FanPost

Should we go for Cole Aldrich?

Oh, man. I might get some lip for this one.

Cole Aldrich will be a UFA this summer. He's 6'11", 240 pounds, has a 7'-4.75" wingspan, and is missing a tooth. That's about as much as there has been to say about him until the last 3 games of the 2012/2013 season that saw him change hands from seeing a chump-changeload of minutes behind Asik in Houston to seeing more of the same behind Cousins and Hayes in Sacramento. Those last three games, though, included a 23-minute, 12-point, 13-rebound (2 pf and 2 to) effort against the Thunder, and this 26-minute, 12-point, 12 rebound, 4-block, 1-steal (1 pf, 1 to) effort against Asik and the Rockets:

http://youtu.be/PgRQZSXPF-c

The reason I think this might be more than a typical fluke-performance-in-the-dog-days-of-the-season show that one comes to expect every year in the NBA is that these numbers were typical of Aldrich in his days at Kansas. Here, he put up 11.3 points, 9.8 rebounds, and 3.5 blocks per 26.8 minutes of play.

The biggest knocks I've heard on him were his potential foul trouble and his lateral quickness - I think you'll agree that neither of these were on display in the small sample size mentioned.

Of course, he might be a gamble. We should not use up serious cap space on a "maybe". However, a 3-year, $10 million contract might be perfect for him, if we go the passable-but-not-elite center route this summer (read: Gortat, Dalembert, etc.). It would allow us to give him starter minutes, with the knowledge that we have a reasonable starter in our pocket already, if that doesn't work out.

Thoughts?