A Mark Blount who hustles. Zeller is decent in his current role but he showed his true value vs Cleveland in the playoffs - when he wasn't much of a factor. Average at best defensively and a below average rebounder for his position. Offensively he's decent, especially for Brad's system.
But Gasol's a completely different class of player.
I don't get why people keep suggesting Zeller is an average defender who doesn't rebound.
The statistics show that Gasol has been rebounding less than Zeller for about the past 5 seasons, and advanced stats (DRPM and rim protection stats) indicate that Zeller has been a significantly above average defender for the past two seasons.
People around here always seem to have this idea in their mind that you need to be a big, strong, physical player in order to be a good defensive player - that's not true at all. IMHO Olynyk has been one of our best defensive players over these past two preseason games, and he's the complete opposite of that stereotype.
Defense isn't only about bumping, bruising and swatting shots into the stands. It's also about positioning, anticipation, angles, contesting shots, etc.
Marc Gasol is one of the top defensive bigs in the NBA and he is obviously a much better defensive player than Zeller is, but that doesn't mean Zeller is a poor defender.
Zeller has put up good defensive and rebounding stats over the past two seasons, and he's also put up outstanding offensive numbers.
I think everybody here needs to realise that none of us are actually trying to say that Zeller is as good as Marc Gasol. All we're saying is that Zeller's production right now is not far off Gasol's production when he was at the same point in his career. Therefore it's not out of realm of possibility that Zeller might
one day be as good as Gasol.
It sounds ridiculous now because Zeller is still early in his career - up to this point he has had modest roles and hasn't played enough minutes to put up impressive raw numbers. If he was playing 31 minutes a game and averaging 15 / 8 / 2 on 55% shooting (in line with his current Per-36 production) then I assure you people would take this comparison much more seriously.
In fact if you think back to when Marc Gasol was young, nobody thought much of him at all. When Lakers did the Pau / Marc trade it was considered a ridiculous trade, and one of the most lopsided in NBA history. People laughed at the Grizzlies. Nobody predicted Marc Gasol would ever become even close to as good as he is now. He never had those things people look for when defining "potential" - he was never a flashy player, never an elite athlete, never really dominated on the court. He was just quietly effective., much like Zeller is now
So it's really not an entirely unrealistic goal. After all lets be real - Gasol is not
that great a player. He's not nearly as good as Pau was in his prime, nor is he nearly as good as Demarcus Cousins, Anthony Davis or even a prime Dwight Howard. He's not even close to touching the likes of Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, Shaq, Hakeem, KG or Tim Duncan when those guys were at their best.
Gasol is maybe (MAYBE) on Alonzo Mourning level - and even that is pushing it. Vlade Divac is probably a closer to Gasol's level. He's a very good player, but he's not a franchise player or an all time great. No team will even win a title (or even make the finals) with Marc Gasol as it's best player. It's just not going to happen.
Topic: Crazy Tyler Zeller comparison (Read 4874 times)