re: Why the obsession with Duren and Wiseman?

This is such a crap thread.

There's already a thread about Wiseman, but you thought that you needed to start a thread about people "obsessing" over him?

No one is obsessing about Wiseman. We're discussing him, because there was reported to be mutual interest with us and him about signing him. Everyone knows that he'd be coming here on a minimum contract (or slightly above that) to be a backup. That's because we don't really know if Missi will be playable at all this season.

And as for Duren, I've only seen him mentioned in passing on here. Obviously, he's a quality value compared to his salary. If we're looking at accumulating talent in a financially responsible manner, then a Detroit trade could get us Duren and create a large trade exception for us to use later. Duren would be a competent center who would give us flexibility.

Is he good on defense or not? I see a lot of people saying he isn't, and if you're a defensive center that isn't good on defense...

There is a difference between being bad on defense and not being able to stop everyone by yourself because the rest of your team is terrible at defense. Duren's on off DRtg numbers are 117.0 on and 117.1 off. So he did make the defense slightly better when he was on the court.

I've read the exact opposite and that Duren is a bad defender. We had a double double machine who couldn't rim protect and we ran him off. Don't need another with less offensive game

The best thing for defense is to look at an impact metric like B-Ball Index's "LEBRON" database. Duren had a positive D-LEBRON rating last season of 0.26. In theory, that means that Duren was a slightly above average defender at his position last season, saving 0.26 points per 100 possessions compared to the league average.

I didn't watch enough Detroit basketball last season to have a personal opinion on him.