The Bulls had LaMarcus Aldridge; his name was Joe Smith. Your "no doubt" theory [that Ben Wallace would have looked like a better signing for Chicago had he been teamed up front with Aldridge or another productive power forward] is doubtful. People watch NBA games a lot more than you do and record every little thing that happens. For instance, the Bulls lack an inside scorer, not a scorer from the PF spot. There's a difference. Aldridge and Smith take an inordinate amount of jump shots greater than 8 feet away from the basket, and neither rebounds particularly well. If the Bulls had taken Aldridge, all you "experts" would be bitching that the Bulls just took another jump shooter when they really needed a back-to-the-basket guy.
-- Ty Dilts, Omaha, Neb.
When Ben Wallace was contending with the Pistons, who was their so-called inside scorer? The answer is Rasheed Wallace. In the equivalent of four full seasons with Detroit, roughly one-third of Rasheed's field-goal attempts have come from the three-point line.
What I hear from people in the league who watch NBA games more than I do and record every little thing that happens is that Ben Wallace -- to be most effective -- needs to be paired up front with length and offensive skill. Teaming him with a purely back-to-basket guy, as Mr. Dilts so courteously suggests, would not be the best approach. The right partner for Ben Wallace would have been a power forward who could do a bit of everything, who could score in a variety of ways while enabling Ben to space himself accordingly. Or is Mr. Dilts going to argue that Rasheed Wallace wasn't an excellent complement to Ben Wallace?
I also hear from people in the league that Aldridge is the second coming of Rasheed. The Trail Blazers are working with him on his low-post game as well as his three-point range; coach Nate McMillan insists that Aldridge will be a big threat down low as he matures. Does Aldridge command a double team down low? He doesn't today, but he should in the future.
Aldridge won't be the same player at 25 that he is now as a 22-year-old NBA sophomore. He'll continue to improve along the lines of Rasheed, in part because Aldridge is a reliable personality and an extremely hard worker. When Mr. Dilts asserts that Aldridge doesn't rebound well, then I suppose he would make the same complaint about Rasheed, who throughout his career has averaged one rebound every 4.9 minutes. Over his two years, Aldridge is producing a rebound every 4.6 minutes.
My point on the 6-11 Aldridge is that he might have provided the length and offensive balance that Ben Wallace needed in the short term. Plus, Aldridge could have grown and improved for the long term with the Bulls' young core of Luol Deng, Ben Gordon and Kirk Hinrich, who in turn would have benefited from playing with a power forward who is averaging 17.4 points in the Western Conference. (Joe Smith averaged 11.2 for Chicago.)
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/w ... own/1.html
