[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by pgardn

A bit premature.
Just a bit... a little bit.

Howard
Garnett
Yao
Duncan
Amarie
Boozer

I dont need to go on. And dont call Duncan, Boozer, Amarie or Garnett PF like they do in All Star crap, they are centers. Which two of these players above do you think Bynum is better than right now?

Answer: NONE

and we could add some more.
And you think Bynum has more upside than Howard(youngest of that group)?
You are not serious.

We disagree on who's a center and who's not. Duncan and Garnett are not centers. To call 6-8 Carlos Boozer a center is a joke. Stoudamire is debatable but even he says he's not a center. There is a difference in being a center and being forced to play the center position. The Mavs go through some periods with Nowitzki listed as their biggest player on the floor and listed as a center. Do you consider him one also? I think Bynum is behind Howard. I think it's a coin flip with Ming. If you include Stoudamire, he's behind him as well. It's pretty much a coin flip with Kaman also. So I think that Bynum is at best #2 and at worst #5.

Dwight Howard is nearly two years older than Bynum is. When Howard was 20 years old, in his second season, he averaged:

15.8 points, 12.5 boards, 1.4 blocks, shot 53%, and played 36.8 minutes in 81 starts.

Bynum at 20, as a starter:

14.8 points, 10.8 boards, 2.4 blocks, 66% shooting, playing 31.1 minutes in 24 starts.

On the surface, the raw numbers are VERY comparable and I'd say favor Bynum. When you look deeper, it's even more in Bynum's favor. At the same age, Howard had played over 2600 minutes in the NBA with a full season as a starter under his belt. Bynum, coming into this season had played just over 2100 minutes and had 53 career starts. It's also worth looking at the list of the guys you consider centers. With the exception of Garnett and Howard, all of the rest are in the Western Conference where Bynum has to face them more often. Add in Kaman and it's even tougher out there. Howard had none of them over in the East till Garnett came this year. So the competition on a nightly basis is tougher for Bynum. One other important fact. Dwight Howard was the leading scorer on that 2005-06 Orlando team. He's still their go-to guy now. Bynum is getting all of his as the third option on this Laker team at best. And it's also worth noting that Howard went into the NBA with a complete high school career. Bynum played about 25 games in high school.

I think that Bynum's upside is higher than Howard's.