Are You Comfortable With Nazr Mohammed As Our Starting Center?

Here is a link to all the centers in the NBA.
NBA - Players - Yahoo! Sports

Around 150 players are listed as a c or fc and I would take Nazr over about 120 of them. Some people around here are just plain bitter or worse ignorant about who is out there. Remember its not like we traded Big Ben for Nazr he was the best available FA at the time.

When did Nazr win a starting job?

I'll be surprised if he starts whether we add another player or not. Dice or Max are more likely starters.

Abe, now show me one other center on that list that played 800 minutes last season, at center, and failed to score a bucket over the opposing center even once in the post. And show me just one on that list who can't push Mohammed out from under the basket easily.

I couldn't agree more. Nazr is FIRMLY on my "trade bait" list, but I would rather have him than about 120-140 folks on that list. Especially given what it would take to trade for some of em. In fact, I would go so far as to call Nazr an excellent choice for a 5th big.

He's a whole helluva lot better than Darko fuh sho!

Say What??

A championship this year is squarely on the shoulders of a 20 year old?? That hasn`t played a full season yet.

You have got to be kidding............

That is what you said.

So I talked about defensive rebounds which you don't pad by not getting back on defense. Your statement obviously goes to padding offensive rebounds, which I didn't talk about in my response.

Now if you want to talk about padding defensive rebounds like you did in your response to me. I agree that one can pad defensive rebounds by doing what you said.

I am just not convinced that Nazr gets rebounds to intentionally pad his numbers as you seem to imply at the sacrifice of team play.

The fact that he doesn't get back from offense to defense and doesn't help out is a sign of one of his biggest faults that I have pointed out for over 6 months and that is that he has very poor foot speed and movement.

I just don't think that he doesn't do what we agree he doesn't do because he intentionally wants to pad his rebounding numbers like you believe he is doing. I think it is just his lack of foot speed and movement caused by physical limitations in those areas.

No necessarily.

If you get an "F" on the mid-term but get a 50 rather than a 35 you will be able to raise your final grade for the year by getting a lower number on the Final if you had a 50 on the mid-term as opposed to a 35.

Its possible Joe D. would have made more of an effort to keep Big Ben if Nazr was not available at the time, but he didn't make the effort because he didn't think that Ben was worth the $5 million plus more a year than it would take to sign Nazr.

So that is like a trade, or more precisely an "opportunity cost trade off"

I have to reluctantly admit that although Nazr(or as one guy in another form spelled it Nazi) is no Bison Dele he still is better than some of the bench riding stiffs in the NBA. That's not high praise but it does speak to the fact that Nazi is probably at least on the level of a somewhat solid NBA backup.


The Bulls had guys like Will Perdue playing center in their glory years so we should be able to get by with Nazi.

I ain't kidding.

He is the swing guy. 20 years old or not.

If he does great, and by great I mean he averages a double double!!

He is definitely capable of it given 30 + minutes a game.

We do not have anyone else on this team capable of averaging a double double given any amount of minutes a game.

You don't think he is capable of averaging a double double given the minutes. Fair enough. Let us wait and see.

If you don't think by him averaging a double double is going to make us a far better team than if he can't play defense and sits on the bench and we give those minutes to JMax and Nazr along with more minutes to Sheed you are mistaken.

Remember, I did not say that couldn't win without him I just said that it would be struggle to get to the finals if he doesn't get the minutes. That doesn't mean I don't think that we can't win if he doesn't get the minutes, but just that if he earns the minutes and gets them then we coast into the Finals and have a good chance to win it all.

I think dumars made the best deal he felt comfy making that will would not handcuff the the team for years. I think I remember him saying he would never make a deal that would ruin the abilty of the team to be competitive in the years to come and a bad ben deal would do just that. he is an all or nothing type player and his legs arn't getting any younger. I wanted him back but I felt any deal at more then about 8 million a year would end up being a contract that would kill us in the future. I still think chicago overpayed and they will pay for it.

As stated Nazi is a glue type player, one who fills a hole and won't win you any games but he won't lose you tons of games ever. Everybody says we can do better but very few name names, who is out there last summer we could have gotten for his money that you want? that would have been better for us? I can't name them...

Sorry.

I don't think he is a Nazi.

I think that he is a Muslim.

I agree with alot of what you have to say, I don't think he should play 30 mins a game just for the fact I don't want him to hit the rookie wall to hard, come play off time i want him getting tons of mins... and I think that nazr should get lot of early season mins to keep the kid fresh but as the season goes on he should get more and more mins and the "important" mins for sure.

I am scared though of the coach understanding how to work him into the role on this team. he's going to either not play him enough, or overplay him and burn him out.

Yeah...you're right. He was pretty much the only halfway decent big man left when Ben left so we were stuck with him.

I agree. I am just trying to stay positive. It helps me get excited about the new season. If I am negative now about our possibilities, why get excited about the new year?

Yes, I may be pumping him a lot. But, why not?

1. He is talented
2. He is young
3. Our players and coaches say he has tremendous potential
4. And he ours, i.e., a Detroit Piston, not a Seattle whatever. Seattle whatever, has plenty of fans to pump their players, they don't need my help.

Could we have beaten the Bulls with Nazz?
This whole thread is making me itch. I think he's right for the half court game we play. Clean up the mess under the hoop and give the ball back to the guards so they can shoot again.

As we sit now, this is the way it's going to play.

You definitely have some sort of nasty fixation. Unfortunately, he could go away and you still have a team that will have a very difficult time making it out of the East playoffs. Remember, he was a non-issue last year and again will provide a valuable backup which might follow the same course.

Do you honestly think AJ is going to get 30+ MPG?

I am not hating on him, I love the guy just like everyone else, however, 30 MPG, please.

There may be some games when he plays 30 Min, but to avg that is not going to happen IMO.

I would love to see him play that amount of time; 20 MPG seems more like it, and that may come late after he produces early in the season.