I wasn't thinking about role when I made the comparison, just the expectations and his output.
Thad had the worst %FG around the rim including guards for most of the season. He absolutely sucks at it. What we need is more pressure on the rim offensively, Rudy is the only consistent threat that gravitates defenders towards the rim.
Defensively, he always had good fundamentals. Gets deflections, plays the passing lanes without gambling and switches well but he did all of those playing PF. Mostly with defensive studs at centers like Hibbert and Turner. He is not that mobile to contest or deflect and recover without help. If you play him center, we would need to change our rotation players for perimeter defenders to make use of his skills. And on offense we would need shot creators while we stick him to the weakside corner.
I think as a 4, Morgan gives what he does, minus the shooting but that could improve, for a much better price.
Btw, I loved him in Indy and was probably suggesting signing him last year. I defintely wanted to see him with Jazz in earlier seasons.
Some of what you are saying is valid. He struggled finishing this year, but was well below his career average... again he played with Zach Lavine and Coby White the majority of his minutes. I would expect him to come up on that.
He never played with Hibbert... he has consistently been near the top of the league in deflections and steals his whole career... that **** ain't because he played with Myles Turner for a couple years or because of Jim Boylan's scheme (though he had a slight uptick this year because of it).
I'm vice president of the Juwan Morgan fan club... he is good positionally and has good hands... he is not nearly as disruptive as Thad. We didn't try him really so we don't know... and we need some certainty.
We have creators in the second unit, so he can be the screen and roll man. When he plays with Rudy he sits in the corner... hit 35 and 36% of his corner threes last two seasons.
In the second unit we can't play our drop big base defense... we just can't. Even a great rim protector like Favs struggled with it for a few years. We need to have contrasting styles too... this is a big changeup. Our FG% defense is good and lets a lot of ****** teams beat themselves. If we want to be a contender we need different styles and to put some pressure on the ball. If Thad is on the center when they go screen and roll he is involved in the play and can disrupt the passing lane as well and he can switch comfortably. And yes I agree we need different personnel on the second unit... if we added a guy like Bazemore you now have Joe, JC, Thad, Baze... that's enough creation and you have a lot of guys that get deflections steals etc. Pressuring some passes and the ball will lead to some layups... but not many more than TB allows... plus with his stupid foul rate we give up free throws which are the worse PPP than a shot in the paint.
I think you still sign a minimum level center (John Henson, Ian Mahimi, Isiah Hartenstein, etc) and certain nights you can't play Thad at the 5 and he's just the backup 4.
It is definitely out of the box thinking... and there are reasons things stay in the box for sure. I just think it'd be dumb to give Favs the full MLE and play the same base system, have no positional flexibility, and have no roster variance. Unless you are ****ing transcendent at what you do then you have to have roster flexibility and different styles in your bag. I'd prefer to have a guy like Covington, but Thad can do a poor man's job at that.