In light of the fact that Rashard Lewis is averaging 20 pts. a game now, I have a thought for y'all. Bryce was a bust. Mirsad was a joke. But had we drafted Rashard, we wouldn't have our current lineup, IMO. My hypothesis is that we would have had a very good team, especially now. But I also believe that we wouldn't have been in position to draft Yao, and we would've been good enough to keep Francis, et. al. However, I will also hypothesize that McGrady may have still garnered the trade from our team, even had Rashard been here. So which team lineup would you feel is most attractive? Lineup 1: Current Lineup 2: C: Cato/Mutumbo PF: Lewis/Adequate backup SF: J Jackson/Adequate B.U. SG: Francis/Mobley PG: Slightly above avg./Adequate B.U. Lineup 3: C: Avg. Center/AdequateB.U. PF: Lewis/Adequate B.U. SF: J Jackson/Adequate B.U. SG: McGrady/Adequate B.U. PG: Slightly above avg. PG/Adequate B.U. If you don't feel our current back-ups are adequate, that's fine. Just look at the starting 5. My only reasoning behind this is that with Rashard and Cato, we wouldn't have had the opportunity to look beyond Cato for a Power center. That said, we would've most likely looked for a "true" PG and moved Stevie to the 2, which would've made Mobley our 6th man. A position he truly excelled at. Due to Mobley being an "above avg backup, I feel we should assume that the other lineups, for equality purposes, should all be "adequate" to look at objectively. I've added a fourth option for those who disagree...
I like debating issues like this... but the only issue I have is that Rashard Lewis is more of a small forward and not a power forward as you have stated. Although 6'10... he is a slasher and outside player and not a post. That said... Lineup 2 with Stevie at the point, Mobley at the 2, Lewis at the 3, JJ backing up the 2 and 3, Cato at the 4 and Deke at the 5... I like it.
Sorry, I chose no.4. Just for fun. Simply too many things could have happened. It is no way you can narrow down only three scenarios.
