Kyle’s View

While listening to sports radio the other day an interesting question was posed. If you start a NBA franchise today, what player do you build your franchise. The hosts decided to take LeBron James out of the equation, both feeling that he was the clear cut favorite. There discussion came down to either Chris Paul or Dwight Howard. Based on these parameters i will start there. The key idea is to decide if you want to build around a guy who will have the ball around 80% of the time on offense vs a guy who can score, rebound and dominate on both ends of the court. Having a guy who controls the pace of the game, make other players better and be a floor leader is much more important to me that a guy who can score, rebound, and block shots. I feel like i can get a Sam Dalembert or Erick Dampier to block shots, rebound and control the paint. To find a Chris Paul is much harder to do. That said starting today i would choose Dwyane Wade over any player including Lebron James. D Wade has already won a championship. Granted it was with Shaq but D Wade carried that team in the finals, and had them one step away the year before with Lamar Odom and Caron Butler as his key weapons. I think Wade can lead a team, make players better and score at will with the game on the line. Wade is a close second to Kobe in key shots at the end of games and is right there with Steve Nash and Chris Paul distributing the ball. Some people may ask why the Heat are so terrible now then. The answer is in his teammates. He is working with some over the hill players, NBDLers, and rookies. If you put Wade in New Orleans or Toronto with Chris Bosh and they would be right there in there respective divisions.