Another New Old Guy

So if you haven't already read Rikkido's impressions at Pounding the Rock or Graydon's reaction at 48minutesofhell, then you should do so. If you haven't heard, well, the Spurs decided to bolster their frontcourt even more by signing Theo Ratliff. I don't know if Graydon is right in that the front office wasn't impressed with the performance of James Gist enough to give his potential slot to a proven veteran, or as Rikkido states, that there is a trade imminent. Honestly, I don't know, and I can't say. Maybe it's both. One doesn't necessarily exclude the other. What I do know is that Theo Ratliff will be a Spur. It does give us a rather loaded frontcourt, but perhaps that's one of those good problems to have.

The current Spurs frontcourt consists of 7 players, Tim Duncan, Antonio McDyess, DeJuan Blair, Ian Mahinmi, Matt Bonner, Marcus Haislip, and now Theo Ratliff. Out of those five, neither Blair nor Mahinmi has played significant pro-ball, additionally Haislip hasn't seen daylight in the NBA since 2004 where he was subsequently dubbed a bust. So what we have, excluding Ratliff, would be three unproven/unknown factors, Tim Duncan with knee issues, an aging Antonio McDyess, and Matt Bonner.

So what does Ratliff add to the frontcourt as it is besides age? Well, one thing that he brings that has been discussed before, is simply this, another shot blocking presence outside of Tim Duncan. Besides being a stop plug should one of Blair, Mahinmi, or Haislip not pan out, Ratliff is known first and foremost as someone who defends capably and blocks a lot of shots. If we look at his stats relative to the other veteran bigs (Bonner, Duncan, and McDyess) we see that Ratliff on a per-36 minute basis blocks more shots than even Duncan himself.

Rk	Player	Season	Age	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
1	Matt Bonner	2008-09	28	81	67	1928	5.0	10.0	.496	2.2	5.0	.440	0.3	0.4	.739	1.8	5.4	7.2	1.5	0.9	0.5	0.7	3.5	12.5
2	Tim Duncan	2008-09	32	75	75	2522	8.0	15.8	.504	0.0	0.0	.000	4.8	6.9	.692	2.9	8.6	11.4	3.8	0.5	1.8	2.4	2.5	20.7
3	Antonio McDyess	2008-09	34	62	30	1866	5.2	10.1	.510	0.0	0.0		1.2	1.7	.698	3.6	8.1	11.7	1.6	0.8	1.0	1.0	3.7	11.5
4	Theo Ratliff	2008-09	35	46	0	578	2.1	4.0	.531	0.0	0.0		1.3	2.2	.600	2.9	5.1	8.0	0.6	1.1	2.9	0.9	4.8	5.5

While youo're not going to get much offensive production out of Ratliff offensively, I think the Spurs generally have enough firepower to somewhat hide Ratliff on the offense, allowing him to gobble up offensive boards and put-backs. Besides, it's not like he's going to be seeing anything more than possibly 5-10 minutes of floortime per game. While Mahinmi's D-League numbers and Haislip's Euroleague numbers show some promise as being able shot blockers, having Ratliff as a contingency plan isn't a horrible solution.

It's possible that now that Ratliff is on board a trade is imminent as Rikkido has stated. I believe Rikkido's original proposal looked something like this: Micheal Finley and Matt Bonner for Raja Bell. Which makes some semblence of sense. As I've stated before, I'm also willing to part with Mason if what the Spurs are looking for is an above-average to elite level defender. While Richard Jefferson is supposed to be solid, adding another defender never hurt, and would provide a number of matchup problems as well as be a solid contingency should Malik Hairston and Marcus Williams not work out. While he's not elite, I wouldn't mind parting with either Bonner or Mason for someone like Damien Wilkins either. Of course at this point in time it's all just speculation, and won't really affect the team roster come crunch time, which I believe will still remain Parker, Ginobili, Jefferson, McDyess, and Duncan, however, should the team not be as healthy as anticipated or something of that ilk, then it's good to have these sort of contingency plans.