Personally I'd do Odom for Francis in a heartbeat. If the Magic could move Dwight to Center and then put Odom at the 4 it could work. Lamar Odom could easily play the 4 in the East. We could give him a role similar to the one he had in Miami where he was succesful.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Diesel:</div><div class="quote_post">Personally I'd do Odom for Francis in a heartbeat. If the Magic could move Dwight to Center and then put Odom at the 4 it could work. Lamar Odom could easily play the 4 in the East. We could give him a role similar to the one he had in Miami where he was succesful.</div> Ideally a frontline of Odom, Howard, & Darko would be pretty damn exciting for Orlando Magic fans. Odom can be the player Grant Hill was supposed to be in Orlando. I think the frontline of those 3 could develop into one of the best in the league. Dwight Howard has his head on straight and wants to be the best in the league. He's very humble and knows the areas of the game he can improve on. He's the second coming of David Robinson, great persona on and off the court. Darko will be playing with something to prove, and no longer has the pressure to be great right away. Last night I was listening to the Detroit scout, who found Darko and recommended Dumars to select him. His name slips my memory right now, but he is the head of International scouting and one of the best in the league. He's the same scout who discovered Dirk Nowitzki when he was working for Don Nelson. He said you have to put Darko's career in perspective. When the Pistons drafted him, he was only 18 years old. He said the only player from that draft class would have received consistent minutes was LeBron James. Unfortunately, for Darko he had to find time behind two All-Star veterans in Detroit while the team was in the hunt for a title. He said if they had drafted Chris Bosh it would have been the same situation. Dwyane Wade would not have played any significant minutes behind Hamilton or Hunter. And Carmelo Anthony wasn't good enough defensively to crack the rotation. He said the Pistons still believe in Darko, but financially they cannot afford to keep him and it's not fair to Darko to continue sitting on the bench in Detroit. He also mentioned Darko is only 20 years old. He's younger than a lot of players who came out of this year's draft class. Unlike, college seniors, Darko has developed with three All Star forwards and a championship caliber team. He said the situation is eerily similar to Jermaine O'neal in Portland. JO had to play behind Rasheed Wallace and Brian Grant. He said you can ask any trainer in the league and they'll tell you Darko is off the charts in workouts and the quickest big man in the league. The ESPN radio guys kept trying to compare Darko to James Worthy. The scout, you have to understand, when the Lakers drafted Worthy he was 20 years old his rookie year. Worthy didn't play right away and came off the bench. He cracked the lineup the next season at 21 and was developed under the right circumstances. He said you have to give Darko the same patience and development.
nice post shapcity. I agree with that trainer, Darko is 20 years old, other than dwight and lebron not many high schoolers have come out and put up big number. And the big reason they put up those numbers cuz they were put in the starting lineups of poor teams. U cant put darko on a championship team at 20yrs. i think he will be a good player in this league, i doubt he becomes great but he will be good.
