I posted this idea in response to an article, but thought I'd post it broader to get people's thoughts.

The conventional wisdom is that Dwight is the most dominant player in the NBA (or top 2 or 3) and irreplaceable talent level. My feeling is that talent wise, he is, but it doesn't always result in on court performance the way one would expect. There is no one else like Dwight in the NBA right now, so I think a good comparison isn't 1 to 1 but pairs of players. Take the big name and one of his top sidekicks, and see which one's you'd prefer. For the Magic, I will use Dwight and Anderson (probably the second best player on the team this year).

For instance, would you rather have Dwight and Anderson or Dirk and Chandler (from the previous iterations of the Mavs)? Dirk was the only all-star on that team, yet elevated everyone's play. Chandler is arguably not as good as Anderson, but I think the pairing of Dirk and Chandler is better than Dwight and Anderson because the sum is greater than the parts.