na, KAz is a great example …

Yea I was gonna say it would be like calling Harden or DeRozan “Air,” but that nickname has been stolen so many times already (Air Canada, Air France) that it has already been devalued and didn’t make for a very good example. I agree about the first letter of first name, first syllable of the last name stuff, it worked for the first few guys (T-Mac, A-Rod), but when it became the default nickname for 50% of professional athletes and 90% of frat boys and wannabe frat boys around the country it lost all value.

But you have a good point. You replace KG with Bosh and Boston goes to the ECFs twice in a row (cuz Bosh wouldn’t have been injured this year), losing to LeBron each time.

Why do I believe this? I don’t know. I highly doubt Bosh would have had the same effect KG did. We’ll see if Bosh can pull a KG on his next team. Though, if he gets paired with LeBron, all we’ll find out is that he’s better than Big Z and Andy V… as if we didn’t already know that.

um…if you’re going by offense, by your logic, that would make Okur a PF & Boozer a C. hell Malone played inside while Ostertag stood as far away from the ball as possible. Ewing was a jump shooting big man while Oakley played more in the paint. So when Camby and Nene were paired together in Denver 2 seasons ago, Nene was the center? though i guess it doesn’t matter now since Nene is all of a sudden a center now that he’s paired with someone smaller right?

if you’re going by defense. it’s even more absurd. Thomas, Mohammed and Elson don’t/didn’t stray from the paint. they probably ventured out of the paint less than Duncan since Duncan is involved in more pick & rolls. call me crazy, but i would think the guy who is defending the opposing team’s center would also be the one most analysts & whatnot would call the center on defense.

KG anchored the middle of the Timberwolves & Celtic defenses. so why don’t you consider him a center? Al Jefferson does a horrible job at it, but last season he frequently “anchored the middle” as you put it. Dirk is often playing w/ some kind of combination of Kidd/Barea/Terry/Josh/Wright/Stack/George/Bass….now i don’t know what particular defense Carlisle is running there – it’s not what he ran with the Pistons or Pacers, but it sure looks to me that Dirk’s the guy manning the center spot in their defense. the mail man didn’t venture out of the paint either why is he a PF? b/c Ostertag was bigger than him?

so if AR anchors the middle he’ll be the center? but what if AB anchors it sometimes and at other times AR does? what about the Jazz? before Boozer, AK was the guy who anchored that middle for them (as the 06-07 W’s found out he still kind of does)… so should we call him a center too? besides unlike small ball teams like Orlando or the W’s, most teams have 2 bigs anchoring the paint.

career-wise, Duncan no more played center than Brand or KG or Sheed or Dirk or Al Jeff or any other PF’s who are/were capable of guarding the position. so why do you consider them to be PFs?

if you wanted to say that it’s semantic b/c it’s less PF-C and more bigs. i’d agree with you, but if you just want to ONLY point at Duncan and say he’s a C while other guys are not just b/c you have some misguided notion that guys like Mohammed played farther away from the paint, i’m not going to agree.

i’m surprised you went w/ this “everyone else played farther from the paint”. actually before i read your response, i initially thought someone had called me out on the fact that i put Kenny Thomas instead of Kurt.

if you were going for a legitimate counterargument you should have gone with the Center is the guy who is listed as the bigger guy of the two big guys. and gave the Hakeem w/ Sampson example as a Duncan and Robinson parallel. the reason i view it differently is that Duncan continued to guard the PF while Olajuwon guarded C. just like even though Al Jefferson is bigger than Love, Love guards the C position. KG bigger than Blount.

what makes Ben Wallace a center & Joe Johnson a SG even though they are roughly the same size? it’s the opposing player they guard. if JJ is guarding a geezer Jordan type who is always posting up & Ben is guarding a Manute/Okur/Sheed – does it matter who is in the painted area 2x more than the other guy?