No quality size outside of KG.
Please check out every roster on the NBA team. How many have more quality than Bass, Sullinger and Wilcox supporting up their best big?
Indiana has David West, Ian Mahimi and Hansborough.
Chicago has Boozer, Gibson and Mohammed.
San Antonio has Diaw, Splitter, Blair and Bonner.
Miami has Rashard Lewis, Udonis Haslem and Joel Anthony. Lakers have Pau Gasol, Jordan Hill and Jamison. Atlanta
Horford, Pachulia and Ivan Johnson?
Knicks are rolling out Stoudemire, Thomas, Camby and Sheed.
Philly has Spencer Hawes, Lavoy Allen and Kwame Brown.
The nets have Kris Humphries, Andray Blatche and a couple of struggling Euros.
Orlando is bringing Vucevic, Ayon and Nicholson.
Honestly how many 7fts do you see in the bunch? MOST of these guys are Sullinger's (and Bass') height with less bulk.
How many of these guys have more athleticism than Jared Sullinger? Bass and Wilcox might be the most athletic of the bunch. How many of these guys rebound and block shots better than Bass and Sullinger? Not close to as many as people make out. Our Bigs are perfectly fine above average in fact.
On your list, West, Boozer (not so much anymore, but still better than Bass/Sully), Pau and Horford are major impact players that outstrip the impact of any of our non-KG bigs.
Guys like Splitter, Gibson and Hawes are more useful too.
Bass and maybe Sully qualify as above average back-up 4s in the right situation, but we don't have an above-average starting 4 or an above-average back-up 5 to keep them in their ideal role. And further, our one elite big man can't play much more than 30mpg.
Thus our bigs are only really good when they play with KG.
West is slightly better than Bass and earns a lot more. The other guys are 2nd or 3rd best players on their teams who make 2-3 times as much as Bass. Splitter Gibson and Hawes are NOT more useful. Gibson and Splitter have no offense. Hawes is a poor defender. If you want to pay two hall of famers, a dominant point guard, deep bench, and still want a Horford or Gasol then you're building an All-Star team not an NBA team.
That's kind of like Laker fans saying their weakness is they don't have Iggy instead of Peace, or Heat fans saying their weakness is not having Cp3 instead of Chalmers. No one will be complaining about our size when we play to our full potential. We have enough to win 18.
I think there may be some optimism bias here.
Our PG is 3-6th in the league or so. Very good, but with flaws, and unfortunately his flaws may not mesh well with the team flaws.
SG is a solid notch above replacement level, but probably low-average starter (until Bradley comes back and ONLY IF Bradley plays this whole season as well as he ended last year).
SF is a future hall of famer, but he's definitely on the downslope. Still all-star level, but not all-nba any team level.
PF is either rookie or Bass. Good Bench PF/Sub average starter.
C is KG. Out of position? Future hall of famer for sure, but noticeably down a couple notches from what earned him the hall. Very good D. Really regressing on offense. Like Pierce, still all-star level, but not all-nba.
Bench: Terry should be a solid mle bench player. Green is overpaid and unless he does something he has never shown in his career, will be overpaid for his career. some big bodies with big flaws.
I don't think it's unreasonable to think this team could (or should have) rework some assets to get a real starting center, and bring sully/bass as bench bigs. We certainly aren't a juggernaut at this point.
All we can go by is how they are playing right now. I don't disagree with everything you said there, but ...
Rondo is playing out of his mind good right now. His shooting percentages are all fantastic and he's still dealing out assists by the bucket full. If he's still behind Chris Paul (who is also starting the year off fantastic) it is not by much. I don't see any other PG than CP who is really playing better than Rondo right now.
Pierce is averaging 19 points, 3 assists and 7 rebound every 36 minutes right now. He's getting to the FT line 7.2 times every 36. Those numbers basically show no real decline since KG & Ray came to town. If he's on the downslope, it is a very, very shallow grade. Pierce showed last year that, while he was healthy, he is still one of the _elite_ SFs in the game. He garnered ECF player of the week the last week of February. ECF player of the MONTH for March and again, ECF player of the week to start April. In other words, he was basically the ECFs 'Player of the entire 7 middle weeks of the season'. The problem for Pierce is he started the season with a bruised heel and and ended it with a hurt knee. That has colored people's perception of him.
Sure, he may get injured again. And that's an unfortunate symptom of 'age' and 'decline'. But if he stays healthy, he's still one of the elite SFs in the game.
KG ... I dunno if he's really regressing. His DRB% right now is an ungodly 32.8%. That would be a CAREER HIGH if he maintains that. And this is the career of one of the greatest defensive rebounders of our time. He's scoring 17.6 points and grabbing 10.7 rebounds every 36 minutes. These are not the numbers of someone playing 'down a couple notches'. These are, again, very close to the same numbers he's posted ever since he came here - with the difference being that he scored one extra basket per 36 in that first year here (but he's grabbing 2 more defensive rebounds now than then).
The last couple of games, Green quietly generated 16.8 points per 36 on 50% shooting. So he's not being totally unproductive. Not saying I don't want to see a lot more out of Green. But I think people are underestimating his value. Doc is not running many plays for him so far - he's got him standing outside stretching the defense and setting picks for Terry. I'd like to see him taking more shots.
I tend to concur with much of your other points, though I do think that the problem isn't so much that we don't have quality bigs. I think the problem is that they (Darko, Wilcox) haven't been healthy enough to play.
I think Bass and Sully are both way above average players in the right roles. But without Darko or Wilcox, we've had to put one of those two guys at the 5 whenever KG has gone to the bench. And that is where we have gotten into trouble. That's not a flaw in them - that's simply asking them to be something they are not.
Wilcox looked good in his return to the floor. Hopefully his conditioning will improve so he can give us more. And hopefully Darko will soon follow.