Do you miss Andris Biedrins? Throw back player Thursday.

[TroubleS0me]

Do you miss him?
Favorite memory?

[Quazza]

Do you miss him?
Favorite memory?

1-no
2 - pic of him copping a blowie in the back of a car

[Flash Falcon X]

Yes! I've actually been remembering him lately since Dwight signed with the Lakers last offseason. Biedrins is the same age and part of the same draft. Every time I'd see Dwight the past couple years I always remember Biedrins lol.

Also was thinking of making a thread about Beans because I came across his wife's Instgram several months ago and she has a lot of family photos with Biedrins. So cool to see some recent photos of him. Too bad he got injured and let the free throw issues get to his head.

[Warriors Analyst]

I think often about what this team looks like if Biedrins never has oestsis pubis. I think there's an argument to be made that the Bogut trade never happens. Monta probably gets traded eventually, but I don't think there'd have been such a glaring need for a defensive anchor at the C. If you look at Biedrins' defensive numbers, they were phenomenal even after he stopped showing any interest in shooting the ball. In his last year as a Warrior, Biedrins just barely misses the minutes cutoff to qualify for DPM on Basketball Reference, but he would have ranked #1 that year. I'm not sure Biedrins would have had still been a 20 MPG player after 2018 when teams really started getting lusty about attacking bigs on switches, but I think he would have adapted really well to this era. He was deceptively strong and very quick laterally for a guy his size so I think he would have done just defending in the era of the 3 ball.

I think Biedrins would have really shined on offense though. I've looked back at some the videos from his prime -- age 22 -- and it's remarkable how good he was at operating in tight spaces. He ran like a deer taking its first steps, but he had excellent body control and he was very clever about contorting himself to split defenders in the paint or shrinking his body to get under guys. He had great hands and he knew how to use the rim to trap defenders behind him on the baseline. If you watch the videos of Biedrins in those days, there's a lot more bodies in the paint than there are nowadays, by virtue of teams not putting such a big emphasis on spacing. You can only imagine what an offensively willing Biedrins would have done in this era as a roll man.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I liked Biedrins. Biedrins, Anthony Randolph, Carlos Rogers, and probably Damian Jones are mobile bigs that should have been able to make it in the NBA. Andris was the best of them. Anthony Randolph had the most talent.

[Chris Porter's Hair]

Beans! I miss him like he missed free throws.

In all seriousness. He was my favorite player for a while there, and I still think it is really disappointing how things turned out. He showed a ton of promise for a period of time. His defense was solid, and he was a prime example of when I say "he was good enough on offense to keep teams honest". He was no Hakeem, but if teams lagged off him, he was quick and coordinated. He'd roll to the basket, we'd throw him a lob, and teams would figure out they needed to actually guard him. I'm pretty sure he led the league in FG% at least once based on this kind of offense.

And then it all fell apart. Injuries were probably part of it. His free throws *really* got in his head. If we got him the ball, his immediate goal was to get it out of his hands so nobody could foul him. And there were at least rumors that his heart wasn't into the game. So as much as I liked the guy, by the time he was gone (traded to Utah maybe? How's my old, addled brain doing?), I really couldn't say with a straight face it was a mistake. Just a shame things went downhill so fast.

[FNQ]

Was extremely well known in the club scene, especially post-contract.

Everyone seemed to like him, unless you evaluated how much you liked him based on his professionalism. But to be fair to him, the leadership on those teams was pretty terrible. The coach was an unashamed alcoholic (basketball genius but still), the de-facto leaders were Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, Al Harrington, and then Monta Ellis..

What's really crazy is that if Biedrins was playing in the Curry/Klay era, had someone like Iguodala mentoring him, and had someone like Draymond holding him accountable, who's to say Biedrins couldn't have been a Joakim Noah-esque type player?

[Warriors Analyst]

Was extremely well known in the club scene, especially post-contract.

Everyone seemed to like him, unless you evaluated how much you liked him based on his professionalism. But to be fair to him, the leadership on those teams was pretty terrible. The coach was an unashamed alcoholic (basketball genius but still), the de-facto leaders were Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, Al Harrington, and then Monta Ellis..

What's really crazy is that if Biedrins was playing in the Curry/Klay era, had someone like Iguodala mentoring him, and had someone like Draymond holding him accountable, who's to say Biedrins couldn't have been a Joakim Noah-esque type player?

In the Al Harrington episode of All the Smoke, Biedrins came up. He was praised as "Goose" and Captain Jack made a comment about him probably getting drunk somewhere... remarkable still that Biedrins partied as hard as he did and was still as good on defense as he was, even after his free throw shooting fell apart.

[Senchu]

I became fan of Warriors due to him (first latvian in nba). Played bball with his father few times. Shame it turned out that way. Also explaining to people in my country that im a dubs fan because of Dre and not a bandwagon was fun.


P.s.
Met him once clubbing, got free shots

[KevinMcreynolds]

He was a beast those 2 or 3 years, so it was a huge disappointed he had no work ethic and went all Brewster's Millions on us when he got the contract. Don't miss him at all.

I did feel bad for him on opening night of his final season with us though. In cheesy Oracle fashion, they constructed a Bay Bridge for the players to walk over when they were introducing the entire team. When all the other players were announced the crowd gave a huge cheer, but then Beans appeared on the bridge the whole crowd booed and he looked super sad. Even though it was kind of his own doing, It was a bad look by our fans. Just like when they booed Lacob on Mullin retirement night.

[marthafokker]

I have never seen a professional basketball player allergic to a basketball until Beans.

[Coxy]

Not at all.