The one player will we have to trade to take it to the next level

No, he did not. Ben Wallace was their physical presence.

You've got to be fucking kidding me. What a stupid fucking thing to post.

Possibly. Robert Horry isn't a physical player. Kendrick Perkins is a center.

Good for you. Horry was never considered a "banger". If you want to call him one, go for it. I'll sit back and laugh.

I mean Maurice Lucas. Karl Malone. Dennis Rodman. Not Robert Fucking Horry or Rasheed Wallace.

Hey, I'm not the one trying to shoehorn Horry as some sort of physical presence, and Perkins as a PF, in order to advance my silly argument.

 

my point just flew over your head. I'll try again.

On both ends of the court LA tips an inordinate amount of rebounds to teammates. The teammates get the statistical credit for the board but it's LA who made it possible. Yes he doesn't have great individual rebounding numbers, but Portland is consistently a good rebounding team in part because of LaMarcus.

STOMP

 

It's all about who else is in the front court next to Lamarcus. He's not a banger, so if your starting Center is Channing Frye than you have a problem. But next to Oden/Pryz/Camby and with b/u's like Juwan and Pendy - it's not exploited so much.

Several good teams have what you might call "soft" PF's. Rashard Lewis = classic case. Because he plays next to Dwight Howard and they have guys like Bass and Gortat on the bench it works. Pau Gasol is another. People still talk about the "Gasol Trade", but if you remember at the time Gasol had a label as "soft". In Memphis, where he was paired with the likes of Stromile Swift, Hakeem Warrick, Brian Cardinal, and a bunch of stiffs that aren't in the league anymore . . . his finesse style of play was exposed. Ship him to LA where he's got Lamar Odom, Andrew Bynum, & co. he excels. Why? Because he doesn't have to do all of the dirty work. He doesn't have to guard the other teams biggest player for 40 minutes/night like he did in Memphis. And even with Bynum out they have physical SG's/SF's like (270 pound "Small" Forward) Ron Artest and Kobe that can help out in the middle.

Lamarcus isn't a banger . . . so what? If Oden stays healty, and we have another b/u big man on the bench besides Pendegraph (whether it's Pryz, Camby, or ?) we can win. It's funny how you always want what you don't have. If we had a Dennis Rodman in his prime as our starting PF, people would say we need a Stretch 4 to spread the floor and take pressure of Roy. Always have to complain about something I guess.

 

Rasheed probably wasn't even the best Wallace on that team. Ben made that team the team they were with his rebounding and defense. Then Billups and Hamilton carried the scoring load for the most part.

Anyways, the Blazers don't need to trade Aldridge. In his first playoffs he averaged 19/7 on 49% FG shooting against a pretty good Rockets team. He's still only 24 and there is room for improvement, mainly putting the ball on the floor and getting to the basket, which is what players like Bosh, Amare, Dirk, etc are able to do.

 

A player I think could vault us into that level is Al Horford

Though, he's as available as Brandon Roy. It's a nice thought though!

 

Really? Less than 2 rebounds/game more than Aldridge, and he gets to the line less often. I don't see it. I think they're fairly comparable, except Alridge is a more complete offensive player, while Horford is a better defensive rebounder.