Cousins — one of the best postmen ever available

…based on what, exactly?

As for the other 3, nobody cares who wins a 1 on 1 game. It’s about how you contribute to 5 on 5 basketball. From that perspective, you just aren’t valuing Biedrins contributions at all. He’s an incredibly efficient offensive player, who actually scores at an alright rate – nothing special, but still better than quite a lot of players out there. He’s a monster rebounder. Even as good a rebounder as Cousins was, I think you’d be hard pressed to make the case that he’s likely to be as good or better than Biedrins. The others? That’s a joke. Biedrins plays active D – he’s not a good post defender, but he’s not horrible, either, and everyone puts wayyyy too much emphasis on his perceived post D when evaluating his overall defensive contributions. Yes, when good post men get the ball with good position, they score often. You see what Gasol was doing to Boozer last night? That’s what post players do. It’s hard to defend 7 footers near the rim – nobody but maybe Howard does it really effectively. To call those guys better than Biedrins right now is an absolute joke. To rather have them than Kevin Love is an even bigger joke. Do you know what Love is already doing in the NBA? I’ll give you a hint – he’s putting up better NBA production than those guys put up college production.

Nobody else is saying these things about this draft. For instance, take this link. It’s outdated, but still, when it opens up with something like this:

I reached out this week to four NBA scouts for their opinions on the elite players in this year’s draft (assuming those players declare for it). They agreed on two points: That this will be a weak draft, and that three players at the top have separated themselves from the pack. Based on their analysis, I am now viewing this as a three-player draft, with a big drop-off thereafter.

What makes you think these big men are that talented? Playing against not only inferior competition, but much, much worse combinations of size and athletiicsm makes big men look better in college. When they get to the pros, they’re not going to do as well. It’s an easy concept, but I just don’t see how you can justify those opinions while recognizing it. Saying things like “Put ’em in 5-on-5. They get more points, rebounds, and assists than AB” is just absurd to me. Maybe if you put them against high schoolers. If you put them out on an NBA court, there’s absolutely no reason to think they could do what he does right now. Whether you look at their skills/athleticism, their college production, what rookies tend to do historically (not be that good, especially defensively), how productive someone like AB already is……there’s just flat out not a case for that at all.

Also, calling them all more athletic and better conditioned than Biedrins is kind of weird. Aldrich is a poor athlete. Cousins is definitely worse conditioned, and while he’s definitely gonig to be bigger and stronger, not sure if he’s “more athletic”, as he definitely won’t be able to move like Andris. I don’t even want to go into Orton, because….really? The dude averaged 3 points and 3 rebounds a game in college (13.4 mpg). He scored in double digits twice, rebounded in double digits exactly 0 times, but you know what he did do? Foul out 5 times….

Yeah, he sucked this year. He was injured and he had a complete meltdown when it came to shooting free throws. However, he’s a known commodity. We KNOW what he can do, and it’s pretty good:
1. He can score points efficiently. A career .601 true shooting percentage.
2. He rebounds the ball extremely well. For his career, he has brought down nearly 25% of his opponents missed shots. He’s rebounded 12% of the Warriors missed shots. Rebounding is important, especially for a team that’s so bad at it.
3. He protects the rim. He’s an above average help defender, and, although he gets mistakenly bashed here for it, a pretty good post defender.

This whole “Who would win one-on-one” thing is rubbish. Stephon Marbury or Steve Francis could both destroy Steve Nash or Jason Kidd one-on-one. Who would you rather have? Even in his prime, Rodman probably couldn’t beat anyone in the NBA one-on-one, but are you telling me you wouldn’t want him on your team?

Also, claiming these guys are more athletic than Biedrins is premature at best, and irrelevant at worst. You have no proof of this other than watching these guys play against weaker competition and watching Biedrins play against some of the best athletes in the world. Outside of really bad athletes, there’s no proof that better athleticism leads to better players. And here’s what was said about Biedrins before the draft

He’s long (7-foot with a 7-1½ wingspan), has great lateral quickness, is an explosive leaper with a 34½ inch vertical jump (Chris Bosh and Carmelo Anthony each have a 33-inch verticals, by way of comparison)… He’s a pure four whose specialty is defense, shot blocking and energy… His body is ripped, and he has a strong core that allows him to play in the post. He bench presses 185 pounds around 15 times. Only one big guy in Chicago (Jason Keep) topped that in combine testing last year.

All four of the players you mention have potential. I think if the Warriors drafted any one of them, it would help improve the team. However, if you think that any of them are definitively better than Biedrins right now, you’re delusional.