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Message: [QUOTE="Billy Jack, post: 4497982, member: 4173"] The comment was made that “Calhoun did it for decades” - “it” being starting 2 bigs together and sticking with them together for substantial minutes throughout the game. I’ve gone back and checked the lineups. I found only 4 seasons when he did this: 2003-04 - Okafor/Boone 2004-05 - Villanueva/Boone 2095-06 - Boone/Armstrong 2011-12 - Drummond/Oriakhi In none of these cases were both players expected to be big point producers. In the first 2 cases, we’re talking about 2 very mobile big men with Boone playing a decidedly complementary role. Villanueva in fact had an excellent face up game and could play like a true power forward. Armstrong was more of a traditional low post player but was paired with a very mobile Boone. All 3 of these were excellent, very successful teams. It’s noteworthy that Boone was the constant in all 3 of these pairings, which says something about his ability to develop a skill set and find a role to make all 3 of these different pairings work. I think everyone agreed at the time that the Drummond/Oriakhi pairing was a huge disappointment. The team did not get the most out of its talent and did not achieve the level of success that was expected. I see this pair as the most comparable to a potential Sanogo/Clingen pairing. And I would expect a similar result. In these comparisons, there was really no one who compares with Clingen who needs to position himself to receive passes for dunks and little under the basket moves. Nor is there anyone who compares with Sanogo who needs space to put the ball on the floor where he can back down opposing centers, then spin and twirl to find his shot. Neither of these 2 is a face-the-basket kind of power forward type nor are they passers who can receive the ball and then find rhe open man. I have a hard time seeing this pairing working together successfully given their unique skill sets. I think that a coach has to pick one of them as his starter and use the other as a backup as Hurley has done. The coach can vary each player’s minutes from game to game. Hurley’s choice of the veteran, giving the freshman the opportunity to ease into college competition has made complete sense. As Clingen’s game has developed more rapidly than expected, he has earned more minutes, but no way does that mean playing the two of them together. The use of the two as a 1-2 punch with Clingen coming off the bench has actually been incredibly successful, enabling us to dominate at the center position with a true low post presence which is a rarity in these days of an even shorter 30 second shot clock and centers who as likely to be shooting 3’s as making dunks. Here are their combined numbers: 39.9 mpg, 26.7 ppg, .634 FG%, .661 FT%, 13.1 RPG, 2.9 BPG Who wouldn’t want that kind of production out of their center position? [/QUOTE]

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