[Underdog]

- West can't hit the three with the same consistency as Stevenson, but he does everything else on offense better. Stevenson was the stronger defender, West is quicker (which is important when you're playing next to an old bull like Jason Kidd...)

- Roddy can do anything that Barea can do better, but he certainly can't do it as consistently as Barea did in last year's playoffs... But regardless of his lapses on offense, on his worst days he's still an infinitely better defender than JJB.

- Carter vs. Peja is a tough one because it's really apples and oranges. The one thing that Stojakovic brought is the biggest thing that this team lacks - a consistent 3-point threat... But of course, that threat was quickly mitigated as soon as you needed him to do anything else on the floor. That's where Carter has been so useful - he's doing EVERYTHING well; a jack-of-all-trades, the ultimate glue guy. I think he can be a huge difference-maker in the playoffs.

- Wright/Mahinmi vs. Chandler? Yeah, that one hurts a lot... But I will say this - Wright is better on offense than Tyson. That's obviously not enough to make up for what we lost, but at least there's a silver lining. And it's not like the center position is killing us - we're getting pretty good production out of our three-headed beast most nights.


Imagine how the comparison between last year and this year would've looked if we got anywhere near the 14/9/3 career production from Lamar Odom? It certainly would've taken the sting out of Chandler's departure and made this a much, much different discussion...