Team USA Basketball: Tyson Chandler Should Get Dwight Howard's Minutes

Dwight Howard, the starting center at the 2008 Olympics and the most dominant center in the league for the past few seasons, won’t be playing in the Olympics this year.

People have batted about the names Greg Monroe, Roy Hibbert, even Anthony Davis as possible replacements on the 2012 Olympic squad.

But the name that should be at the top of the list is Tyson Chandler.

For starters, Chandler is the only true center other than Howard who has international experience (Chandler was a reserve at the 2010 World Championships).  He’s also played on a Dallas Mavericks squad that featured a number of foreign players, and a New York Knicks squad coached by Mike D’Antoni, who’s both an assistant coach on the Olympic Team and a former coach in the Euroleague.

People poo-poo Chandler by claiming that he doesn’t have enough offense.  To that, I would point out that Chandler led the league in field goal percentage this season by a wide margin.  He’s also tops in offensive rating.  Two out of three of his shot attempts end in field goals.  Chandler essentially does more per touch than anyone else in the league.    

And with a team that will likely also contain LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Kevin Love and Carmelo Anthony, offense isn’t a big worry.

Defense might be, though.  But Chandler is also a strong defensive presence.  He was second team All-Defense last year; this year, he’s averaging double-digit boards, with almost two-thirds of them coming from the defensive side of things. 

He adds in almost a block and half a game, and nearly a steal a game to boot.  This combination of defensive factors puts him in the top ten in defensive win shares, and makes him one of only three players this season (LeBron and Joakim Noah) to be in the top 15 in both offensive and defensive rating

In short: Tyson Chandler’s your guy, Colangelo.