Re: FORUM

[cool breeze]

I would kill to switch Stuckey for Afflalo, and Orlando is going to be solid at SG for the  future, and should be willing!

Besides, we need players that can shoot straight, these dudes can't even piss straight!

Roger that Oracle! Affalo would make all the difference in the world right now. Meeting Affalo and talking to him almost anyone in their right mind would know this man is serious about his basketball game. That is the way it has always been for him. It is so puzzling to me as to how Joe Dumars couldn't identify what kind of player he had when Affalo was a Piston. Dumars has to be far removed from any interaction with certain players. Unfortunately for us, Joe decided to keep Stuckey instead of Affalo. There has been a lot written about what Billups did to get Affalo to Denver. He sure knew that Affalo was a big asset. Instead, Dumars must have still believed that Bynum would be a great asset for this young team moving forward. No thought at all about who can play effective defense and who is a team orientated player and who is a pure gunner me first type offensive minded player. You never win with those guys.

Yo, cool and oracle, there isn't any reason why WE shouldn't have both, Afflalo and Stuckey. The two of them, together, would have worked out just fine on OUR roster.

It was the clutter of an aging Rip, a close to finished Iverson, and the addition of Ben G. that ruin the possibility of OUR back court consisting of what would be a more than adequate tandem of Afflalo and Stuckey.

Hell, Joe could have also found a way to keep Amir, too.

Your comments sure make a lot of sense Sebastian. It has made no sense ever signing Rip to the last contract along with adding Iverson and then Ben Gordon. Note that all 3 of those players were horrible defenders at the time they were with the Pistons. You would think that Dumars would have become really irritated with guards who were not interested in playing good team orientated defense. Yet our leader, Mr. Dumars worked hard beating out all the competition to sign both Bynum and Jennings. Isn't it fun to watch those two play in the backcourt at the same time? That is a death sentence. Bynum was sent to the bench at Arizona for his lack of ability to defend anyone at the college level along with not sharing the basketball with his teammates. He became pissed off when a very average player named Chris Rogers got his playing time. Much like his blow up with Cheeks last night, Bynum quit the team and transferred. Why did this guy get a better contract than Nate Robinson? Which team was Joe competing against at the time. With our current management team, it really is the blind leading the blind.

[Oracle]

Feb 6, 2014 • 7:48 pm
by Parsons
Reply

Sorry, I’d rather take my chances with Bynum than Jennings and his 5 for 23. 21% shooting? Really? Be a Point guard and spread the damn ball around. I’d really rather we just kept Knight. Knight plays hard, plays defence, and is 5 million less. He also plays like he gives a damn rather than put up disgraceful 5 for 23 nights. Not to mention we gave up Middleton too. He’s on par with Singler maybe even better. We have too many players who care ONLY about themselves and no one who cares about the team. You CANNOT win like this. This isn’t even anything new Jennings and Smith have always been selfish and we think it a good idea to put them on the same team. Oh but punish Bynum for actually giving a damn. Makes sense.

[*]Feb 6, 2014 • 8:10 pm
by James
Reply

Dude, I CRINGE every time I think about them trading Middleton. That was your quintessential 3 and D guy, Bruce Bowen style. And yes, I look at Knight and I see a kid who cared, stayed in the gym and the weight room, Jennings weighs what 172lbs? No way in hell his body will stang up by 30-31. Just like Afflalo and Amir Johnson, I think Dumars is going to regret trading those guys away. 

[*]Feb 6, 2014 • 8:27 pm
by Huddy
Reply

“Shooting is just one part of the game”…very true Maurice.  Defense is also a part…around half, and Jennings plays none.  If he’s shooting 20% and not playing defense…that’s a long leash.

