I've seen this sentiment about 20 or 30 times. I have a question: who do you think is better, available, and that we can get without parting with one of the Big Three? I'm all ears...
Al J isn't perfect, but he's
clearly better than any other big on our roster not named Tim. He's a two time 20/10 player, a term that is massively abused. Every year, there's normally 3 to 4 guys who pull the real 20/10 for the season.
My favorite quality, though, is that he played 82 games last year at a 36 minute clip per game. In baseball, there is a pitching term: innings eater. You don't have to be a great pitcher to be an innings eater, you just have to be effective enough to start every time and not get knocked out early. If we get Al, we'll need him to be a minutes eater, an effective big that we can plug in and forget who can both score in the post and rebound. I really think Pop is going to NOT PLAY Tim in the middle game of any B2B2Bs, and rest him liberally on any B2Bs.