AQuintus wrote:Having your 5 best players on the court is all well and good, but if the other team as 1 or 2 guys on the court at the same time that none of your guys can guard, you're probably not going to be in good shape.
To take your example, it would be more like...
Reporter: "We needed some scoring, so not play Beasley more the second half"?
Rambis: "Well, we already had Brewer, Johnson, and Love all out there and playing well, so adding Beasley would mean that either Beasley or Love would have to guard the opposing Center, and obviously that's not ideal."
Reporter: "Oh, Okay."
Name all of the opposing centers who would have such dominant offensive advantages over Love that their teams would stop running normal offenses and just go to that person every time. How many can you name?
Now name all of the opposing pf's who would have comparable offensive advantages over Love. Notice how this list is FAR longer?
This fact is a rather blunt clue that Love is a better long-term fit defending c's than pf's. Another incredibly important fact that must be stressed is that Beasley defends pf's well but defends sf's poorly. (Please for the love of god don't take this opportunity to inappropriately bring up that Love's PER as a c last year was worse than his PER as a pf, since if you look at that sample size you'll note that it's way to small to be useful as supporting evidence here.)
Love could be the league's 4th best center or 14th best pf. Which makes more sense?
Beasley could be the league's 10th best pf or its 20th best sf. Which makes more sense?
Would you rather have your starting lineup feature a top 5 center and a top 10 pf, or would you rather have it feature a below average c (Darko)
c: Darko - 20th (i.e. below average for a starter)
pf: Love - 14th (average for a starter)
sf: Beasley - 20th (average/below average for a starter)
sg: Brewer - 27th (way below average for a starter)
or
c: Love - 4th (above average for a starter)
pf: Beasley - 10th (above average for a starter)
sf: Johnson - 20th (average/below average for a starter)
sg: Brewer - 27th (way below average for a starter)
Yet another way to look at it:
Who's a better c, Love or Darko? Love
Who's a better pf, Love or Beasley? Beasley
I just can't see how people can seriously envision Love being better suited to guard people like Bosh/Amar'e/Aldridge/Dirk/Garnett as opposed to those teams' centers, i.e. Joel Anthony, Ronny Turiaf, Joel Przybilla, Brendan Haywood, and Kendrick Perkins. Not only do I think that Love would do a better job of guarding these c's than these pf's, but I think it's absolutely ludicrous to think that such teams would freeze out their star players in order to funnel all of their offense through their centers in an attempt to take advantage of Love.
Think about it.
If the Wolves are playing the Heat and Love is guarding their starting center Joel Anthony, do you honestly believe that the Heat will take the ball away from LeBron/Wade/Bosh and just run iso's for Joel? Didn't think so. They'd be idiots to do such a thing.
If the Wolves are playing the Celtics and Love is guarding Kendrick Perkins, do you seriously think that the Celtics would tell Rondo/Allen/Pierce/Garnett to go stand in the corner while they pump the ball to Perkins every time? Didn't think so. They'd be idiots to do such a thing.
If the Wolves are playing the Knicks and Love is guarding their starting center Turiaf, will the Knicks ignore Amar'e and give the ball to Turiaf every time. Of course not. They'd be idiots to do such a thing.
Do you see the trend?
I'm really glad that you brought this up because it gives me a perfect opportunity to say that that for the love of god don't take the opportunity to inappropriately bring up Beasley's PER as a SF last year was worse than is PER as a PF, since if you look at that sample size you'll note that it's way too small to be useful as supporting evidence here.