to garnett.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

These are the two things that would bother me about the Suns signing Dampier--I mean, aside from the possibility he would start dogging it as soon as his name was affixed to the dotted line:

1. His game is in the paint, which means that the Suns would have to try and run their offense with both sides of the post clogged by their starting big men; and

2. Even last year, his big, impressive, borderline-All-Star year, the Warriors were a better team when he wasn't on the floor. When you're the NBA's best offensive rebounder and your team is still better off with you on the bench, that has to raise a big red flag over the rest of your game, doesn't it?


Anyway, I still think that Dampier won't opt out this year. He needs to put up one more year of solid numbers for everybody to forget what all the fuss was about, and he'll be handsomely compensated for doing so if he stays with the Warriors.

A new coach may spell trouble for Damp if he stays, though.

he's put up solid numbers before, just not as good as this year. it's not like he was a total surprise this year. also, he will DEFINITELY opt out. even average centers get waaaaaaaaay overpaid, and by today's definition of "center" he's above average.

 

[Joe Mama]

shaq was never "slender." i met him briefly during the summer after his junior year (i think). it was when he was in nyc to collect the tanqueray amatuer athlete award. by comparison to his current 350+ lbs you might say "slender" but not by any other measure. he was an immense man-child back then.

bosh will not fill out in a similar manner to shaq. they don't have similar body types. bosh is much more similar in frame to garnett.

That sounds about right. Except I believe Bosh has narrow shoulders.

Joe Mama