Do you think Bosh is the lesser of the Three Evils?

[paulcowens]

I like Bosh.  I think he is smart, and in the right situation, could have tremendous impact.  I'd really like to see him on the Celtics - but only if he's not relied on for toughness and rebounding!

[BballTim]

And with two outside shooters at the G position and Bosh hitting mid range shots, he would have those outside shooters.



As for a Lebron drive, would Howard's defender step up to stop Lebron leaving Howard without a large body on him to either take a pass and dunk from Lebron or simply offensive rebound and dunk off a Lebron miss. 

  There weren't enough other shooters to really free things up for Wade and James, I doubt there would be for Dwight. And LeBron's defender backs up and gives him space, Dwight's defender slides over a little and cuts of the rest of the angle. The Mavs did this a lot and the Heat weren't getting any easy baskets from it. The Heat would get some, but LeBron and Dwight would be hard pressed to outscore the 52 ppg they got from Wade and James this year, or  even to score that much.

Wade and Lebron are two ball in hands, drive players.


Howard is a low post threat.  


Not the same issues.

  The same issue in that one player draws the defenders into the lane, which in itself limits the effectiveness of the other player.

[action781]

If we're talking about Howard trades, how's this one?
http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=yj2jxm8

As was mentioned by someone earlier, the big downside is that Dwight wouldn't be likely to sign an extension with the Clippers.  He wants to go to a legit title contender (seems like the only reason he wants to leave Orlando to begin with).  Makes no sense for the Clippers to trade Blake for what could be a rental.

A trade to Miami, I don't doubt he'd agree to an extension ahead of time. 

I agree.  I think both teams would agree to this trade in terms of value, but I don't think Dwight would agree to it.  He wouldn't sign an extension which would make LAC turn it down.

[wdleehi]

And with two outside shooters at the G position and Bosh hitting mid range shots, he would have those outside shooters.



As for a Lebron drive, would Howard's defender step up to stop Lebron leaving Howard without a large body on him to either take a pass and dunk from Lebron or simply offensive rebound and dunk off a Lebron miss. 

  There weren't enough other shooters to really free things up for Wade and James, I doubt there would be for Dwight. And LeBron's defender backs up and gives him space, Dwight's defender slides over a little and cuts of the rest of the angle. The Mavs did this a lot and the Heat weren't getting any easy baskets from it. The Heat would get some, but LeBron and Dwight would be hard pressed to outscore the 52 ppg they got from Wade and James this year, or  even to score that much.

Wade and Lebron are two ball in hands, drive players.


Howard is a low post threat.  


Not the same issues.

  The same issue in that one player draws the defenders into the lane, which in itself limits the effectiveness of the other player.

It didn't hurt Lebron when Shaq was in the middle. 

[manl_lui]

Bosh just wanted to win and flop all over the place...but he didn't know that going to Miami means hes going to be the 3rd wheel in Lebron-Wade love relationship

[slamtheking]

Oh, just realized this commentary has nothing to do with the main point of the thread so -- yes, I think Bosh is the lesser of the 3 evils.  He's not as obnoxious as the other two but he seriously overvalues himself.  He's an all-star PF in this age of the NBA where PF's aren't the quality of a Malone, Barkley, Mchale, etc... 

I dunno about there being little talent at PF, KG, Gasol, Dirk, and Amar'e aren't exactly slouches.

I don't disagree that there's talent at the position now, but it's older talent about ready to retire.  KG and Dirk would normally be retired by now if this was the 80's.  Gasol would be thinking about it.  Amar'e is really Bosh's only competitor at his age and position. 
Boozer's not worth the discussion but he does provide a comparison on how much the less talent it takes to be considered an all-star in today's NBA.  (same could be said for Bosh for that matter).  Blake Griffin is really the only other PF that comes to mind as an up-and-coming force at the position. 
Millsap and Big Al are nice PFs to have but would they really be all-stars in 25 years ago?

[slamtheking]

And with two outside shooters at the G position and Bosh hitting mid range shots, he would have those outside shooters.

As for a Lebron drive, would Howard's defender step up to stop Lebron leaving Howard without a large body on him to either take a pass and dunk from Lebron or simply offensive rebound and dunk off a Lebron miss.  

  There weren't enough other shooters to really free things up for Wade and James, I doubt there would be for Dwight. And LeBron's defender backs up and gives him space, Dwight's defender slides over a little and cuts of the rest of the angle. The Mavs did this a lot and the Heat weren't getting any easy baskets from it. The Heat would get some, but LeBron and Dwight would be hard pressed to outscore the 52 ppg they got from Wade and James this year, or  even to score that much.

Wade and Lebron are two ball in hands, drive players.
Howard is a low post threat.  
Not the same issues.

LOL, that was (probably unintentionally) hysterical!!  TP for giving me a very disturbing yet hysterical thought!

[BballTim]

And with two outside shooters at the G position and Bosh hitting mid range shots, he would have those outside shooters.



As for a Lebron drive, would Howard's defender step up to stop Lebron leaving Howard without a large body on him to either take a pass and dunk from Lebron or simply offensive rebound and dunk off a Lebron miss. 

