Jamaal Magloire

Let me start this off with one statement: have you SEEN some of the piss-poor centers that Eastern Conference teams are rolling out as their starters lately?

Zaza Pachuia (Atlanta)
Primo Brezec (Charlotte)
Jeff Foster (Indiana)
Nenad Kristic (New Jersey)
Jerome James (New York)
Kelvin Cato (Orlando)
Loren Woods (Toronto)
Brendan Haywood (Washington)

... just to name a few. A quick parusal of espn.com's depth charts yields those names. Of starters. We're not talking roster-hangers-on here folks (as a few of them should be), or borderline D-League'ers, but starters. Lost in how bad New Orleans (Oklahoma City for this upcoming season, and possibly Las Vegas for future seasons -- we can all dream) has been is how underrated their center is -- Jamaal Magloire. Put that guy in the eastern conference and he'd probably be the third best center in the league (behind Shaq and Eddie Curry). Fortunately for him, we'll get to find that out, thanks to another brilliant move by the Hornets. They traded him to the Milwaukee Bucks for Desmond Mason and a first round pick. Magloire is a great young player -- a bit undersized at 6-11, but he rebounds the hell out of the ball, blocks shots, has some very nice post moves on offense, and lives in the paint -- think Theo Ratliff with a decent offensive game. Great pickup for Milwaukee, as they can now move Andrew Bogut to power forward, complementing those two with TJ Ford, Michael Redd, and Bobby Simmons to form what definitely looks like a playoff team in the East. As for New Orleans, they did fill a desperate need at small forward (I watched Desmond Mason play in Seattle for a full season and he is a very exciting player to watch) and acquired a first round pick. Yawn.