Ostertag anyone?

[Hemingway]

Um, Pollard was actually pretty good in the limited time he was able to play for us. I mean I suppose you can label him a bust in that he got hurt and didn't contribute for many games but for the time he was in there he gave us a real spark. If he was still in the form he was in before he went out we would have had him back.

[Pogue Mahone]

Listen, all I am saying is that perception on Ostertag is what it is largely due to playing in big games against Shaq when Shaq was in his prime.

As far as extrapolation is concerned, Ostertag put up remarkably consistent rates in offensive rebounding, defensive rebounding and blocking across many different teams and seasons. For instance, as mentioned previously, he put up a 12.2/21.7/6.8 in his last season. That fell straight in line with both his career numbers and what he did when playing bigger minutes as evidenced by his 10.3/20.6/7.4 he put up in 27.9 MPG as a 25-year old and the 12.6/20.9/5.5 he put up in 27.6 MPG as a 30-year old. And the reason he had that drop in minutes was that he was brought back to Utah to play as Okur's backup. The season before he backed up Brad Miller in Sacramento. Before that he was a starter/regular rotation player for Utah.

When Perkins, Powe and Garnett are not in the game, our defensive rebounding and shotblocking suffers. To spell it out as clearly as possible, when you have a SG who plays both poor help and man defense, you need someone who can block and alter shots in the paint AS WELL AS play position post defense. Glen Davis has shown, in over 2500+ career regular season minutes, to be a sub-par defensive rebounder, post defender, shotblocker and unreliable in help defense once he has a bit of offensive success.

So, going forward, we need someone big to not only lean on post-players but also to rebound the basketball and alter shot. As a likely minimum-salaried player (you know, cuz absent a deal that sends Ray Allen packing, there really isn't any money available), you could do a lot worse in emergency size off the bench. We wouldn't be needing Ostertag to score. The things he does well are all things this team needs.

Magloire is a sub-par shotblocker. Lorenzen Wright is a no better than Glen Davis, defensively. Count Pachulia is a good rebounder but a lousy shot-blocker. Gortat, my preferred player, fwiw, has shown himself capable in limited minutes but has played in less than 1000 MP. Gortat and Pachulia will each cut into the MLE to sign.

So, do you cut into the MLE to find size for the bench? If so, you still need to fill other positions on this team. How far above the cap are the owners to go? Even a minimum-salaried player will cost you ~$1.5M once you factor in the tax. I am curious to hear of any other minimum-salaried options that people could come up with that would be a better all-round fit than Ostertag (assuming he can still play, of course.)

[Bluewhale]

What Pogue Mahone said is 100% correct. A player with minimum price and could rebound and block always helps.

However, 30 teams all know this and he is out of NBA now, I think something behind the scene is wrong.

[Kefa461]

Now here comes the big test.....wait for it....wait for it.....wait for it......


No thanks..........