I'll give Cloud a B+ for his posts. Jefferson was heavily criticized in Minny for his lack of shotblocking and D and he was coming off knee problems..but very true that if he played like a superstar he wouldn't have been available anyway.
Thats my point. Turning our noses up at what is definitely a great offensive player (though I would question the defensive part when someone averages 1.7 blocks and almost 1 steal PG..Garnett didn't average much better, and sometimes less) because of some defensive shortcomings doesn't make sense to me. We just have to put defenders around him. It most definitely worked for guys like Richard Hamilton. Who was a defensive joke in Washington until he came here and all of a sudden people were looking on the bright side. I'll never forget that the scouting report on Hamilton was that he couldn't guard a pot of Earl Grey at a childrens tea party.
lol.... I was kind of thinking we were sort of like the rock band that did far too much partying and now is trying to do it clean. Which pretty much means we're trying not to stink it up bigtime....but who knows? Does Saul Hudson drink like he used to? His JD exploits used to be epic.
Not that I disagree with you and your points in this thread, but isn't this what folks said about CV and Ben last summer? If your willing to bring in a sub defensive player A, then how can you (generic you, not you cloud) complain about player B having the same faults.... or the opposite complain all year about bringing in player A who is a bad defender then spend all summer wanting playing B? If we could have gotten him, which I honestly don't think we ever had a chance no matter what we offered... I would have liked to see him and Monroe as a 4/5 combo.
I don't think we offered anything though. I think the Tayshaun rumors had legs, personally. I believe Joe was hurting over the thought of giving up Tay or Rip for anything short of Kobe or LeBron, or Darko again perhaps...'cause IMO Joe is bonkers.
Sure, but where were the defenders? Rip? Stuckey? I don't even really like Tayshaun despite that ever present "block" of his. He ran from LeBron. That supercedes the block forever in my mind. He practically went back in time and invented the duck and cover. Sure some were supportive of the signings of last year, yet I have to think many of them (us) were counting on Joe retaining some sort of defender in the paint that didn't include an aging undersized forward that needed surgery on two body parts three teams ago trying to play center full time.
