but now I’m wishing we would have gone with Monroe. Like you said, he’d be our center and we wouldn’t have to worry about going and finding one. You can tell by the number that Monroe has really stepped up his level of play on both sides of the ball and is being aggressive. Udoh on the other hand, hasn’t really shown any growth in the time that he’s spent with us. Granted Ekpe doesn’t play nearly as much as Monroe, I still don’t see Ekpe being able to rebound at the level that Monroe does, or being able to score as efficiently as Monroe. Another sucky thing for us is that Ekpe doesn’t even block that much more than Monroe does anymore.

There is no way you could line up Monroe and David Lee as your starting frontcourt and expect to win games. There is no defense between the 2 of them. Udoh already has more blocks than Monroe with less minutes and games played.

I’ve also noticed his recent run of good games. I’ve been checking a few of the box scores, and when looking at these games I noticed the other team’s big guys score an awful lot when playing the pistons.

If we had him Smart would have had him sitting on the bench and we wouldn’t have known what his capabilities are

Solid post game, active player, long, good skills. Able to play both C and PF.

He may be better suited as a PF…but so is Udoh. Obviously more upside. Taller. Younger. More skills.

You should never draft based on need until you have a true championship caliber team or at least something close to it. You should always look to take the best player available. Taking Udoh remains a fail.