Beans is having a breakout year so far- 17.5 ppg, 13.5 rpg, 1.7 bpg, 58% FGs. Hes taken on the role of a captain better than I expected, hes become a legit scoring option, hes still playing with his trademark hustle and desire. Hes second in the league in rpg (behind only Dwight Howard) and second in rebounds per 48 min (behind Reggie Evans who only plays 13 min a game). Hes third in the league in ppg among centers behind only Dwight and Al Jeff and ahead of Yao, all of whom average more mpg than him. So where would you rank him among the league's elite C's? I'd say hes above Kaman, Jermaine O'Neal, Bogut, Horford, Bynum, etc. Behind Dwight and Yao. Amare and Al Jeff too if you consider them C's. Around the level of Tyson Chandler, I'd say a little higher than Chandler right now due to his scoring, leadership, and better overall numbers. So is he top 10? Top 5? Top 3?
That sounds about right. I'd say he's top 10, top 5 is probably a stretch, although maybe 1-2 years from now it might not be, especially if he can continue to improve his FT% to near or above 70%. Biedrins is still hurt by his poor FT% and committing too many fouls, both of which means it's difficult to rely on him in crunch time, but he seems to be improving there. If he keeps putting up these kinds of numbers I hope the refs will finally give him some respect on the fouls, I still think he easily, by far, gets consistently the worst calls of any player in the NBA. Don't forget Duncan too. I know he is sometimes listed as a PF but I still consider him more of a center.
Definitely top 10 right now. Possibly Top 5 in the West if we're counting guys like Tim Duncan as PF's.
My Laker fan friend says that Bynum is better right now and will be better in the future. I say Biedrins >>>>>>>> Bynum
I thought nba.com stat pages had rankings for each top 20 or so stat that an individual player had. I looked to see where Biedrins ranked among the league in certain stats, and was disappointed to not see that around anymore... But apparently Andris is 1st in the league for rebounds, and 3rd in the league in points per game for centers, though I guess some bigs that could be centers for the all-star game were not in that center category for espn stats. And he's top 25 in the NBA in blocks. Just food for thought. Bynum though? I guess he's up there. He doesn't get too much of a chance to score with Bryant and others. He is averaging 3 blocks per game so far. He's going to be pretty good. But I wouldn't say he has been as outstanding as Biedrins. But Bynum is a good player and should be for many years.
Bynum has a strong case for being better than Biedrins because of his size and his dominating, low post offense. But he doesn't always work that hard on the glass which slightly kills his value because he could be Dwight Howard one moment and Eddy Curry the next. Contrast that to Biedrins who is a maximum effort kind of guy and he could very well be the good kind of tweener (too quick for C's, too strong for PF's). Biedrins is also a better passer than Bynum probably due to more experience and better basketball smarts at this point in time. Again, if we bring in the missing power forward we've always wanted, we got a strong case for being a dominant team for quite a while, provided our backcourt can do its job shooting, passing, and moving the ball.
Biedrins is behind Howard, Yao, Chandler and maybe Jefferson. Chandler because he plays better post defense. Biedrins has nice glass numbers and blocks shots but he's more of a Camby guy right now than a true center. However, his post offense is getting better and developing. He's top 6-10 right now and may be higher by the end of the year. I love him though. Wish they gave him more offensive plays and less screens.
i'd take howard, yao, oden, bogut, bynum, and chandler over him definitely. same with jefferson and horford if you consider those guys centers(obviously duncan, amare, etc would fit in that category as well). i'd put him on the same level with guys like kaman and dalembert. biedrins has been putting up huge numbers so far this season(of course they are inflated some by golden state's pace) so maybe that will change. i'd say it's more likely that his numbers come down some though.