[*]Feb 6, 2014 • 9:02 pm
by gmehl
Reply

I think its pretty clear that Cheeks has lost this locker room. It all started with his domestic battery charge (which was dropped) to various run ins with Josh Smith to now one with Will Bynum. I mean coaches and players will always have confrontations whether the teams winning or losing but its easier to put disputes aside when your winning cause winning cures everything but not so when your losing. They say that a TEAM is judged on how tight they are more when they are losing then when they are winning. I get the distinct feeling from the outside looking in that the players know what is wrong and you will see more blowups like the one we’ve just seen with Willy B so i say buckle up cause things are about to get bumpier

[Sparma]

Don't forget that we'd have a high draft choice coming too, but for the Gordon trade.

On the other hand, I think that Carmelo would have be long gone. But then, maybe we would have gotten the kind of king's ransom Denver got to move him to a coast.

[Oracle]

Here's the team Joe should have without any trades:
C- Drummond, Monroe
PF- Amir, Monroe
SF- Carmelo, Middleton
SG- Afflalo, Stuckey
PG- Knight, Stuckey

This could be a top 3 seed team.

If only Joe simply did the right thing... he said, shaking his head!

[merc]

Here's the team Joe should have without any trades:
C- Drummond, Monroe
PF- Amir, Monroe
SF- Carmelo, Middleton
SG- Afflalo, Stuckey
PG- Knight, Stuckey

This could be a top 3 seed team.

[Oracle]

Take a good sniff of this, and tell me who it reminds you of...

"With Bynum out, Brandon Jennings struggled with a 5-for-23 shooting night, but Cheeks felt Jennings’ night wasn’t as bad as it appeared.

“(Shooting) is one aspect of the game,” Cheeks said. “You can still be out there trying on the floor, like I thought Brandon was -- trying -- despite shooting 5 for 23.” - Pistons' Will Bynum doesn't regret 'heat-of-the-moment' tiff with Maurice Chreeks

That reminds me of one Michael Curry and the intangible excuse! The only difference is at least those teams won some effing games!

If Jennings is trying and shooting 5/23, who on this team of coaches would have the good sense to tell him to stop trying and pass the damn ball!

Seb, IMO, if we could have let the original concept of Stuckey & Afflalo play out, they would have been a dynamic big guard attack! Stuckey attacking the rim while Afflalo did damage on the perimeter!

Joe really screwed that up, and IMO, they pushed Amir too fast instead of letting him develop properly!

[Sebastian]

I would kill to switch Stuckey for Afflalo, and Orlando is going to be solid at SG for the  future, and should be willing!

Besides, we need players that can shoot straight, these dudes can't even piss straight!

Roger that Oracle! Affalo would make all the difference in the world right now. Meeting Affalo and talking to him almost anyone in their right mind would know this man is serious about his basketball game. That is the way it has always been for him. It is so puzzling to me as to how Joe Dumars couldn't identify what kind of player he had when Affalo was a Piston. Dumars has to be far removed from any interaction with certain players. Unfortunately for us, Joe decided to keep Stuckey instead of Affalo. There has been a lot written about what Billups did to get Affalo to Denver. He sure knew that Affalo was a big asset. Instead, Dumars must have still believed that Bynum would be a great asset for this young team moving forward. No thought at all about who can play effective defense and who is a team orientated player and who is a pure gunner me first type offensive minded player. You never win with those guys.

Yo, cool and oracle, there isn't any reason why WE shouldn't have both, Afflalo and Stuckey. The two of them, together, would have worked out just fine on OUR roster.

It was the clutter of an aging Rip, a close to finished Iverson, and the addition of Ben G. that ruin the possibility of OUR back court consisting of what would be a more than adequate tandem of Afflalo and Stuckey.

Hell, Joe could have also found a way to keep Amir, too.

[cool breeze]

I would kill to switch Stuckey for Afflalo, and Orlando is going to be solid at SG for the  future, and should be willing!

Besides, we need players that can shoot straight, these dudes can't even piss straight!

