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- Aug 26, 2011
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Price was a very solid blue-collar player, and gave us a ton while he was here. But he was a more replaceable player than Hasheem. And don't misconstrue that as me saying AJ was replaceable. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that Thabeet's presence inside (especially his final year) is something that gave us a distinct advantage in reaching that FF that no other team really had, and isn't underscored enough.
Look at how our team collapsed on D in 2009-2010. Of course we missed AJ, but Kemba began to emerge in his place and put up the exact same numbers despite being a soph (other than a lower 3pt%). Yet guys just couldn't recover from losing our safety net in the paint.
Yeah, a lot of it was just physical gifts. Yeah, AJ got more out of his ability and certainly belongs on this list. But I'm not going to penalize Thabeet for being taller than everyone and making pretty damn good use of it. It's too bad he's remembered for a few goofy things (the Blair backflip, #2 Draft pick, etc) rather than how much he helped us in 2009.
Ok, I disagree, now how is AJ above Rudy a joke? What did Rudy accomplish in his 2 years that was beyond what AJ did in his 3(the first should be thrown out since AJ had no legs coming back from the layoff)?