Again like I said if you think a guy who put up 8/4 in 56 games no less without a significant injury is that much more productive than a guy who put up 6/5 in 70 I would say you are being a homer. Beyond PER and other measures is the fact that Hunter actually started 41 games and put up 8/6 which is at least passable for a starting center.
Leon is certainly an explosive player and he can put up numbers and he can also give them up. There is a reason for the DNPCD 26 times.
Sure Leon is probably capable of putting up better numbers but will he put them up on the Celtics the next two years I don't know.
Come on now, Sully. How many of Steven Hunter's 41 starts in 2006-07 came after the 76ers went into tank mode after the Webber trade? If it's not all of them, it's darn close.
Hunter managed to beat out players like Ivan McFarlin and Alan Henderson to start, the majority of the time at PF alongside Dalembert, not as the starting center. That's not an endorsement of his abilities, it's an indictment of the 76ers front office for fielding such a poor team. When Hunter "seized" that starting role, he put up underwhelming numbers.
As for Powe's DNPCD's, I seem to recall Doc publicly apologizing for that at some point last season. He had only 3 DNPs in the last half of the season (technically only one was a DNPCD, since he didn't dress for the other two games occurring in the last week of the season).
Call me a homer if you like, but I find no reason to believe that Steven Hunter could help the Celtics next season more than Leon Powe could.
Agreed. "Per minute" stats aren't the be all and end all, but they can shed light on a players relative production at time. Here are the "per 36" stats for Powe last season, and Hunter in his best season ('06-'07):
Powe (per 36): 19.8 ppg, 10.1 rpg, 0.7 apg, 0.7 spg, 0.7 bpg, 1.9 to, 57.2 FG%, 71.0 FT%, 8.6 FTA, 62.9 TS%, 20.9 PER
Hunter (per 36): 10.1 ppg, 7.5 rpg, 0.6 apg, 0.3 spg, 1.7 bpg, 1.5 to, 57.7 FG%, 49.0 FT%, 3.4 FTA, 57.3 TS%, 12.3 PER
In other words, Powe is better almost across the board, by a fairly significant margin in terms of scoring, rebounding, and getting to the line. He's a much better player at this point, he's younger, and he has less of a recent injury history.
He's better, and there's really no way that the opposite can be argued. That's why you see those in this thread who want to defend this imaginary deal focusing on secondary effects of the move, rather than the straight Powe-for-Hunter swap.
One more time, though: there's nothing to this trade as reported, because Danny Ainge isn't a moron.