Rising Stars

[WTF]

I thought the game sucked, and I will not be suckered into watching it again. Not competitive at all..........street ball game. Monroe looked like a dick at the end when he broke up the John Wall dunk contest. Don't know if I liked or disliked that move yet.

Come on Fly what did you expect? Competitive Basketball at a circus show. These are not our 80's players in these All-Star events.

[WTF]

New to the forum? Welcome and funny ass pic G-Man

[g-man]

New to the forum? Welcome and funny ass pic G-Man

i was recruited by merc back around christmas, have been lying like a log on the side of the road since. made my bones on the detnews site. merc said if i didn't start posting soon he'd out me as a pacers fan.

[FlyDog]

Yeah Wise........not sure what I was thinking. Expecting more than what I got, that's for sure.

[Sebastian]

Much respect to Roberty Horry. "Big Shot Rob" was a big game player; 7 rings and played a pivotal roll in each ring's playoff seasons.

The guy was a star in '05 Finals, when his ass just went off and assisted the Spurs mightly to taking what could had been the "back" to a possible "back-to-back" championship in 2005. And, to think he almost was a Piston, when he and Matt Bullard where being exchange for Sean Elliott. The trade was rescinded, because Elliott failed his physical.

Bill Simmons interviewed Horry, yesterday, and Horry said the player that he found the most difficult to defend, a player who Horry says was a fantastic player: Rasheed Wallace.

Great interview - [Only admins are allowed to see this link].

[merc]

Linwood... Nice to see ya posting always enjoyed your contributions on the News.. still in the Seattle area?

[merc]

New to the forum? Welcome and funny ass pic G-Man

i was recruited by merc back around christmas, have been lying like a log on the side of the road since. made my bones on the detnews site. merc said if i didn't start posting soon he'd out me as a pacers fan.

And it don't get no lower than that
Trying to remember those Pacer fans that used to instigate on the Det News site... Rocco and ??? (Murph will remember)

[g-man]

New to the forum? Welcome and funny ass pic G-Man

i was recruited by merc back around christmas, have been lying like a log on the side of the road since. made my bones on the detnews site. merc said if i didn't start posting soon he'd out me as a pacers fan.

And it don't get no lower than that
Trying to remember those Pacer fans that used to instigate on the Det News site... Rocco and ??? (Murph will remember)

you mean the indiana troll brigade? it was like being attacked by a gaggle of rabid oompa loompas.

"Oompa Loompa doompadee doo
I've got another puzzle for you
Oompa Loompa doompa dah dee
If you are wise you'll listen to me
What do you get from a glut of TV?
A pain in the neck and an IQ of three"

but then, what else do they have to do in indiana once the farm animals have been put to bed?

[merc]

but then, what else do they have to do in indiana once the farm animals have been put to bed?

Thanks G... now it's gonna be hard getting those images out of the noggin :^)

Side note: I thought it was great when Monroe swiped the ball last night... kinda took some of the farcity out of the game... what do you think Ben would do in that environment?... he'd swat everything in sight.

[Linwood]

Linwood... Nice to see ya posting always enjoyed your contributions on the News.. still in the Seattle area?

Thanks for the invite! It's been quite a while since I posted to the News site. It ain't easy being a Piston fan out here in Seattle. Believe it or not, the local papers hardly ever print updates on Charlie V's ankles.

[merc]

Linwood... Nice to see ya posting always enjoyed your contributions on the News.. still in the Seattle area?

Thanks for the invite! It's been quite a while since I posted to the News site. It ain't easy being a Piston fan out here in Seattle. Believe it or not, the local papers hardly ever print updates on Charlie V's ankles.

You're getting about as much news on CVs ankles as we are... we've determined it chronic brain spurs

Hearing rumors of new investors planning on bringing a new franchise back to Seattle... true?
Cuban saying he wouldn't support an expansion franchise.

[Linwood]

Linwood... Nice to see ya posting always enjoyed your contributions on the News.. still in the Seattle area?

Thanks for the invite! It's been quite a while since I posted to the News site. It ain't easy being a Piston fan out here in Seattle. Believe it or not, the local papers hardly ever print updates on Charlie V's ankles.

You're getting about as much news on CVs ankles as we are... we've determined it chronic brain spurs

Hearing rumors of new investors planning on bringing a new franchise back to Seattle... true?
Cuban saying he wouldn't support an expansion franchise.

Seattle now has a billionaire investor for a new stadium, but still faces a few hurdles on the way to an NBA team. The first problem is finding a team. The Hornets, Kings, and T-Wolves are highly discussed, with the Hornets being the most likely.

