You know what - he's better than nothing! And I don't think the Heat will be interested all that much as he's no better than the starter they have already in Dorrel Anthony. At this stage in his career, he kinda reminds me of Kevin Willis when Kev played for the Rockets. He's Kelvin Cato'ish - just don't over-pay or else the fan will have insane expectations. What about the vanilla gorilla?
After posting I went back and read some of the earlier posts... Look, I've watch alot of NBA games and I can tell you, without a doubt, Beidrens and Dalembert are equals. So, it boils down to who can we sign without gutting the foundation of our team. And to be totally honest - I feel that Thabeet is every bit as good as Dalebert and Beans, plus he's younger, cheeper, and possibly a better shot blocker than both. We just have to make him comfortable in the high post on offense. Get him out of the paint so that our other players have a clearer lane to the basket. Keep his eyes open for the back-door cut or alley. Use him in the pick and roll. PLus, and I figure the coaching staff doesn't want him to do this - but he needs to shoot a couple hundred 3's. Yeah, so he'd be out of position for an offensive rebound when shooting 3's or deep 2's(unless he bricks it so bad it comes right back at him), but the center guarding him will be out of position too and if there was a switch, there will be a miss-match somewhere on the court for us to exploit. What the heck, there is no Olajuwon around anymore, and our teams offense is not geared toward offensive production from the center anymore(Yao is done). We need a spread center on the offensive end who can block shots and rebound too. If Thabeet can not spread the offense with his outside shooting, then he needs to be a screener/pick-and-roll player who is an ally-oop threat when the D forgets about him(tyson chandler's MO). I feel that Thabeet's problem in Memphis was that he was not on the offensive level as Gasol was, making Thabeet expendable, and Gasol was good enough defensively that Thabeet was perceived as a waste of space. You could not play both Gasol and Thabeet at the same time as Thabeet's man would automaticaly be used to double team Gasol, giving Gasol 2 bigs he had to score against. Anyways, we have a spread 5 now in Montieunas. I can only hope that Montie can rebound and block some shots too.
In any case..Dalembert didn't work out in Sacramento..he'll do great here. Great addition to our team..it just feels right having a smart, tall center. Thank you Murray.
