Which under 29yr old PF would you select to start a team.

I think Pau was the best PF in basketball this year. He's been one of the best for a while now as well. He's the only guy that I could see winning a championship as the best player of his team at this point.

Because of age, I might be tempted to take Bosh but Pau has outplayed everyone on that list including Duncan, KG, and Dirk (of course, partially due to injury).

 

Aldridge is a weak defender/rebounder. Isn't a guy you can build around.

Boozer and Stoudamire both need elite point guards to help them excel. Both horrible defenders as well. Boozer can create a little better on his own than Amare, but I don't think he would be able to carry a team the way Duncan and KG used to. If Amare wants to be the main guy, he better hope he has a decent point guard with him...

Chris Bosh is soft and perimeter oriented. Would be a great 2nd option like Aldridge, but he would be better at creating his own shots.

David West=Mo Williams; both of them rely HEAVILY on great playmakers (CP3 and Lebron). Only reason why they even made the all star teams.

Pau Gasol is okay, but when he was the leader of a franchise, what did he do? He couldn't even help his team win a playoff game as a # 5 seed 2 years in a row. He is the most skilled out of everyone listed, but he's soft, a weak defender, and is simply not a leader.

I think Al Jefferson is by far the best player in this group, BUT he hasn't shown that he can lead yet. To his defense, his supporting cast was pretty bad. So I won't judge him on that until he gets a decent supporting cast. But based on skill, I would have to go with Al Jefferson. He has a great low post game, a nice mid range jumper, can rebound and is a decent shot blocker.

 

I don't know much about Griffin. I was referring to the "I would kill to have any of those guys" line.

Why aren't they centers anyway? Gasol plays with Bynum and Jefferson plays C more out of necessity than anything.

 

Let's think about this. In 2004, 2005, and 2006 the grizzlies managed to win 50, 45, and 49 games respectively. On those teams, who were the starters?

...and people think Lebron has a bad supporting cast. He ain't seen the worst of it. Pau would have traded Stromile Swift or Lorenzen Wright (who is actually on the Cavs) for Big Z any day of the week.

 

Hold on second, those teams had some decent players on them.

04: Mike Miller, Bonzi Wells, Jason Williams, Shane Battier, James Posey, Earl Watson, and Dahtay Jones

They got swept in all of those games with some pretty decent talent on team.

Compare that to what Houston had, Ryan Bowen, Juwan Howard, David Wesley, Jon Barry, Bob Sura, Mike James, and Charlie Ward.

You put Lebron with some of those teams in Memphis (who were very athletic), they easily win surpass what they did with Gasol.

He's just not a franchise player. He's not going to be the type player who can lead a team into the 2nd round by himself or without another superstar.

 

Well, Blake Griffin is the real deal. He looks like a cross between Amare and Antonio McDyess. Some even throw Carlos Boozer comparisons out there (that i'm not particularly wild about). He's an elite athlete that's absolutely unstoppable around the basket. At only 20-years-old if i'm taking one franchise player to build around from that list it's him.

But you really think Gasol, Amare, Boozer, Bosh, West and Aldridge are all weak? Geez, talk about high standards.

Who do you like then?

As for Gasol/Jefferson and their labeled positions. I still consider Gasol a center. He's played center his entire career before being stolen by the Lakers and even then he still played the majority of his minutes at center. Yeah, he's played a lot of minutes there due to Bynum always being hurt but Bynum also isn't a 40 MPG player yet. So even with Bynum healthy, Gasol still gets a large chunk of his minutes at center. With Jefferson it's not even close -- that's where he plays his minutes and that's where he's most effective.

 

the upside for LMA is really high. He's a great shooter and is a player, not a talker.

 

Honestly, out of all those listed I think I'd go with David Lee.

 

Agree with everything here. Except I categorize AJ as a center and probably feel he is better than even you do.

 

AJ does awful at defending opposing centers but does just fine againts PF's.

Therefore he should be a PF in my book.

My vote easily goes to big Al