Dampier Arrives to Shore Up Nopp Frontcourt

thenopp picks up Dampier, drops Boganst

 

Thenopp dropped recently acquired Keith Bogans - discussed here - and picked up perennially barely ownable Erick Dampier, now in his 13th year out of Mississippi State. Dampier is one of those players who's both better and worse than one expects him to be. He's better in that he's really quite a consistent rebounder, and his block numbers are quite good - he especially contributes on the offensive glass. He's worse in that his inconsistency doesn't make much sense -- he's still quite capable of putting together a string of 20/15 games, or of not scoring more than 8 for weeks at a time. He seems to get into foul trouble for weeks at a time, and will DISQ and TECH more than is healthy. Dampier often has a good first month or two of the season, then tails off as the season progresses. This year, his first few games were Noahesque, but last week he produced lines of 11/16/3, and 16/18/3, so he may just be getting into his typical early season form.

Judgment: This is a great move for thenopp. With an improving Jermaine O'Neal, and surprisingly NBA-ready M.Gasol and B.Lopez complementing Yao in the frontcourt, the addition of E-Damp is helping to turn this potential weakness into a strength. The subtraction of Bogans is negligible (last two games: 3 points, 5 reb, 0 ast total).