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By Answerman

The Answerman is the unofficial, unauthorized, unrelenting, uncompromising, unpaid, unliscenced, uneducated though highly effective advice columnist at Insidehoops.com. He is here to answer all your questions.

My loyal readers,

Figured we'd have our very own make-over this week. We'll take some wretched awful team and see if we can't fix it up.

Out of respect for the identity of those who write to me, I'll leave the name of the owner of this team out of it.

Anonymous writes:

Dear Answerman:

Hey, first off I want to say, that I visit insidehoops.com on a regular basis and often visit the site 3 or more times in a day, I love the news, the page is easily readable and great content, now onto my question.

(If you want a nice response, start e-mails to me with "I'm a big fan of YOURS Answerman and read YOUR column several times a day")

My team is listed below

C- Ming, J O’Neal
PF- Martin, Mourning, Camby Davis, Mcdyess
SF- V Carter, Odom, Dunleavy
SG- Pierce
PG – A Miller, Snow

What do you think of my team, its depth, and my chances, etc.?

-Anonymous

The first part of any makeover is to compliment the subject on their few good features (somehow its always her bone structure - apparently all ugly people have good bone structure). The foundation (bone structure) of a good team is there. JO'Neal, Pierce, Martin, and Snow are all good, reliable picks at different positions.

However (and here is where it gets nasty) the accentuation of these picks is awful.

For the first part Mcdyess, Mourning, V Carter, Camby, Odom are all guys who are projected to have big seasons IF they come back effectively from injury. They are all guys who have failed in the past to come back effectively from injury.

Luckily Carter looks pretty good this season, so hang onto him. Odom has 0 value. He has played badly and been injured. You may be stuck with him. Keep your eye on the waiver wire for a rebounder/fg% guy - maybe a D.Davis or a PJ Brown type - Diop is turning into one.

McD is projected back in the next few weeks. He has limited trade value. Mourning is coming of the bench in NJ and not producing big numbers. They are both guys that have very little value at this point. Since you were willing to wait this long, keep waiting.

Camby has played and played well. Believe me when I tell you, he WILL be hurt again. That's not a projection...that's fact. If I were you I'd try to trade Camby, while he still has value, for some backcourt scoring, of which you have very little.

Camby for R.Hamilton or A.Houston can work (may have to toss in A.Miller, no big loss), especially if the guy is desperate for a center. People generally hate these two because they do so little "else", but I think your "else" is well taken care of and you need a nice 20pt per game guy. I'd prefer Hamilton for your team over any of the others.

The second problem, Ming, Dunleavy and A.Miller are all guys projected for breakout/bounceback seasons. Though they have all looked good in spurts over this short season, you are going to struggle to score, shoot 3's, and even with rebounding.

Ming will probably be good but A.Miller is losing minutes to Boykins and Dunleavy is a Duke guy. That's never a good thing.

Where you are lucky is that Ming has nice value and you have center well covered with J.O'Neal. Package Dunleavy (after a big game) with Ming for Webber. Webber is consistently underrated. I read a trade of Webber for Swift somehwere. People are nuts.

If Webber's a no-go, try Ming for Zach Randolph. Don't know how many believers he has yet, but I'm one. He'll get you more scoring and more reboreboundinge consistently. You'll take a hit with blocks, but J.O'Neal will cover.

End of the day, your team will look like.

C- J.Oneal, Davis, Mourning
PF- Martin, Randolph, Mcdyess
SF- V Carter, Dunleavy, Odom
SG- Pierce, R.Hamilton
PG – A Miller, Snow

Come to think of it...this team still stinks. Except now its a 8th place team and not a 12th place team. I can only do so much. Someone has to be in 8th place, right.

Just cake on some makeup put in some blonde highlights and tell the host "I love it, I'm so happy!" If you have any questions, be sure to ask the [email protected]