Roger that Oracle! Affalo would make all the difference in the world right now. Meeting Affalo and talking to him almost anyone in their right mind would know this man is serious about his basketball game. That is the way it has always been for him. It is so puzzling to me as to how Joe Dumars couldn't identify what kind of player he had when Affalo was a Piston. Dumars has to be far removed from any interaction with certain players. Unfortunately for us, Joe decided to keep Stuckey instead of Affalo. There has been a lot written about what Billups did to get Affalo to Denver. He sure knew that Affalo was a big asset. Instead, Dumars must have still believed that Bynum would be a great asset for this young team moving forward. No thought at all about who can play effective defense and who is a team orientated player and who is a pure gunner me first type offensive minded player. You never win with those guys.

[merc]

The Cavs gave their GM the ziggy... wonder if Gores is paying attention?

[Oracle]

I would kill to switch Stuckey for Afflalo, and Orlando is going to be solid at SG for the  future, and should be willing!

Besides, we need players that can shoot straight, these dudes can't even piss straight!

[Oracle]

According to Brandon Jennings  

[Go Stones!]

Saw on HoopsHype that Bobcats may be interested in Monroe. What do you think about this trade:

Monroe (4M and soon to be higher contract)
JJ (4.5M, 2 years left on contract)
CV (8.5M expiring)

for

Gordon (expiring 13.2M)
Sessions (expiring 4M)
Biyombo (3.2 - 2 year rookie contract, 21 yo)
our 1st round draft pick back

Real GM says it is good, but it is without the draft pick...thought that was just something that would sweeten the pot.

http://basketball.realgm.com/tradechecker/saved_trade/6421374


That would give us our 1st round draft pick guaranteed next year, 17M in expiring contracts and a young PF who may be worth keeping long term. This 17.2M combined with Stuckey's 8.5M = 25.9M.

PG: Jennings
SG: KCP,Sessions
SF: J.Smith
PF: ???
C: Dre

So, who could we get for 25.7M (or much less) as a PF? I'd say Lebron, Bogut, P. Gasol, Z.Bo, Gortat

Or, switch J.Smith to PF and use it for a SF: P.Pierce, Deng, Granger, Marion, Melo, Evan Turner, Ariza.

The options are endless...but it would be nice to have Stuckey traded for A.Afflalo to solidify the SG position and then use the left over 17+M to use on one of the above not named Lebron or Melo (who would go for more money elsewhere). Any leftover money would be spent on bench players.

[Murph]

You know, about two weeks ago, Brandon Jennings made some kind of statement saying that he was "thinking too much out there" trying to set up his teammates, so he was just going to go back to hunting his own shot first.

Since he made that statement, Jennings has taken 19.3 shots a game (by far a team high), and his assists have fallen to 6.7 per game, and the Pistons have lost 5 out of 7.

I can't believe Brandon Jennings has become our leading scorer and "go to" guy. Joe Dumars has basically turned this team into the Brandon Jennings show.   

[Murph]

Don, I don't know of too many people that think Singler at SG is a good idea! Singler is incapable of effectively guarding 2's, even though he did a good job on Afflalo tonight!

I agree completely. Don't get me wrong (Don), I like Kyle (Elmer) Singler and the way he plays, and hustles, and moves without the ball. But as a defender, he is over-rated...at least on this forum.

If you go to 82games.com, and look up "oppponents production" numbers,

http://www.82games.com/1314/1314DET.HTM

you will see that the advanced stats guys rate Singler as a slightly below average defender league wide, and around middle of the pack as a Piston.

Now I realize that trying to measure defense from advanced stats is very tricky. But measuring a player's defense just by eye-balling him is even more tricky.

Nevertheless, according to 82games.com, Singler ain't all that on the defensive end.

In fact, according to the advanced stats, our above average defenders are as follows in order:

Jerebko
Stuckey
Mitchell
Datome
Caldwell-Pope

And our below average defenders are as follows in order:

Billups
Harrellson
Singler
Smith
Jennings
Monroe
Villanueva
Drummond
Bynum
Siva

[cool breeze]

Didn't see the game, so am reduced to trying to figure out from the numbers why they lost.

