Little man or big man?

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Published: November 20, 2008

Which do we need more on our bench?

Generally you can’t make a title run without a reliable rotation of at least eight men.  Conventional wisdom says that means you need at least a ball handler, a wing and a big man coming off the bench.

Clearly we’ve got the wing position figured out (though I wouldn’t mind if our starters would knock down more shots).  I think this leaves us pondering which is the bigger hole on our roster: backup point or backup pivot?  Or, to pose the question differently:

  • Is Hilton Armstrong or Mike James more valuable to coach Scott?
  • Whose would be a more devastating injury (knock on wood): Tyson Chandler or Chris Paul?
  • Come playoff time, if fatigue sets in for our starters, where will it hurt more: our fast break or our defensive rebounding?

Yuck, it makes me uneasy just asking these hypothetical questions… though I’d love to hear answers.  Maybe another way to look at it is, who’s out there that can help?  ESPN came out with a list of unemployed players not long ago, and it’s not pretty.  There aren’t any point guards on that list worth glancing at (I’ve never been a D. Stoudamire fan).

But look at the one name topping everybody’s list: Antonio McDyess.  I figured he was a lock to return to the Pistons, but now I’m reading that the Bobcats are making a run?!?!  We can offer him another title, plus he’d get to play with the best pure point man in the league since John Stockton.  Why do you think Karl Malone stuck around for so many years?

Maybe I’m missing something here, but it seems like a no-brainer for us to make a run at A. McD.  It won’t solve our problems at the point, but we’d definitely be silencing a lot of critics… a probably a few teams.

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