Are You Comfortable With Nazr Mohammed As Our Starting Center?

I am not sold on having Nazr start the season as a starter. Haven't we been through this before.

If Webber leaves, which seems to be a given based on recent news coming from the LA & Dallas press that Webber will sign with the Mavericks. We have no backup center.

If this comes to fruition, we are left with only JMax, AJ, Rasheed and McDyess as the bigs. We will have one of the shortest lineups in the league at the PF & Center positions but will be very guard heavy with seven. down

I think that we need to acquire another big man, if McDyess goes with an injury we are screwed.

As it is constructed now. The Pistons are a better rebounding team, than they were last year with C-Webb.

AJ is actually our best rebounder and easily capable of getting 10 + rebounds a game if he gets 30 plus minutes.

Dyess is about as good as AJ but it is not very likely that he will be getting 30 + minutes a game.

The whole question this year for the Pistons is:

How many minutes will AJ get?

That will be determined by how comfortable Flip is with AJ's defense. It is really as simple as that.

If AJ can perform at the defensive end and I don't mean just by blocking shots, but rather by stopping his man, handling switches, staying out of foul trouble etc, then we will win it all. If he can't then we will have to fight to get out of the EC.

Let's look at the list of besy 7 footers: Dirk, Shaq, and Yao.

Duncan, KG, and many other very good players are just under 7 feet just like Sheed.

So it's not like the Pistons need a great 7 footer. The Pistons won't need to worry about Yao because I am pretty sure Houston won't be in the Finals next season. Dirk is a 7 footer, but he plays outside. The Pistons won't have huge problems with Dirk if they meet in the Finals. Finally Shaq is not the same player he used to be. Nazr and the rest of the big guys should be able to keep Shaq from taking over games in the playoffs.

Nazr is crap and a waste of bench and cap space. Had we not signed him to that absolutely ridiculous contract, we would have been able to move him by now. That money should have been kept and used to actually bring in someone talented, even if it wasn't at the center position.

The Nazr signing was equivalent to drafting Mateen Cleaves. Something the ownership could pass off as a solution, but would in no way be successful.

We still have another couple of months to grab someone via trade before then. However at this point we have to be satisfied since that is all we have. Even if C-webb manages to resign with the Pistons, Flip still needs to play both he and Narz until AJ or whomever can step in and take over the 5. The lack of or lmited results from the position will probably result in another midseason aquisition for the center spot.

The signing of Lloyd Vaught and Eric Leckner were a lot worse than the signing of Nazr. Nazr as limited as he is can still do some things fairly well. When we got Vaught and Leckner they were the shell of what they used to be and were more worthless than Nazr.

Geez how could I have forgotten about him?

Answer: Very easily.

Like what? Please do name what Mohammed can do well. I am all ears. And oh by the way, padding his rebound stats by never getting back on defense-that I will not count as a plus for him.

I did not say "well". I said "fairly well" which is not as good as well.

He has a fairly decent shooting touch (career FG% 48%) for a backup center and he can rebound fairly well. I don't think getting defensive rebounds has anything to do with never getting back on defense, in fact just the opposite.

Defensive Rebounds
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Dyess career average per 40 minutes = 7.1
Mohammed career average per 40 minutes = 7.4

As a starting center, I agree is pretty bad, but as a backup center he has certain assets that make him serviceable when you don't have a better player like Dyess.

I would say Mohammed is a horrible first string center, a not quite passable second string center and a passable 3rd string center. He is however, not worth $5 plus million a year, more like $1.5 to $2.0 million a year.

Antonio McDyess Statistics - Basketball-Reference.com

Nazr Mohammed Statistics - Basketball-Reference.com

Not to be unpolite. I am just trying to have a conversation. But surely you understand its offensive rebounds you get by not getting back on defense.

On the defensive end, you pad your rebounding stats by never, ever going over to help, but rather just go for the rebound everytime. Mohammed only gets good rebounding stats because he ignores all other parts of the game. I will give you that he can hit a short outside shot ok. But geez, not that good. Not good enough to excuse him from getting exactly zero points posting up against a center for a whole season.

Now, the rest of this post right here is right for the most part. Not a starting center. A rather poor 2nd string center. Worth 2 million? Questionable in my opinion.

An F is an F whether you get 50% or 35%...you still fail.

Play Nazr about 25 minutes a game and work in others, until somebody steps up to take the minutes. If not...........play small ball...........