Yao vs. Trades

I'd like to start off by saying that there's only one way we should do a trade: If we can get a young All Star caliber big man that can both rebound and score. Essentially Duncan or KG. Now, if we were to trade for one of those guys it obviously wouldn't be a trade the #1 for those guys straight up. We'd probably have to deal EG as well. They get the #1, a very good prospect in EG (possibly a KT or something as well), and we get Duncan/KG and we get to dump a useless contract or 2.

Now, I find that scenario doubtufl. If either of those 2 were available it would be KG, but does Minny really want the #1? I don't think Yao would be thrilled about playing for the Timberbears and J-Will would be a little redundant since they already have Brandon and Billups. If Yao would play there then its possible or if they could turn around and trade the #1 again for some other player they need.

However, I think our best scenario is to draft Yao. Despite last year we still have plenty of talent already. We have good chemistry in our backcourt and a pair of guys that love playing. As far as I'm concerned we're set at the 1-2 and there's no reason to screw with that this offseason (maybe if we have another bad year). EG still has a lot of potential and could still be our starting 4. A lot of who we draft should pend on how he's developing this summer. If he's adding muscle and looking like he could get some low post moves and is ready to bang with the big boys then he's a lock at the 4. We may still have to wait another year on him, but we're just looking for progress at this point. So, it comes down to the 3 and the 5. Obviously the easiest one to take care of in this draft is the 3. From Dunleavy and Butler, to Tsika and Woods, and down to Nochbar there are plenty of pretty talented SF's. However, there is only 1 center that has All Star level talent, Ming. Borchadt could be top 15 center, Stoudemire is too undeveloped to know, and Hilario is more of a Ben Wallace in a best case scenario (which is very good, but just outside of All Star caliber). We take Ming and the risk and set up for a dynasty. Realistically I think worst case scenario for Ming is that he becomes Rik Smits. Was Smits that bad? He was an above average center (probably top 10 or top 8 in the league...and there were actually some decent centers back then). He could shoot, he got some boards, and his height caused problems for other centers. Plus Ming could turn out to be Walton. We can still fill our need at 3 later in the draft, but the opportunity for a franchise center doesn't come along very often these days.