wone wrote:That makes two of us...
Three.
I don't agree with much else in the this thread though. There's a difference between a hustle player and a standout defender. Foster is the former, not the latter. He cannot protect the basket(meaning he's not a true 5), was never a power player, does not possess great range, rarely plays healthy, and his strength is not boxing out and defensive rebounding. He's not bad at it, but certainly no standout. His best attribute is keeping balls alive on the offensive end, like Blair, even stats back this up. Compare his numbers, only 2.9 defensive rebounds which is very low, yet he has 2.1 offensive rebounds, which is outstanding given the amount of minutes he plays. He's not the answer defensively.
Furthermore, I would not give up Matt Bonner for him. San Antonio will have to play at a high level both offensively and defensively to contend with teams like the Lakers. Foster takes too much away from the offense to be worth it on defense. That applies even moreso when you take away Bonner, I shudder at the thought of McDyess and Foster on the court and how horrible that would be offensively. Only way I would want a player like that is if he's an impact player on defense. Jeff Foster is not that.
Also, Tim Duncan is a Center. Get over it. I remember once when Timmy was listed as the 4 in a lineup that consisted of 4 other perimeter players, making Jeremy Richardson the Center. But in name only. Duncan is the Spurs Center, has been since Robinson reitred, it couldn't be any more obvious to an individual with a pair of eyes. His strength is protecting the basket on defense, that's the Center's job. He's one of the best defensive Centers in the league, and I do not understand any desire to move him away from the basket to Power Forward where he will only get abused by Rashard Lewis, Dirk, and other such players. Ever since the failure of Rasho and Duncan together, the Spurs seemed finally to have learned to surround Duncan with quicker players. What the Spurs need currently is a guy who can just be a good backup 5 and play Power Forward as well. Someone like Chuck Hayes or David Lee. But they probably will not get that, and relying on Blair to mostly fill that role is probably going to be the best option. There's still hope that he can improve, and at least he provides offense at those positions at a high enough level(also I don't know what games anyone is watching if they think Blair is worse now than he was earlier in the season, he was awful to start the year defensively, absolutely horrendous defensively, worse than rotation big I have ever seen for the Spurs). It's McDyess that I want the Spurs to get rid of. Not Bonner or Blair. Those two are too imporant on offense to get rid of unless it's for something good. McDyess is only going to get worse over the years, and even worse, he's another Michael Finley or Fabricio Oberto. A veteran player that Popovich has a blatant bias for, meaning he's probably going to get minutes over superior players regardless of how he performs. That has killed the Spurs the last few years.
