How does this demonstrate that? The argument has always been that our best player is a center and we're burning up too many assets / too much money trying to find a backup when the cheaper alternatives give you just as much traction. That includes using a first round pick that we had to trade what amounted to Josh Hart and Thomas Bryant to get Tony Bradley (when Thomas Bryant would have been a better big than TB), continuing to extend his contract, then having to use assets to offload him, using our first round pick when we're already asset depleted to draft a center (Udoka) who we end up burying on the depth chart when we sign Favors for nearly $30M. We then had to use a first round pick to dump that Favors contract. And what did we get to replace him? We paid 1/4 the price to pick up Whiteside, who is giving us more production. Our guy that we most recently used a first round pick for, in his last game available when we were short-handed, he got a DNP-CD in favor of a guy on a 10-day who, up until this week, nobody even knew existed.I am wondering if the current situation will bring an end to the absurd narrative that getting a good back up center is easy. Our entire offensive and defensive scheme is built around a particular kind of center and the center position is more important in Utah than any other team in the league. Finding the right back up who will come to Utah is a big deal.
Tony Bradley: used a first round pick (and essentially traded a center who is better than him in the deal) and he was behind Udoh, a guy off the scrap heap, on the depth chart. We continued to pick up his contract and then had to salary dump him.
Derrick Favors: spent $30M on him and had to dump a first rounder to get off his contract and replaced him with a guy on a minimum who gives us more production.
Udoka: got a DNP-CD in Favor of Pelle, a guy on a 10-day who nobody had even heard of prior to this week.
So the argument is that we don't need to spend heavy assets or cash to find that backup, and that the guys available for pennies aren't any worse (and track record shows they're actually better) than the guys we invest a lot of money or assets into. How on earth does a game without centers show that it's "not easy" to get backup centers? We've already jettisoned all the centers for cheaper/better options that your argument is propping up. Are you arguing that we need to justify continued cap and asset expenditure to obtain backup centers, when all of the evidence suggests that doing so hasn't yielded any better results (and actually worse results)? That suggestion is rather unbelievable and I'm hoping you'll actually respond to the substance of this because I can't wrap my mind around any of it.
Is Tony Bradley better than Ekpe Udoh or Thomas Bryant?
Is Derrick Favors better than Hassan Whiteside?
Is Udoka better than Pelle?