Posted by alblack56 on 12/6/2012 7:20:00 AM (view original):
Unlikely
i am surprised by some of the answers here, just replying to the first one i see. i wouldnt balk at a 1 speed center even if i was playing press and trying to build a d1 national championship team. speed for your center = not very relevant in any way (very minor factor on offense and defense, non factor in rebounding). if you have per on your C, spd is a little more important, for offense. but for defense, its really not a big deal - even in the press (i completely reject the idea a center could bring down team speed in a meaningful way that hurts the press. even in its hay day, when press was magic, it was speed at the 1-3 that really mattered, at the 4, it was moderately useful, and at the 5, not very useful. now, speed is less useful in the press across the board, so i think its still not very useful at the 5).
some of my best centers (who did win championships) had single digit speed. ive had at least 2-3 d2 championship quality centers with exactly 1 speed, and i intentionally tried to find fault with them, but there was none (except the common flaw that bigs suck on offense). to sum it up - when i had my great d1 and d2 runs, it was ALL playing press, and i loved speed more than just about any coach in the game - rule number one of EVERY one of those great teams i had, was to have great speed, for a nasty nasty press. i was a total speed junkie. one of my d2 teams during all those championships, it had 6 guards with over 90 speed. so, i studied the **** out of speed at the 4-5, trying to get an even bigger advantage from speed. but speed at the 4 was limited, and basically useless at the 5. so all those championship teams in the end, certainly during my 2 great runs, i essentially totally ignored speed (for centers).
the only comment ill make in support of speed is, i didn't push per in my bigs either, which was a mistake - although seble has changed it, so its not like it was as bad then to do that, as it is now - and i had enough offense from guards, it never really hurt me. speed is effectively shot blocking for guards, when you have a low per big, but it might be *slightly* more valuable with high per bigs. i am very confident to say, unless you are competing at a top 10 coach in HD history level, and maybe even still then, you are totally safe to completely ignore speed at the 5, unless you have a high scoring per oriented big. like, assign it 0 points in an equation, don't even look at it. now, if its a per high scoring big, which is a new thing to me, theres value in it - so look. but 90% of centers aren't that way.
12/6/2012 4:37 PM (edited)