WOW... a defense of the big SB

Oh wow. This is too good. A man got a link on Simmons by trying to argue with him that Shawn Bradley was good. As the writer of a blog named after SB, you knew I couldn't resist.

In short, all I can say is .... SHAWN BRADLEY WAS TERRIBLE! I WATCHED HIM FOR YEARS! Yes, he had moments, and he blocked a few shots, but he was a huge bust. There is a legitimate reason we like to make fun of him.

Here's the post:

http://mormonhusbands.blogspot.com/2009/06/defending-shawn-bradley-swatting-bill.html

Here's my response, in case he took it down (it's clean, and civil, but I did go on for a while):

"Don't get me wrong, sir: Shawn Bradley was a cool guy, and always fun, so much so that I named my own hoops blog after him. But he was an awful, awful player. You can crunch numbers all you want, but if you ever watched him play for the Sixers, he was dreadful.

I like that someone has the chutzpah for defending him, and I'll admit that his numbers don't look so bad compared to other guys. Blocked shots on their own, however, are a pretty meaningless statistic. Lots of tall guys have them but it's not as important as good post defense, which requires some strength and quickness, which he didn't have. Marcus Camby might not have any offense and gets a lot of empty blocks, but he also rebounds well and is about a million times quicker. SB got muscled around and scored on far more often than he blocked shots. I saw it. It was not pretty.

Example: When the Pistons won the title, Ben Wallace got a lot of credit for blocking shots, but it was Rasheed's man defense that allowed him to do that. That's the kind of defense you want, not just blocks. Yes, SB never played with another good defensive big guy, who might have helped him block shots, so that's rough for him, but it doesn't take away the fact that he was NOT a good defender.

His rebound numbers surprised me, but that's a bit of a misnomer as well. Other guys like Smits and Illgauskas were primarily jump shooters who played away from the basket. Divac and Sabonis did that as well, plus they played on loaded teams where their passing ability was key. SB never had a good midrange jumper or any passing ability. He just hung around the post, or tried to, as people pushed him around. Any big guy who plays a lot of minutes can average a decent amount of rebounds. Even Kwame averaged about that many boards a game when the Wizards were trying to develop him and gave him time. To borrow a common line from Simmons, Jermaine O'Neal averaged about that this year and he's pretty much dead. I'd be more interested to see his rebounds-per-minute average.

Look, the guy had a raw deal, for sure. Those Sixers teams were beyond terrible and the front office had no idea what it was doing. I think he eased up a little after he got out of town, and didn't have all the pressure. I also think Dallas figured out the right way to use him, as a role player who wasn't needed for much besides blocking shots. If you want to say that he was good early on his career, however, I'm sorry. I watched those teams. As bad as they were, he wasn't the solution. He was one of the nicest guys to ever play here, and I always root for him, but there's a reason he's the butt of those jokes."

The end.


This is an example of how numbers can really skew things. Statistically, he appears to be a decent center. And for a while, there weren't a ton of great centers and people continued to try to go big even when they didn't have talented big guys. But please, please, please do not try to put him in a class with Marcus Camby or Rik Smits or Zydrunas Illgauskas. Camby is skinny but he doesn't get pushed around, plus he's very quick. He rebounds extremely well. Smits and Illgauskas had offensive skills. SB had NOTHING offensively. NOTHING.

I don't get how people can look at this and say he was a decent defender. He blocked some shots. So did every 7'4" or over guy. It doesn't count for his atrocious man defense, because he got pushed around and had no lateral quickness. You have to be strong in the post. He might block Shaq 3 times in a game, but then Shaq would easily dunk on him 12 times. I saw a game at the ol' Spectrum against Orlando in the Shaq-Penny days. Shaq tossed him around like a rag doll. He did that to a lot of people back then, but that was a routine for SB. If he had another good post defender, he might have found a niche blocking shots (like he did later in his career). Sadly, he had undersized Clarence Weatherspoon, a score-first guy and bad defender, next to him.

(Also, no one outside of Philly remembers this, but Sharone Wright, the guy they drafted the year after Bradley, was even worse. He did nothing and was out of the league in 4 years. He looked like he might be a physical post presence, but no dice.)