Roger Murdock

I'm sorry son, but you must have me confused for someone else

The giant 6th man: an extinct breed resurrected?

Kareem attempts to get through to Andrew Bynum

Last week, news that Andrew Bynum had inked a deal for the rest of the season with Indiana surprised many fans who had him pencilled in as a Heatle, Clipper or even Knick after he was shown the door by Cleveland. Once arguably the top big man prospect in all of basketball, Bynum's fall from grace to a late-season minimum wage pickup has seemingly happened at warp speed. Injuries have played a significant part but his questionable attitude may be more to blame.

Larry Bird, Indiana's man at the controls and potentially the first man in history to solve basketball, has shown a propensity to take fliers on talented players with sketchy backgrounds in recent years and likely sees Bynum as another low-risk, high-reward investment. He also might be reminiscing about his glory days in the late 80's when the decade's power teams - Detroit, the Lakers and his Celtics - brought talented big men off the bench. James Edwards was a solid contributor for the Bad Boy Pistons during Bird's era and Bill Walton famously moonlighted as a 7'0" sixth-man-high-post-guru-point-center for the 1986 NBA Champion Celtics.

Kareem & Mychal Thompson

It's with the Showtime Lakers' Mychal Thompson Bynum may share the most in common. Thompson, father of Klay (one half of the world 3-point tag team champion Splash Brothers), was a former #1 pick and nightly 20-10 guy before settling in as Kareem's backup on 2 championship teams. Now, Baseline Leaner would never argue Roy Hibbert is on the same level as the greatest scorer of all-time, but the parallels are apparent: Thompson, a great player in his own right, accepted his role behind a more established All-Star for the benefit of the team. That's the challenge in front of Bynum should he want to add another chapter to his career which currently reads "Top Prospect," "All-Star," "Crazy Guy With Dumb Hair Who Can't Show His Face In 2 Cities"

The institution of a salary cap has made it difficult for teams to stash a top-tier big fella on their bench in recent years and the Pacers jumped at the rare opportunity to do so (much like Miami did with Greg Oden a few months earlier).  Health permitting, it's over to Bynum to dictate how we remember his time in Indiana -  will it be a tribute to the title-winning days of the giant 6th man or just another stop on his way out of the league for good?

Happy Birthday Luc Longley

The only man to ever stand up to that big bully Roy Tarpley.

 

We dug deep for the big fella, here he is posting up Kareem.