Jennings 5-23 (as Oracle mentioned).

Singler easily the minus leader (a stat Oracle pointed to), in spite of decent looking shooting numbers, especially from 3.

Orlando's free throw percentage (90%) was excellent; ours was crummy.

Their bench was far more productive than ours, outscoring us 49 to 20, with Oladipo leading the way for them, and KCP with a really quiet 13 minutes for us.

They outrebounded us, which shouldn't happen!



Kyle O' Quinn with six blocks?!

We do score a healthy 5 points more per game than last year, but the D's regressed.

Amazing stuff, even following from a distance!

The most telling stat in this game was the amount of points our Pistons allowed AGAIN. You look at Smith's stats especially in the 2nd half and would think he played pretty hard. He might have done that on offense but was incredibly feeble on defense along with all of our big men. And of course the big story is with the guards. This was a total embarrassment for our guards. Orlando has some good athletes and they sure penetrated at will. My experience while watching was not good. Our players look as if they had never played a game with each other.

[Sparma]

Didn't see the game, so am reduced to trying to figure out from the numbers why they lost.

Jennings 5-23 (as Oracle mentioned).

Singler easily the minus leader (a stat Oracle pointed to), in spite of decent looking shooting numbers, especially from 3.

Orlando's free throw percentage (90%) was excellent; ours was crummy.

Their bench was far more productive than ours, outscoring us 49 to 20, with Oladipo leading the way for them, and KCP with a really quiet 13 minutes for us.

They outrebounded us, which shouldn't happen!

Kyle O' Quinn with six blocks?!

We do score a healthy 5 points more per game than last year, but the D's regressed.

Amazing stuff, even following from a distance!

[Oracle]

Well, it wasn't the thrilla in manila, but there were fireworks requiring two Pistons to put it out!

"The tempers flared and the frustration of a disappointing game and season began to boil.

Will Bynum and Pistons coach Maurice Cheeks began jawing at each other on the Pistons’ bench at the 8:52 mark. Bynum, not usually the mouthy type, hadn’t had a good run to start the quarter, and Cheeks called a timeout to remove him for Josh Smith, as the score was just 32-28. The two obviously didn’t see eye to eye on things, and it took Chauncey Billups and Smith to calm Bynum down as the timeout wound, but the faraway look on Bynum’s face told it all — and he didn’t hear Cheeks call his name for the rest of the night." - Will Bynum, Maurice Cheeks go nose to nose as Pistons look pathetic again

It may not be the kind of excitement we envisioned for this season, but there it is!!!

[Fennis Dembo]

Pondering the imponderable from tonight's game

How does the Piston bench get outscored by 29 points?

How does Smith end up with more rebounds than Drummond and Monroe together?

How does Jennings shoot 5 for 23, 21% against a lousy team?

Why start Singler at guard? He was a game high minus 22 in the plus/minus category?

Why would you bother playing Bynum and Datome for a grand total of five minutes?

How do you not outscore Orlando in any period?

Answer #1: We are living in a parallel basketball universe where logic is out the window.
Answer #2: Someone on this site angered the basketball gods and now we are all being punished.

[Oracle]

Don, I don't know of too many people that think Singler at SG is a good idea! Singler is incapable of effectively guarding 2's, even though he did a good job on Afflalo tonight!

I'm also not going to waste time worring about Bynum when there are much bigger fish to fry!

IMO, if you're going to start Singler, start him at SF and sit Josh Smith's ass down!

But the Pistons are afraid of a real shakeup, so we'll have to endure a slow death as Cheeks can't get any phase of the game under control!

[cool breeze]

The Singler move is about as dumb as they come! KCP isn't even close to being the problem, and I can't see how this measurably makes them better!

I know it's only been one game, but IMO, it should have been ZERO games with Singler starting at SG!

Cheeks either needs to go big or go home on lineup changes!