The other hurdle is the anti-NBA movement here in Seattle. David Stern made no friends when he allowed the Sonics to move out. Combine this with the general Revenge-of-the-Nerds climate here, and it makes a new team a hard sell. As a huge basketball fan and Detroit transplant, it's hard for me to understand. Seattle has a soccer team that has only existed for a few years, but yet has an obsessive fan base that packs 40,000 people into a stadium to watch a game that could end in a tie, and which has several games a year called "friendlies" where it doesn't count... while the Sonics (when they were here) struggled to draw 5,000 people unless they were playing against the Heat or the Lakers.

[frankied]

just saw kentucky play today.
more convinced than ever that detroit needs davis, and if they picked him up, they would immediately become a playoff team.
yep, that one player, added to the core they have already, would make them a playoff team and probably move them into the 6th or 5th slot in the east.
davis is that good, and his skills fit detroit that well.
monroe and davis would be THE most skilled big man combo in the league. no other team would have a set of big guys with the ability to handle the ball, pass, dribble and shoot from the perimeter.
bynum and gasol would not be as skilled, as bynum is nowhere near as skilled as either davis or monroe.
offensively, they would be dominant, because of their extremely high skill level.
defensively, davis would provide exactly what detroit is missing now: a rim protector, and a mobile big man who can defend the pick and roll. he has the potential to do what chandler does defensively.
their backcourt if pretty good already. add davis to the frontcourt and a problem area all of a sudden becomes a strength.
considering that davis could turn the team around, imho, i've come to believe that the team should do everything it can do to maximize its chances of getting davis.
what that means effectively would be this...if i was in charge...
i'd trade maxiell. yes, that blows a hole in the team, but so what. you could probably get a first round choice for him now. he's playing well and contenders can always use a physical energy guy coming off the bench. there is a market for him. the additional first rounder could be a valuable bargaining chip, if you didn't get the first choice, but wanted to trade down to get it. also, trading max will hurt the team in the short term, as the team has no one - other than ben w. - to do what he does. his presence is worth 3-5 wins, so the team would probably be 3-5 wins poorer without him. that would be a good thing.
i'd play the young guys.
put macklin in the starting line-up. install him at the power forward spot, and let him play. if he develops, great. if he stinks it up, that is fine also. start him, play him 5 or 6 minutes at the beginning of each half - more, if he plays well - and bring jj off the bench to replace him. this way, jj gets 35 minutes or so, starters' minutes. he can handle it.
make sure tay plays only 25-28 minutes a game. this opens up PT for daye.
play daye 20-25 minutes per game, every game, for the rest of the season. find out for certain what type of nba player he is. if he turns out to be great or good, so much the better. but if he stinks, that is even better because the team loses more and that helps with the davis sweepstakes.
simple and easy: trade max, start macklin, and make daye a regular rotation player.
see what happens. either way the team wins. if macklin and daye turn out to be solid players that helps. obviously. either keep them or get something in return, as they would have solid trade value. if they stink and the team loses, the odds of getting davis increase. and if you don't get the first choice via the lottery, the extra first - for max - might let you set up a trade: combining your own first rounder with the extra choice to move up.
that is a rebuilding plan. what the team is doing right now, is incoherent and absolutely devoid of any real strategy. hopefully, they will figure out what direction they want to go in. this is a real plan.

[Linwood]

davis is that good, and his skills fit detroit that well.
monroe and davis would be THE most skilled big man combo in the league. no other team would have a set of big guys with the ability to handle the ball, pass, dribble and shoot from the perimeter.
bynum and gasol would not be as skilled, as bynum is nowhere near as skilled as either davis or monroe.
offensively, they would be dominant, because of their extremely high skill level.
defensively, davis would provide exactly what detroit is missing now: a rim protector, and a mobile big man who can defend the pick and roll. he has the potential to do what chandler does defensively.
their backcourt if pretty good already. add davis to the frontcourt and a problem area all of a sudden becomes a strength.
considering that davis could turn the team around, imho, i've come to believe that the team should do everything it can do to maximize its chances of getting davis.

I agree completely. Davis is just what the doctor ordered for the Pistons current Free Chili defense. He has the defensive instincts and quickness of a young Ben Wallace, and unlike Big Ben, has decent offensive skills as well.

Adding a shotblocking center could swing Pistons games by 10 points with Davis shutting down the lane and forcing opponents to take contested shots.

