TYRUS THOMAS—DEFENSE VERSUS OFFENSE.

February 20, 2010 at 6:22 PM · Baseball, Basketball, Sports

TYRUS THOMAS—DEFENSE VERSUS OFFENSE. I am a lifelong Bulls fan. I can’t hold back from going out on a limb about their trading Tyrus Thomas. In any sport, it’s unusual to see a player with extraordinary physical talent being traded at an early stage in his career. The danger is that the trade will become famous for its folly. Over the past 50 years, the trades of Nolan Ryan and Lou Brock come to mind. Why. then, take the chance of trading Thomas? I have argued earlier that defense should be as important as offense in most sports, but that is not how players are valued. Thomas’s great strength, at least at this point in his career, is on defense, and teams, as well as journalists and fans, don’t pay a lot of attention to defense.

2 comments

Mary Jane Schaefer February 23, 2010 at 4:47 PM

Tyrus Thomas is worth his weight in gold. More. He will probably be a great player and an all-star, if he doesn’t get injured seriously. I love the Bulls, but it would be really nice, just for the sake of justice, to have Tyrus emerge as dominant and successful. This trade should so NOT have happened.

Elmer March 3, 2010 at 7:27 PM

It’s my impression that many young players are traded before they have had an opportunity to show whether they are going to be good. The washington wizards gave up on Rasheed Wallace very early. for example. When Portland traded Moses Malone when he was young, Bill walton made a point of telling the GM, “Do you realize you just gave up on a guy who is going to ba major star for the next ten years?”