That would be ideal as it would mean that both Whiteside and Collins would remain healthy for the last few months of the season.
Some might call Skal a center. He'd make 4. If they kept this Moses kid, that'd be 5. That could qualify as "loading up".
Agreed. I think people expecting him to be able to average his normal minutes a game this year so soon after returning are unrealistic. EVEN if he returns healthy, he'll have been several months from playing full court basketball for extended minutes.
When Nurk comes back? Hayward and Paul George were shells of themselves, I dont expect Nurk to be a quality starter at all this year.
Yeah, it's crazy how some fans are worried about other players mintues when Nurk is starting.... We don't know if Nurk will even be a competent bench player at all this season.
Some would list Meyers. Nurk, Whiteside, Skal, Gasol, Collins. A third of our roster are centers so were fine.
Hayward had a completely different injury. George only played a week or so since he got hurt in the offseason, and was an all star the following year (btw he returned in six months. If Nurk had the same timeline, and he had the exact same injury, that would put him at sometime in November. I don’t think he’ll be back then, but I also don’t believe he’ll be out until February) It was a clean break. Just looks a lot more serious than it actually is.
Pau Gasol is most definitely not insurance for our starting center, he is a 15th man like Earl Watson was here.
I agree with HJ...somebody lazy isn't going to be rebounding at the rates that Whiteside has been. I mean, over the last 3 seasons his defensive rebounding rate has been over 35%. And he has a career offensive rebounding rate of 14.1%. Those aren't the marks of a lazy player now, they may be the marks of a player too concerned about his own numbers, but that's almost impossible to gauge. If you're looking for something to worry about, the fact that Whiteside has a career assist mark of 0.6/game while carrying a usage rate of 22% is kind of a red flag. But there aren't any red flags with his rebounding, defense, or rim protection. And the reality is when you look at the numbers, it was rebounding that was more responsible than anything else for getting swept by the Warriors in the WCF
The thing is, Whiteside never played with players like Dame and CJ, i'm excited to see what he can do with great players and much better shooting
Stat stuffing could definitely be a concern but like you say, that isn't laziness. Russell Westbrook stat stuffs and has several fatal flaws but he is definitely not a lazy player.
Man, I remember when "twin towers" were all the rage. Center-centric teams don't seem to be in vogue anymore. I'm all good with one shot-blocking, rebounding hound in the middle. I hope Whiteside shows us strong glimpses of that quality.
Is a “stat stuffing” center even a bad thing? I mean I get it when it’s westbrook, a guy that has the ball in his hands and runs the offense, but a center? Meh.
Dame-Matthews-Batum-LMA + Hickson = 33-49 Dame-Matthews-Batum-LMA + Lopez = 54-28 (fortunately, unlike JJ but like Robin, Whiteside plays defense & protects the rim)