I'm not sure about playoffs immediately, but with Davis, Monroe, and a few years of experience, the Pistons should be highly competitive. We would still need an upgrade at SF, but a starting lineup of Monroe, Davis, SF, Stuckey and Knight should be a true contender.

[frankied]

"The other hurdle is the anti-NBA movement here in Seattle. David Stern made no friends when he allowed the Sonics to move out. Combine this with the general Revenge-of-the-Nerds climate here, and it makes a new team a hard sell. As a huge basketball fan and Detroit transplant, it's hard for me to understand. Seattle has a soccer team that has only existed for a few years, but yet has an obsessive fan base that packs 40,000 people into a stadium to watch a game that could end in a tie, and which has several games a year called "friendlies" where it doesn't count... while the Sonics (when they were here) struggled to draw 5,000 people unless they were playing against the Heat or the Lakers. "
i don't know about that. i lived there from 2001 for a couple of years and they always had good support. not rabid fans like here in portland, but a good solid base of fans.
the team went through a period where they just weren't very good. right around the time that rick sund, former pistons' gm, really solidified his hold on the franchise. once he drove nate mcmillan from the team. he had not hired nate mcmillan, but nate had success. but once nate left, it was completely downhill from there. nate was mr. sonic, and i'm sure he had more control and authority than most coaches. he is an institution in seattle, sort of like joe d in detroit. there is no question that they clashed, and nate finally got tired and left for portland. sund is truly poison for nba franchises. if you look at his track record from dallas to detroit to seattle and now atlanta, he is like a typhoid mary, coming in and spreading disaster in his wake. once he was through, seattle didn't even have a franchise anymore.
yes, there is an element of the city that is antagonistic to the nba, but they are just a very vocal minority. give sonic fans a good team, and they'll support it. except for a couple of years where they showed promise under nate, they really have not had much to cheer for in a long time. all you have to do is look at detroit to see how quickly a franchise can lose its support if it doesn't put a good product on the floor.

[deusXango]

This is the truth ladies and gentlemen, whenever I've watched a North Carolina game to see what all the hype is about for Harrison Barnes to be projected to go so high in the upcoming draft, he's out performed by Kendall Marshall, Tyler Zeller, or John Henson. Granted I haven't watched all of their games, but I've watched enough to feel like he's not the best player on the team. He's certainly not a PG nor is he a big "big." He's not a volume scorer like Durant or Anthony when they were in college, and speaking of college players, I don't see him being better than Thomas Robinson.

I just came in from the dentist, and ain't happy at all right now, but I'm settling in to watch the North Carolina vs Virginia game to see what I see. It's not that I don't like Barnes, it's just that I think Zeller and Henson ball! If it's about pairing someone with Monroe for the future, I'd prefer Zeller or Henson over Barnes right now.

[Linwood]

i don't know about that. i lived there from 2001 for a couple of years and they always had good support. not rabid fans like here in portland, but a good solid base of fans.
the team went through a period where they just weren't very good. right around the time that rick sund, former pistons' gm, really solidified his hold on the franchise. once he drove nate mcmillan from the team. he had not hired nate mcmillan, but nate had success. but once nate left, it was completely downhill from there. nate was mr. sonic, and i'm sure he had more control and authority than most coaches. he is an institution in seattle, sort of like joe d in detroit. there is no question that they clashed, and nate finally got tired and left for portland. sund is truly poison for nba franchises. if you look at his track record from dallas to detroit to seattle and now atlanta, he is like a typhoid mary, coming in and spreading disaster in his wake. once he was through, seattle didn't even have a franchise anymore.
yes, there is an element of the city that is antagonistic to the nba, but they are just a very vocal minority. give sonic fans a good team, and they'll support it. except for a couple of years where they showed promise under nate, they really have not had much to cheer for in a long time. all you have to do is look at detroit to see how quickly a franchise can lose its support if it doesn't put a good product on the floor.

I moved here in 2006, when the Pistons were still true contenders and the Sonics were struggling to win 30 games. I agree that the quality of the product has a lot to do with the enthusiasm of the fans, and the Sonics gave true fans very little to be excited about.

What I'm talking about though is not the fan base, but the general "Seattle Vibe" toward the NBA. A few days ago, the paper printed an article about the possibility of a new NBA arena, with most of the costs picked up by a billionaire investor. There were more than 1000 comments less than an hour after the article had been published, most of them negative.

The majority of the complaints were about public support for "millioinaire athletes and billionaire owners", despite the fact that the deal would be privately financed. Another motif addressed the culture of the NBA, mostly negative. The NBA is often portrayed in opposition to "worthy" entertainment options like art museums, symphonies, or ballets.