I respectively disagree with you on starting Singler at the 2 guard. That is a good move by the coach. And Singler did a good job on Affalo along with hitting a 3 point shot. While I am an advocate of playing KCP a lot, it is necessary to have at least one guard on the floor who can defend when Jennings is playing. With our Piston starters tonight, I thought the glaring truth was that the big 3 are horrible playing together. Drummond was the only big man who was interested in playing in the first half. Smith was horrible on both ends and Monroe was beyond horrible. What sticks with me is Monroe following his assigned big man on defense out to switch off on Bynum's man. The pick was not a strong pick at all. Monroe should have told Bynum to stay on his man. Instead, Monroe did the easy thing for about the 10,000th time, and did the big jump stop as if he was going to defend the guard. The predictable result was Monroe's man getting a layup from the guard. Two players were at fault monroe and Bynum. Bynum was not even trying to move his feet to stay on his man who was not really exerting much energy in the first place.

I like Singler starting either at the small forward or the 2 guard. He is so much more of a complete player who does want to do the right thing. It is clear that most of our players were really not interested in playing this game based on their first half effort. On offense Singler needs to touch the ball more because he is a PLAY MAKER unlike most of his teammates. I watched Stuckey walk up from the free throw line to the half court after Detroit got the basketball. Stuckey did not make any effort to defend anyone on that defensive sequence and then actually walked up the court. A teammate saw Stuckey open as he walked a few steps closer to the action and Stuckey actually was surprised and almost lost the basketball. Was Stuckey playing hard or being honest about his effort? NO! That is what the coach is up against with many players on this team. They are not prepared to play before tip off and do not act as if they really want to improve or make the playoffs.

Now it is interesting that you have spent energy thinking about Singler starting while not getting worked up about Bynum. Am I the only person who is noticing how many turnovers this players is committing in recent games? My gut feeling is that if our Pistons had some really good guards, then of course Singler would not be the starting 2 guard but he along with Jerebco would look 100% better if Stuckey, Bynum and Jennings were not wearing Piston uniforms. I like to watch Jennings. He is an interesting player with great quickness. But tonight in the first half he was not playing with any effort at all on defense. Maybe our players are saving all their energy for the 2nd half. If that is so, then screw them. How can we respect them as players? Three starters played the first half as if they didn't give a damn. Those players were Smith, Monroe and Jennings. The coaches have a real problem. These players can be jerks a lot of the time and only play hard when it suits them. The owners must see this and know that these players are not interested in doing the right thing. This orlando team is horrible but I can still respect a lot of their players unlike some players currently wearing the Piston uniform. Keep losing please. That is all I can hope for.

[Oracle]

The Singler move is about as dumb as they come! KCP isn't even close to being the problem, and I can't see how this measurably makes them better!

I know it's only been one game, but IMO, it should have been ZERO games with Singler starting at SG!

Cheeks either needs to go big or go home on lineup changes!

[Oracle]

I think last years team was better defensively than this team, and they certainly were a better offensive team!

How the FU#K can that be???

[Oracle]

"Cheeks didn’t arrive last summer as a creator of offensive space and angles or a designer of defensive philosophies. He came as a cool-cat psychologist, a player’s coach known for listening, a former team-oriented point guard who taught Russell Westbrook how to run a team" - Detroit Pistons still looking for consistency - and that's on Maurice Cheeks

[Oracle]

DX, very good post!

One thing about Bynum. It's not about how anyone feels, the numbers show that he's more productive than any option, but as you astutely realize, those numbers are deceiving because his overall effect is negative!

[Oracle]

Cheeks needs to pick ONE thing, and get effing better at it!

Make a commitment to either offense of defense, and make it work!

I think we can assume that offense is out of the question barring a trade!

But watching the Orlando game, first half, it's clear that we can't generate enough offense to beat anybody, and we can't execute on defense well enough to stop anybody!

So I'm assuming that defense is where Cheeks should be able to get some traction!

But this middle ground, bad at offense and bad at defense is totally unacceptable, and Cheeks should be ashamed of himself!

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