His only real competition is Abdur-Rahim, Antoine Walker, and Kenyon Martin and he could outplay any of them on any given night. It seems there's a possibility for him to be the starting pf on the east all star team next year. I could even see him averaging 25 and 10 for the season next year being in the East.
Rahim is going to be a SF most likely for Atlanta next year (now that they're completely healthy), and Antoine Walker is mostly a SF so that helps Dice's case. I think that, talent wise, Kenyon can be as good as McDyess, but McDyess is far more experienced. I thought that McDyess was one of the best PFs in the West, among the elite. I think he's the best PF in the East bar none.
Challenger For McDyess: Jermaine O Neal Antoine Walker Abdur Rahim I think Kenyon will be destroyed by Mcdyess,he was even destroyed by O Neal.
That's a pretty good list of the top PFs in the East. But you need to add Antonio Davis to that list as well. He tore it up at the end of the regular season and in the playoffs. While he sometimes plays center he really is a power forward with Olajuwon and Clark in the middle. McDyess and O'Neal wil play centers for their teams during stretches of the season much like Davis. Chris
Davis is the best power player of them, but all of those guys have finese games with a lot more range than AD. I guess it depends on what you need.
Walker and O'Neal are the best PF in the east right now, bar none. McDyess' career numbers - 17.8ppg/8.7rpg pre-injury - aren't that good and there are still questions about his knee injury. Martin is still developing and I think Antonio Davis has reached his peak due to his age.
I forgot about Jermaine O'neal but he's definitly at the top with McDyess. However I don't really know Antonio Davis' game very well. I know he's a good player but I don't remember his numbers being too good. I may be wrong though.
Rocketblast, Dyess has always been a big time worker and had an injury that he can comeback from 100% with a little bit of work. I'm sure he's been working out as much as possible since he's been hurt and I don't see any reason he won't be able to come back and be even better than he was before. I believe I remember hearing that he was nearly back to normal directly after the all star break but decided not to risk it since Denver was allready out of the playoff race and it would just cost the Nuggets precious draft slots. With the whole off-season plus the time since the all star break to get back into shape, I'm fairly confident he will be back to his old self and will be more dominant than ever before. New York also seems to be more his style with Alan Houston and Latrell Spreewell being the perfect compliments to his game.
A season ago, they were. Last year, though, with the emergence of Keon Clark in Toronto (after the addition of Hakeem) and the addition of Brad Miller in Indiana, both played PF for their squads. O'Neal is probably better than McDyess - and definately has the age advantage over him - but Davis isn't at that level. A solid player, yes, but not at that level.
