Well, also Rasheed Wallace without the fantastic defense. Otherwise, I agree with your comparisons. I'm not sure which I'd rather have. Boozer is a much better player right now. I guess I'd like to sign Boozer and deal Aldridge for a big upgrade at another position. If it had to be one of the two, I'd keep Aldridge. He has the chance to be a 20+ PER player himself, with better defense than Boozer.
Boozer is a rich man's Zach Randolph. While he'd help the team, I don't think he's worth the money he's going to demand. Aldridge is a superior defender already (though not as good as I had expected when he was drafted). Aldridge isn't all that much worse of an offensive player. So the only major benefit to bringing in Boozer is for better rebounding in my opinion. With Greg and Joel in the middle, I don't think it's worth a max/near-max contract.
That's a really good point. We're already one of the best rebounding teams in the game: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/statistics?stat=teamstatreb&season=2009&seasontype=2 We have the highest rebounding differential both in percent and raw numbers IN THE LEAGUE. (Pretty darned impressive, given our early schedule.) Not really surprising, given Przybilla and Oden, but also taking into account Roy is a very good rebounder for a guard. How much do we really expect to improve those numbers by swapping out Aldridge for Boozer? There comes a point where you reach diminishing returns. Reminds me of when Chicago added Ben Wallace. They were already a great defensive team. What did they really hope to gain? You can't just keep loading up in one area at the expense of others, and not pay the price. Boozer really doesn't solve anything for this team.
Boozer solves one thing for this team - and that's post scoring - but given that I expect both LMA to get better in the post and Oden to get an awful lot better than he has shown so far in the post - I agree with the conclusion...
I'm opposed to giving anything of remote reciprocal value to Utah. They should be happy with anything they get, since a) he'll walk for free and b) there're teams that don't need to do a S&T to get him. I think he'd be good for 4 months for us, if it was in lieu of Frye, Outlaw, Blake, etc. Or Raef. There's no way we're giving up Bayless, much less LMA for Boozer. As such, I don't think I'd mind it. But it's kind of dumb for me. We aren't going to drop Joel from the 4/5 rotation b/c we get Boozer, so it's he and LMA splitting 48 mpg. Neither will be happy getting 24 minutes. Whoever gets less will be miserable.
Boozer is a MUCH better rebounder than Wallace though. EDIT - Um, yeah, you were talking about LMA and Wallace, which makes this post useless. Anyhoo, carry on...
