Chunky Duke Big Men -- All Liars?

Add in Elton Brand to Carlos Boozer on the list of chunky Duke power forwards whose word is now alleged to be worthless.

As with Boozer, Brand appeared to have a verbal understanding with his existing team. As with Boozer, Brand felt that his word wasn't worth shit if it cost him the opportunity to make a load of cash elsewhere.

ESPN showed a table the other day that had Brand as one of 4 current NBA players with a career average of 20 points and 10 rebounds a game. KG, Duncan, and Shaq are the others.

Problem -- Brand is about 6'6" and his presence on a team, no matter how much effort he puts out (generally a great deal), has never really resulted in winning teams.

The belief that "all things being equal, you would rather have a great big player than a great small player" is exemplified by comparing Brand, Garnett, Duncan and Shaq through age 28.

Their statistics are nearly identical across the board (Shaq with an edge in the scoring category) but in the area of Win Shares, Brand is simply dwarfed by all of his bigger contemporaries. Shaq, Duncan and Garnett's "Win Shares Above Average" of 141, 129 and 124 through age 28 are significantly higher than Brand's number (55). Why? Brand is a good shot blocker, but that just doesn't result in enough defensive win shares (79, compared to 119 for Shaq and numbers above 150 for Garnett and Duncan).

Simply put, Brand is a great player for his size. Shaq, Garnett and Duncan are great players, period. To further drive home my point: after 9 years in the league, Brand's win shares above average total 55. After 5 years in the league, LeBron James has 60.

There is very good and then there is great -- Brand is very good.........and (according to Coach Dunleavy) a liar.