Don’t know if you knew this but the Ft. Wayne Mad Ants are named after General Mad Anthony Wayne, for which the main street through Ft. Wayne is named for.

He looks to be quite a crazy guy from his photo…

http://www.explorepahistory.com/images/ExplorePAHistory-a0h1t6-a_349.jpg

Here is a list of current Centers in the Central (originally I was going to do the ECF, but that would have taken a while) separated by team:

Chicago Bulls

- Martynas Andriuskevicius 7′2″ 240 (1 season)
- PJ Brown 6′11″ 239 (14 seasons)
- Aaron Gray 7′0″ 270 (Rookie)
- Joakim Noah 6′11″ 232 (Rookie)
- Ben Wallace 6′9″ 240 (11 seasons)

Cleveland Cavs

- Zydrunas Ilgauskas 7′3″ 260 (9 seasons)
- Dwayne Jones 6′11″ 251 (2 seasons)
- Scot Pollard 6′11″ 265 (10 seasons)

Indiana Pacers

- Stanko Barac 7′1″ 240 (Rookie)
- Jeff Foster 6′11″ 250 (8 seasons)
- David Harrison 7′0″ 280 (3 seasons)
- Jermaine O’Neal 6′11″ 260 (11 seasons)

Milwaukee Bucks

- Andrew Bogut 7′0″ 245 (2 seasons)
- Dan Gadzuric 6′11″ 240 (5 seasons)
- Jared Reiner 6′11″ 255 (2 seasons)
- Brian Skinner 6′9″ 265 (9 seasons)

Amir Johnson (can’t seem to find accurate stats…even Wikipedia still has him listed as 6′9″ and 210 lbs which we all know is not true.) is approximately 6′11″ and somewhere between 225 and 235.

Honestly, the only guy on the list above that I would flat out rather have than Amir is probably Jermaine O’Neal.

In fact the only centers I can see in the ECF that I would rather have over Amir Johnson eventually starting would be:

Jermaine O’Neal
Shaquille O’Neal
Samuel Dalembert (maybe)
Dwight Howard

So I guess what I am trying to get at is you getting all freaked out about Amir conceivably playing minutes at center is pretty unwarranted especially considering he can probably put on another 10 lbs of muscle by the start of teh season now that he is working with Arnie exclusively rather than being in Sioux Falls.

“Who needs a 5?” - While it’s true the modern center has evolved the most of any position in the NBA since Stern tweaked the rules, the 5 is still the most important front court position and the most common title combination is still star 5 + star 2. I’ll agree that Tim Duncan bends the rules a bit, but being honest Bill Simmons is right when he says that Tim Duncan has become the perfect NBA center… even if he doesn’t start games there. Regardless Detroit plays the half court offensive set and a tonne of screens and rolls, assuming we aren’t changing the offence that’s been in place for almost 7 years now.. then who needs a 5? The Pistons.

“But riddle me this? How is our roster weaker than our roster going into last season (before we had webber)? We’re nothing if not stronger now. *brushes shoulders off*” - Last year we’d just signed Nazr Mohammed, who in the Spurs system had looked fantastic and figured to plug in immediately and provide similar if slightly lower numbers to Ben Wallace. If you don’t believe me that Nazr was considered at least “acceptable” please go reveiw the 2005 NBA finals again, particularly game 7 where he drew two key late fouls and absolutely faced Sheed repeatedly on the glass. I remember it quite well. That having been said, even WITH the “potentially breaking out” Mohammed, EVERYONE was worried about losing Ben and the words “not sure if this team can win a title” came up alot in MY social circle, not sure about yours. Also weirdly enough Flip Murray had looked decent late that year with Seattle and fit the profile for the Joe Dumars steal. 20 min a game combo guard came up quite alot.

“I don’t understand all of this talk about wanting Webber over Nazr.” - I can’t speak for everyone else, but I’m not saying that at all. Of the two I’m convinced that Nazr MIGHT get better if we work to his strengths, Webber is what he is… a fat guy who won’t get outmuscled in the paint and can periodically hit a short jumper. I don’t WANT him back… i just don’t want to ask “why didn’t we resign Chris Webber” when Nazr rips his knee in December and we’re working out Wang Zhi Zhi to see if he can give us 20 mins a night. You’d rather we save roster spots for Lindsey Hunter and Flip Murray? Honestly I’m all for not sending Samb back to a place where he’ll NEVER learn to be an NBA big man but that choice has consequences. We do not have a backup center and big guys get hurt often. Signing Webber seems alot more feasable than counting on mins at the 5 from a kid who’s 225 lbs or one who started playing basketball less than a decade ago.

Fwiw, I openly agree with everyone that there are no championship calibre rosters in the Eastern conference and YES someone has to represent. However losing in 5 doesn’t interest me as a fan. That having been said, the boys are forgiven for 2005… it was beautiful and it just ended the wrong way, I could never ask for anything more than a 7 point lead with 8 left in the 4th on the Spurs court… that was fine. Losing like Cleveland just did isn’t.

And who knows how things may turn out in the Finals, we have guys who already been there before, so that should give us an advantage and we might match up against a team that doesnt match up well against us and have Zero Finals experience…all im saying is that even though this might NOT look like a championship roster, if things fall in place for the Pistons…we might be surprised by the end results…

I think you’re spot on, however I also think that the Eastern Conference will pretty evenly split into a top tier that is very competitive with each other

Detroit
Chicago
Cleveland
Miami
Toronto
New Jersey

with a couple of teams that could go either way:

Orlando
Washington
Indiana

And the rest:

New York
Boston
Charlotte
Milwaukee
Atlanta
Philly

Will the East playoff teams change much in ‘08?

Detroit (in)
Cleveland (in)
Toronto
Miami (in)
Chicago
New Jersey
Washington
Orlando

I don’t see many things changing.

Indy, Philly, Charlotte, New York, Atlanta, Milw and Boston did not make the playoffs and maybe one or two of these teams have a chance now.

Unless a major star hits the East-its going to be more of the same.

Pistons and Bulls in ‘08 ECF.