I agree you Must have multiple bigs to compete in this league these days. With Andrays consistent play and JaVale swatting em we may just have that. Let’s see if Flip can realize potential any better than those that came before him.

Oberto is playing a much more “controlled” game these days too. He isn’t going to score, but, he does all the dirty stuff. Songaila comes to mind.

Last year it was Gasol, Bynum with odom helping.
Prior to that it was Boston with Garnett, along with Perkins/Big Baby/Pope.
I also recall Detroit Beating Shaq because they had Sheed and Ben Wallace. My point is that you can have your guards and small forwards, but today you also need two big men, whereas one may be a scorer and rebounder, but one is also the scrapper. Tonight, Atlanta was attacking in the first half, and even though superman was down there, Atlanta was bringing it to him and the weakside was getting offensive rebounds. Lewis started playing a big man role in the second half and negated some of this.

I say all of that to say, we will need two big men to get over the hump, against the upper echelon. Boston went and got Sheed to play with Garnett and I think this will make Boston the team to beat. As soon as L.A. got Bynum and Gasol on the floor together, they won a title. Cleveland has also stocked up on big men and are trying to play them together. Just my simple opinion. The more Javalle gets on the floor and establishes himself, he may be that wild-card that’s needed. Whether he’s on the floor with Dray or on the floor with Haywood. His rebounding will come around, but in the meantime, his skill at jumping out changing shots, will enable others to get rebounds, and also, his quick jumping ability may just allow him to alter shots and get rebounds.

Tomorrow’s game centers around controlling primarily one player. Given recent games… who do you guys think should start against Wade? Do you think DeShawn is “automatic” or do you think a guy like Dominic might get his props as Nick did last game. It sure seemed to put a spark in Nick’s play. If we could put a “spark” in Dominic along with JaVale simply being JaVale this could get interesting.

The closest player that the Wizards have to that size is 6’11″ 248 lbs. His skill set is amazing. He too can block shots, AND he can handle the ball, AND he can hit the 18 ft. jumper, AND he makes his foul shots, AND he can play three positions.

There are three things that differentiate the players: (1) Howard has an extra 17 pounds of solid muscle, (2) Howard is a nasty SOB around the basket, (3) ‘Dray doesn’t get the minutes (probably because of #s 1 and 2).

I chose that lineup simply off of what we saw against the 6ers. The ball moved around and nick played defense. He started and produced. we cant keep judging slick off what we saw in years past. this is a new year and this time he has got any valuable mins so this is him so far this season.

another reason is, it seems to me like Gil has has alot of respect for NIck and twaan’s game offensively. he has always spoken very highly of nick comparing him to kobe and plays one on one with him often. if you look at who gil passes the ball to the most it twaan. these are the guys gil trust on offense. I dont think he trust caron as much or haywood or anyone else. i think thats why the ball doesnt usually move as well as it did when nick started. And also will (hopefully) help get gil back on track. with slick and MM on the wings, teams will have to respect the fact that when gil drives it, he can always kick it back out to two dead on shooters. they wont be able to collapse as easy on him then. if they do then gil can kick it out to the only players who’s O game wasnt left in the 08 season. I really think it will open things up for gil. then Caron, blatche, and foye can come in and run the second unit with another go to guy in caron. it will make us efficient for longer stretches in the game. I also would like to see DOM get mins against teams with unstoppable players to hopefully slow them down. wade, lebron, kobe, roy, durant, carmelo, joe johnson. i think when we play these guys our lineup should change to try to slow those guys down. we dont have anyone that can out score them. so why not slow the game down and force there other players to win the game for them.

a decent seat is like $60 but a pretty good one is about 80-90.

I recommend going to Stubhub.com to look for tickets