Monroe is fools gold to me. In the modern NBA you need your big men to be able to defend.As the NBA progresses more and more to inside out games we're going to need bigs that can shoot in the pick and roll and pick and pop, and now in this new era- shoot from deep.... and defend the rim ala Myles Turner and Bobby Portis.
The Spurs have shown this. The Bulls, the Thunder, Clippers, Pacers, Hawks, Pelicans have shown this. Would I be right if I said only Memphis with Randolph have an inferior/average defender at the 4 of the best 8 teams in the NBA? Can't think of any other weaker combos being significantly held up other than perhaps the new Thunder duo of Ibaka and Adams and even then Adams is improving significantly, very quickly.
Would far rather go after Roy Hibbert or DeAndre Jordan over this guy- he just doens't fit with Stevens system and only hurts spacing- meanwhile having zero positive effect on the defensive end.
In other words, he'll hurt our spacing on the offensive end and be a neutral/negative on the defensive end. He's a suckers max player in the modern NBA. Can't play D and can't shoot past 5 feet.
NBA only goes in a direction until someone with the opposite talent ends up on a team with enough talent for him to be successful. Then it becomes "the new direction of the NBA"
No, the NBA generally goes the way of the NBA superstar and the Hawks and Spurs have proven that even without a current top 5 (or perhaps 10) player you can beat the best players in the world to some extent.
Stars will probably always rule the NBA because a basketball court is just so small and the best players have so much impact on the overall outcome in that confined space, but
three point shooting and efficiency are ever increasing para-mounts and they've never been so heralded/important in relative success.
The NBA still gravitates towards a superstars game, but coaching and strategy are making the fight closer and more tactical than it's ever been. The new draft changes will favor this revolution even more.
Except the Spurs have an elite level big man the plays close to the basket in Duncan, the Hawks have won nothing. The Spurs have stars.
Didn't we hear this same thing the one year Detroit won, only to watch star lead teams win most the titles after that?
KG was barely considered a top ten player, when he came to Boston. You don't need top five or top ten stars. You need players with the potential to be that. Considering Detroit, Ben Wallace was really a top ten player, when you look at impact, but defensive players don't get that recognition.
KG was a top 5 play at that time who sacrificed his offense to win a title.
please show me a ranking in 2007, who had him as a top five player...
Nowitzki, James, McGrady, Bryant, Nash, Bosh, Duncan and Arenas were ahead of him by a good margin in the MVP votes that year. He was tied 9th with Carlos Boozer.
Ranking players is about perception. And KG was not perceived a top five player. He still had the potential, though, and that's what matters. He (or perhaps Chris Paul) should've been MVP in 2008. But that's another story 
MVP voting is a joke. Just look at the years Jordan didn't win because voters wanted to vote for someone new.
We saw him on the court.
His numbers took a hit as he played for the team (much like the other two stars) and won the title.
Oh and by the way, KG was defensive MVP that year.
Oh, and by the way, KG was among the 5 players selected to the all-NBA first team.
No he wasn't either of that. He wasn't even on the 2nd team. I'm talking about 2007, when we acquired KG. I have written it two times, and it should be pretty clear from the context, too.
The 2007-2008 season proved that the perception, that KG wasn't a top five player anymore, was wrong. But that's almost impossible to know beforehand. That's why I say, that it's the potential to be a top five or top ten player that's important, not the rankings we would make right now. Because perception can be deceiving, and circumstances can change.
Um Kevin Garnett in 2006-2007 averaged 22.4 points, 12.8 rebounds, 4.1 assists, 1.2 steals, and 1.7 blocks a game. Those numbers are almost across the board better than his numbers in the 2005-2006 season. It was his 4th consecutive season of leading the league in rebounds per game and he was 2nd team all defense and 3rd team all NBA. His numbers that year weren't much worse than his MVP winning season of a couple of years prior, with the big difference being Minnesota was a 32 win team whose 2nd best player was either Ricky Davis or Mark Blount in 06/07.
Your memory of the perception of Kevin Garnett is just flawed. KG was most definitely considered a top 5 player at the time of the trade to Boston.
That is simply not true. If you look at the all-nba teams in 2007:
1: Duncan, Nowitzki, Stoudemire, Nash, Bryant
2: James, Bosh, Ming, Arenas, McGrady
3: Garnett, Anthony, Wade, Billups, Howard
Please tell me how there could be any consensus that KG was a top five player. Tell me who on the 1st or 2nd team that he was considered better than?
I totally agree that his potential and actual skill was top five worthy, but you are missing the point here.
Topic: if we sign Monroe and draft a center, how many wins (Read 11629 times)