Observations on 2 Bay Area big men

["Ivan K. Choi" <ichoi@alumni.EECS.Berkeley.EDU>]

I lived in San Francisco (just moved to dreadful L.A.) and was able to
follow some teams here closely.  I like to say something about Joe Smith of the
Warriors and Tim Young of Stanford.


Joe Smith, while a good scorer and rebounder, has a very lean body.  He
plays very soft and will get killed by Kemp, Malone, etc.  He has good
jumping abilities but doesn't have the bulk to match up defensively.
Some Bay Area writers were questioning whether he was that good a player
as they noted that while he would score 25 points, he might give up
30.  While I haven't see MyDess and Rasheed Wallace that much, I would
say stay way from Joe Smith.  Incidentally, Joe Smith was hurt for afew
games and DeClerq played and did quite well.

A few months ago, I wroted about Brevin Knight and why I didn't think
he'll be a lottery pick when everyone projected him to go top 8 or so.
I now have to diss another player from Stanford.  Tim Young may be 7-1
or 7-2, but I wouldn't waste a first round pick earlier than the 15th
on him.  I noticed he's ranked pretty highly in Levanthal's ratings
but that just speaks of the poor talent pool.  Young had been out
a few games each of the last 2 years because of back problems.  And
when Stanford played Wake Forest in the NCAA (ok, Stanford won the game) 
he provided a little more than 5 fouls and some rebounds.  He's NOT
a poor man's Greg Ostertag.