Any player that win the McD’s All American slam dunk contest over James “Flight” White, can NEVER be considered “Non-Athletic”.

Randolph is a shot blocker off the weak side, but can’t defend his own position @ 4, much less 5.
Though people look at this trade as us gaining a weaker defender, Lee’s “beef” as Riley would put it makes it less likely for player to get deep position in the first place, even if he isn’t getting the near 2 Bpg that AR was.

That, combined with our added Defensive cog in Udoh, who should be an upgrade over anyone else on the roster means we’ve pretty much improved our roster’s post D over last year. Or at least, that’s the way I look at it.

what part of town are you going to be in?

no amare is that.

Arguable. Fact of the matter is that David Lee scored more points per possession in the P&R than anybody last year… working with Chris Duhon. Amare had Steve Nash working his P&R. So, yeah… Lee scored more efficiently with a far, far worse P&R partner. I’ll take my chances.

We were dangerous scoring already

Not really. We scored a lot. That doesn’t mean we did it well. We played fast, which makes it look like we scored more.

same defense as lee and at much less per year.

Ummm… no.

Who is going to be the backup center?

Gadzuric will play back up center. But, seriously, which position is more important to a basketball team, starting PF or backup anything? You’re seriously suggesting that we shouldn’t make this trade because we’d be losing our backup center?

His impact was not so big because we had to put him in the starting role to much.

I just don’t know what to say here. His impact was lessened by starting and playing more? That does not compute.

Bukie is a great role player and from what he has said he is healthy and feeling good both knees.

Yeah, again. Back up. And not even a big, he’s a back up SG. That’s easily the easiest spot to fill. Heck, we could grab the top scorer in D League and he’d do an admirable job (Hint: That’s how we got Kelenna in the first place, that’s how we got Reggie, that’s how we got CJ).

He can score big deal who can’t on the warriors.

Yes, Monta can score a ton. Unfortunately, he can’t do it efficiently. Biedrins can score efficiently, unfortunately he’s useless outside of 3 feet and can’t spread the defense and open up driving lanes. Lee can score, score efficiently, and score from range well enough that the defense has to honor it and open up driving lanes/passing lanes. Is this really so hard to comprehend?

Even biedrins can average 15 here when healthy.

When has he ever done this? He approached 12 at his peak. That’s still well short of 15. Unless he picks up a jump shot or Curry becomes a master P&R orchestrator, Biedrins will never score 15ppg. And if Curry becomes a master P&R conductor, Lee will be a far more effective pair than Biedrins.

Again. All we’re giving up are bit pieces and unfulfilled potential. All we’re getting back is an efficient volume scorer who’s a vacuum on the glass. So what if we have to pay appropriate value for him. That’s just more money that’s being put to good use that our FO can’t screw up.

Not the same talent but even when don nelson was not coaching ar in the summer league he would dominate.

Yeah, and Belineli’s summer league dominance really showed in the NBA as well. Summer league is summer league. AR dominated summer league because he was so athletically dominant compared to the other players. It is his athleticism that makes everyone like him, and he knows it, and he relies on it. Unfortunately, he hasn’t shown the mental awareness or fundamentals to be able to compete at the NBA level.

How far can athleticism alone take a player in the NBA? Look at how many pump fakes AR falls for and how lost he can get on defense. On offense he has a tendency to become a black hole (1.7ast:2.5tov per 36), no post game, a “meh” jumper, but he did improve his FT significantly. AR can rebound, but Lee does as well, and actually better than AR per36. AR does get blocks, but they come from the weakside. I would not say AR is a better defender than Lee.

This all comes down to if you think AR can reach his “potential” because frankly Lee is simply better than AR almost across the board right now. Can AR finally put it all together and become better than Lee? I really don’t think we can say either way right now.

Who is going to be the backup center? turiaf was a perfect backup and brought us the energy.

Turiaf also looks very good in a suit, because that’s likely where Turiaf will be for half of the season.