cram wrote:I don't think Amare's a bad player....he's very, very good. But he's not as good as his stats suggest...Nash makes players like Amare appear better than they are.
A little, yes, but you said he can't create without Nash, which is factually incorrect. Amare was a 20 ppg scorer before Nash got onto the team, and it was during a season where he spent most of the year with Leandro Barbosa as his point guard (e.g. not a PG worth mentioning because he's best-suited as a 6th man sparkplug scorer).
Amare's not a 60% FG guy on his own, but he's an effective, DANGEROUS scoring option.
Plus the guy is one of the worst defenders in the league at his position. Bosh isn't exactly a great defender either, but the effort is there and he can fit into a system.
Bosh is definitely a better man defender against anyone that doesn't have a post game, I'll give you that, but they're about even on help defense (Amare is actually a decent shot-blocker).
Let me ask you -- Bosh or Amare? Who would you rather partner with Durant?
Amare. The rest of that team has some potential defensively, you can cover one defensive hole and Amare is a WAY more dangerous scoring threat than Bosh.
Bosh, Amare, Boozer, or Green? Who is a better big to partner with Durant (assuming the first 3 make the same $)
Amare or Green.
btw - i LOVE AL Jefferson. Didn't realize he's playing the 4 more than the 5....the games i've watched he seemed like the primary low block guy on offense and defence was shared btwn him, Love, and another guy (forget his name).
Big Al is a good player. He needs to learn to pass out of the double team and to get way, WAY better on defense, but he's a very skilled low post scorer with a lot of talent. Great rebounder, too.
cram wrote:
I really disagree. Have you ever had a me-first A-hole on your team? Play with a guy like Marbury?
What could Shawn Kemp have become? (one of the best players EVER?). Bosh is the polar opposite of those guys.
Well, if you want to take it to extremes, sure, but I meant in a general sense, the character value of players is overrated. In the case of Amare, it's not a huge big deal, the real reason that the Suns need to get rid of him is that they have too many defensive holes to keep him around and because they don't really need his offense. He's a good situational fit; his character wasn't an issue for his 3 healthy years while the Suns were busy contending, then it was actually Marion being a whiny little pest.
[qutoe]Vin Baker was really talented - great footwork and hands - but the guy was not a competitor (have you watched Bosh will teams to victory? did you see him in the olympics?). Vin was also a huge risk to anyone signing him long term....Bosh isn't. He brings it.[/quote]
Bosh has never willed a team to victory and on the Olympics, he was a bit player. No comparison.
cram wrote:I could make arguments for each player, but let me ask you this ---- if you had the option of Pau, Rashard, Amare, Boozer, and Jamison to partner with Durant for the next 6+ yrs....how do you rank them? In fact, you could put Dirk in there as well...(great player, but age is a difference maker to me).
If you're talking about partners for the next 6 years, then yes, Bosh ranks as the 2nd or 3rd guy behind Amare and maybe Pau (because Pau can provide a lot of complementary things Bosh cannot and the Thunder won't necessarily need a lot of scoring from him the way Green and Westbrook are developing and with a host of picks coming to them this year and then I think Phoenix's unprotected 1st rdr next year.
Bosh is a good player and he'd be a good partner for Durant, so let's not get all twisted up, but I was responding to your assertion that Bosh was clearly the 1st or 2nd PF in the league after KG was done (and after Duncan, if you think him a 4). This is not the case.
There are clear limitations to his game, just as there are to Pau, Amare, and all the other guys we've discussed (even Dirk).
Of note, however, are the following things:
1) OKC plays fast, they're 8th in the league in pace. Bosh doesn't play well up-tempo because he's a slow-down isolation player. He's got the athleticism to do it but the Raptors always run better when he's on the bench.
2) The Thunder are worse offensively (27th in the league) than they are defensively (21st), which suggests that they could use a boost to their offense more readily than a marginal diference in the defensive ability of the players that are given, which easily ranks Amare as the more desirable option for them. You put a Durant/Amare pick-and-roll out there (and even a Westbrook/Amare PnR), and the Thunder suddenly have two guys averaging 26+ ppg on their team and they are a lot better than 27th in the league on O.
3) Consider that if you put a decent man-on defender at the 5 who can rotate pretty well on D, then Amare's defense can be masked. You let him roam and block shots (which he does reasonably well) and you cover yourself on the perimeter with strong defenders (like Westbrook, and even Weaver) and you start to see a significantly less impactful defensive weakness out of Amare's presence on the court.
Now you slap Bosh into that same scenario and you still basically need to do the same thing on defense but you don't get the same offensive payout because Bosh is not a volume scorer and doesn't have the ability nor the mentality requisite for a player to take over a game, seize it by the reins with his offense and win a game for you. He is not now, never has been and never will be that player. He's a nice, steady 20-23 ppg player who'll score in the 15- to 30-point range on any given night. If they back off of him, his FTAs drop and he can't score unless his jumper's going because he has a weak post game and he isn't a great high-post passing hub. He's a decent but unremarkable rebounder. That's Bosh. Good second option.
But for you guys, Amare would be better.
