From the little I have seen of them Luke Jackson looked more like an NBA player than the others (but I did not, clearly, see S-Bo today). However, from a need stand point - I think that Hill has to be the choice, he is a real center and seems like a pretty decent one as a training one, at least.
Aldridge has a history of back problems. Pryzbila has never played a full season. Frye is coming off an injury. Greg Oden is a monster and will slaughter any of those guys in practice. I don't think KP will want to risk major bumps and bruises to our rotation guys with Oden abusing guys in practice. Oden needs a punching bag, and somebody to mainly help refine his offensive game. I think Hill is a decent defensive bigman that can actually force Oden to work.
Yeah, but in the past I've heard big guys talk about how going against really good players in practice helped make them better. Wouldn't it help Greg by going against guys like Aldridge, Frye, and Joel?
I'm sure it would be better for everybody, but our roster is pretty fragile. I'm not saying Hill would exclusively guard Oden, but they'd need to keep a rotation of guys going at him. Why risk injury on guys (Oden is a different kind of beast) when we have an open spot on a guy that will never see any game time.
Randolph's performance tonight could have been nothing but an aberration, but he's got length and can probably play both center and power forward which makes him versatile. I like Steven of Nazareth too but he strikes me as a bit of a Joel clone (all defense and zero offense). I guess right now I'm leaning toward Randolph and I'll be curious to see what he does with his opportunities from here until the end of the pre-season.
Quick apparently said that the team is leaning towards Hill, but that was yesterday. I'm wondering if Randolph's performance changed any opinions. It's funny that a 15th spot has become such a large topic of discussion.
I liken it to gambling addicts trying to bet the over/under on stadium capacity ... we're Blazers fans, dissecting minutiae is what we do
Does it even make sense to sign a guy for practice? Is that necessary? Couldn't they just pay someone to practice with the team, rather than using a roster spot for them? Or, if that's against the CBA, they could sign someone as an assistant coach. I'm pretty sure there are no limits on the number of assistant coaches, and I've seen plenty of pictures of coaches practicing with the team. Why not sign Hill as Asst. Coach? barfo
I'd go with Hill just to have a big practice body for Joel and Greg to abuse. Tatum has no chance but at least he gets to live the NBA life for a couple more preseason games which isn't that bad. Jackson.. eh, if he had a chance, it would be because of Webster going down. And S-Bo (haha, love that nickname), he could be a darkhorse just because he has some talent, and he started for the Sixers last year. I'd still go with Hill though just to take the abuse in practice.