  There weren't enough other shooters to really free things up for Wade and James, I doubt there would be for Dwight. And LeBron's defender backs up and gives him space, Dwight's defender slides over a little and cuts of the rest of the angle. The Mavs did this a lot and the Heat weren't getting any easy baskets from it. The Heat would get some, but LeBron and Dwight would be hard pressed to outscore the 52 ppg they got from Wade and James this year, or  even to score that much.

Wade and Lebron are two ball in hands, drive players.


Howard is a low post threat.  


Not the same issues.

  The same issue in that one player draws the defenders into the lane, which in itself limits the effectiveness of the other player.

It didn't hurt Lebron when Shaq was in the middle. 

  I'd dispute that. LeBron played poorly enough against the Celts in some of the games that people debate whether he was trying his best or not. Also, the Celts offense was about 9 points better with Shaq playing this year. The Cavs offense was 6 points worse when Shaq played. If you check LeBron's 5 man units from that year, Shaq is in 6 of his top 20 lineups by minutes, and 5 of the 6 units containing Shaq are in LeBron's 9 lowest scoring groups. None are in his top 8 scoring lineups.

[wdleehi]

And with two outside shooters at the G position and Bosh hitting mid range shots, he would have those outside shooters.



As for a Lebron drive, would Howard's defender step up to stop Lebron leaving Howard without a large body on him to either take a pass and dunk from Lebron or simply offensive rebound and dunk off a Lebron miss. 

  There weren't enough other shooters to really free things up for Wade and James, I doubt there would be for Dwight. And LeBron's defender backs up and gives him space, Dwight's defender slides over a little and cuts of the rest of the angle. The Mavs did this a lot and the Heat weren't getting any easy baskets from it. The Heat would get some, but LeBron and Dwight would be hard pressed to outscore the 52 ppg they got from Wade and James this year, or  even to score that much.

Wade and Lebron are two ball in hands, drive players.


Howard is a low post threat.  


Not the same issues.

  The same issue in that one player draws the defenders into the lane, which in itself limits the effectiveness of the other player.

It didn't hurt Lebron when Shaq was in the middle. 

  I'd dispute that. LeBron played poorly enough against the Celts in some of the games that people debate whether he was trying his best or not. Also, the Celts offense was about 9 points better with Shaq playing this year. The Cavs offense was 6 points worse when Shaq played. If you check LeBron's 5 man units from that year, Shaq is in 6 of his top 20 lineups by minutes, and 5 of the 6 units containing Shaq are in LeBron's 9 lowest scoring groups. None are in his top 8 scoring lineups.

The Celtics defense did that to all the offensive swingmen.


Kobe had similar numbers.

[soap07]

To the original point, Bosh was excellent this year and was unfairly lampooned far too often. He played, by far, the best defense of his career and after a tough start to the season, played the 3rd banana very well the rest of the season.

In the playoffs, you could argue that at times he was the best player on the court. He had a couple monster games.

In the Finals, the final 4 games, he was very good. The first two - awful. He's never been a particularly good rebounder, which is unfortunate, but really, that's the only noticeable weakness to his game. He didn't guard Dirk much in the Finals.

[BballTim]

And with two outside shooters at the G position and Bosh hitting mid range shots, he would have those outside shooters.



As for a Lebron drive, would Howard's defender step up to stop Lebron leaving Howard without a large body on him to either take a pass and dunk from Lebron or simply offensive rebound and dunk off a Lebron miss. 

  There weren't enough other shooters to really free things up for Wade and James, I doubt there would be for Dwight. And LeBron's defender backs up and gives him space, Dwight's defender slides over a little and cuts of the rest of the angle. The Mavs did this a lot and the Heat weren't getting any easy baskets from it. The Heat would get some, but LeBron and Dwight would be hard pressed to outscore the 52 ppg they got from Wade and James this year, or  even to score that much.

Wade and Lebron are two ball in hands, drive players.


Howard is a low post threat.  


Not the same issues.

  The same issue in that one player draws the defenders into the lane, which in itself limits the effectiveness of the other player.

It didn't hurt Lebron when Shaq was in the middle. 

  I'd dispute that. LeBron played poorly enough against the Celts in some of the games that people debate whether he was trying his best or not. Also, the Celts offense was about 9 points better with Shaq playing this year. The Cavs offense was 6 points worse when Shaq played. If you check LeBron's 5 man units from that year, Shaq is in 6 of his top 20 lineups by minutes, and 5 of the 6 units containing Shaq are in LeBron's 9 lowest scoring groups. None are in his top 8 scoring lineups.

The Celtics defense did that to all the offensive swingmen.


Kobe had similar numbers.

  Agreed, but those numbers I was quoting about LeBron's lineups scoring less when Shaq played were for the entire season, not just against the Celts. It wasn't a good pairing on offense.

[BballTim]

To the original point, Bosh was excellent this year and was unfairly lampooned far too often. He played, by far, the best defense of his career and after a tough start to the season, played the 3rd banana very well the rest of the season.

In the playoffs, you could argue that at times he was the best player on the court. He had a couple monster games.

In the Finals, the final 4 games, he was very good. The first two - awful. He's never been a particularly good rebounder, which is unfortunate, but really, that's the only noticeable weakness to his game. He didn't guard Dirk much in the Finals.

  Agree about better defense but his rebounding, scoring and efficiency all took a hit this year. He played reasonably well but I don't think I'd go with excellent.