get this guy now!
He wouldn't be eligible for the playoffs, since he was waived after March 1, so it would be a waste of a roster spot to sign him.
Waste of roster spot? So, he's not playoff eligible. Big deal. Are you expecting the 12th man off the bench to get minutes in the playoffs?. If the 12th man on the bench (Randolph) can’t get minutes against Philadelphia, why would he get minutes in the playoffs.
Bigs in foul trouble against a team where smallball is not that good of an option. A game gets chippy and KG does something that leads to a one-game suspension. Garbage minutes in a blowout so that your regular rotation players don't run a small risk of injury.
It's also possible that White and Randolph prove themselves useful enough that you want to give them minutes.
It's smart to be prepared for contingencies that might but are not guaranteed to come up. It's the opposite of smart to rely on the best-case scenario occurring.
After reading your post I was reminded of that ageless idiom “If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a merry Christmas.” Yes, I suppose our bigs could get in foul trouble, or get suspended, or fall ill, or get held-up in traffic on the way to the garden, or any other concoction you can think up.
However, I am not now, nor will I ever be comfortable with any scenario in which DJ White or Shavlik Randolph play minutes of consequence in the playoffs. As one poster noted, if that were to happen, we’ve already lost. Let’s take a flyer on our future instead.
Finally, I know Jeremy Tyler is a big guy, but I believe we’d only need one roster spot for him, not two. Thus, if we “need” a third-string big to play in playoffs, for whatever reason, we’ll have one available.