There are going to be some growing pains that we will have to put up with.Would have been nice if more could have been done last year on this. What we ended up with was a frontcourt that was totally out classed in the ECF.
It doesnt help when, as the coach, your only true Center is Theo Ratliff. If you aren't a big fan of smallball you'd probably be pretty ticked off with the options Joe D set your plate with. This team is flooded with power forwards, undersized ones at that.
As opposed to the Lakers and Celtics who had a stable of productive centers. Yeah Turiaf and PJ Brown, that's the ticket.
They are mature, talented and can bring consistent game throughout the season. The coaches are fall guys for the GMs, who ultimately select the players. White coaches have had historic advantages and this is quickly now being acknowledged as a handicap. Organizational components of an organization is another matter. Creditialism, verbal power, symbolism using the proper framing associations, leadership, grouping talented mesh (no, not mash) networks, comfort with process development and the use of tacit human-all-to-human understand may make you a possible winner. I am sure that JD has acquired a few of these.
So you conveniently leave out 7' Gasol's TRUE low-post presence, and how we were getting killed on the boards by Kendrick Perkins, who is a true 6'10" with a 7' + wingspan. How insightfully honest of you.
No Cloud, I don't leave that out. Those teams don't have any more size and talent in the stable than we do, but their bigs - played big. As the GM all you can do is make changes. As fans we're not pissed because we didn't win a title, we're pissed because we actually have the TALENT and Pieces to win a title, but we consistently get outworked for it. The pieces are and have been here for a while, the work ethic left with the arrival of Flip, ask Ben why HE left!!!!!
I'm not trying to start some kinda war here but if Gasol is such a great low post presence what happened to him in the finals? He is soft as cotton and isn't a good center. Perkins is, as you mention, more of a PF but the guy works hard and boards (like old school Ben Wallace), therefore you can get away with him at center. We can get away with a PF playing center, but they need to play big. The only player we have capable of that is Sheed and he refuses to do it on a regular basis.
Can't it be said that Boston's wings allowed their bigs to play like bigs? I would love to have Sheed 1 on 1 on Perkins (or KG for that matter). At best though they could devote 1/2 their focus to "their" man.
are you speaking to offense or D? Seemed like on D the Celts let Perkins play rover like Ben used to, not forcing him to defend any one person.
Both. Perkins could roam on D because he did not need to focus most of his attention on the "Slow-3" penetrating. He did lose his man a few times when he caught a glimpse of Tay dribbling and broke out laughing. Perkins hurt DET on the O glass because the main priority for DET's bigs was to help their wings contain the C's wings. Fortunately, outside of a major trade it seems they'll be bringing back the same exact group next year. Yes!!!