I

[frankied]

i don't know about that. i lived there from 2001 for a couple of years and they always had good support. not rabid fans like here in portland, but a good solid base of fans.
the team went through a period where they just weren't very good. right around the time that rick sund, former pistons' gm, really solidified his hold on the franchise. once he drove nate mcmillan from the team. he had not hired nate mcmillan, but nate had success. but once nate left, it was completely downhill from there. nate was mr. sonic, and i'm sure he had more control and authority than most coaches. he is an institution in seattle, sort of like joe d in detroit. there is no question that they clashed, and nate finally got tired and left for portland. sund is truly poison for nba franchises. if you look at his track record from dallas to detroit to seattle and now atlanta, he is like a typhoid mary, coming in and spreading disaster in his wake. once he was through, seattle didn't even have a franchise anymore.
yes, there is an element of the city that is antagonistic to the nba, but they are just a very vocal minority. give sonic fans a good team, and they'll support it. except for a couple of years where they showed promise under nate, they really have not had much to cheer for in a long time. all you have to do is look at detroit to see how quickly a franchise can lose its support if it doesn't put a good product on the floor.

I moved here in 2006, when the Pistons were still true contenders and the Sonics were struggling to win 30 games. I agree that the quality of the product has a lot to do with the enthusiasm of the fans, and the Sonics gave true fans very little to be excited about.

What I'm talking about though is not the fan base, but the general "Seattle Vibe" toward the NBA. A few days ago, the paper printed an article about the possibility of a new NBA arena, with most of the costs picked up by a billionaire investor. There were more than 1000 comments less than an hour after the article had been published, most of them negative.

The majority of the complaints were about public support for "millioinaire athletes and billionaire owners", despite the fact that the deal would be privately financed. Another motif addressed the culture of the NBA, mostly negative. The NBA is often portrayed in opposition to "worthy" entertainment options like art museums, symphonies, or ballets.

I

no, i understand exactly what you are referring to.
it is part of what i think is a very vocal minority of area residents. part of the NW culture. some of those who are negative are alternative culture types who live out in the woods or on one of the islands or out in the sticks past lake washington. some of them are mercer island types who have nothing good to say about sports of any kind.
but put a winning team on the floor and they - area sports fans - will flock.
when i was there, the mariners were on a nice run, and the town was crazy about them. it was a crazy time to be a baseball fan. the all star game was there on one of those perfect seattle summer nights and it was incredible.
when i was there, nate was coaching the team and they had a few nice seasons. i saw quite a few games at the old key arena and it was always packed. and i spent a lot of time there the year they went to the conference semis, right before nate left. right before you got there. it was a crazy basketball town.
seattle can be a great sports town, but it only supports teams that win. they are not like lions' fans or hardcore sports fans in other markets. they are more like LA sports fans - lots of california transplants, and i think it impacts - and they are absolute frontrunners.
i could get into a long sociological discourse about seattle and washington state residents - eg, why they don't have an income tax and why the city's infrastructure is so poor, etc... - and how that plays into it, but i will spare you.
i just think that the sonics wore out their welcome with more than a decade of losing, the actual loss of the franchise, the exile of nate, mr. sonic, the symbol of the franchise, and an entire range of horrible management decisions. rick sund did a lot of stuff that made people very upset with the BB franchise.
it is also part of seattle's nature to agonize over stuff like that. it is one of the main reasons they don't have a decent transit system, despite talking about it for decades, literally. they took over 20 years to decide if they were going to build hi-tech public bathrooms downtown. 20 years of hearings and plans over freakin toilets!!! (i still don't know if they ever built them, but it was an ongoing joke that it took so long to decide such a simple issue.)
seattle residents will argue and discuss and have meetings about all kinds of stuff, and then someone will step up, make a decision about it, bring the team back and in 5 years - if they win - the new arena will be sold out, and no one will remember the controversy.
what you are talking about is very real and i remember it well, but it is really just part of what makes seattle what it is, and i wouldn't take it too seriously.

[frankied]

This is the truth ladies and gentlemen, whenever I've watched a North Carolina game to see what all the hype is about for Harrison Barnes to be projected to go so high in the upcoming draft, he's out performed by Kendall Marshall, Tyler Zeller, or John Henson. Granted I haven't watched all of their games, but I've watched enough to feel like he's not the best player on the team. He's certainly not a PG nor is he a big "big." He's not a volume scorer like Durant or Anthony when they were in college, and speaking of college players, I don't see him being better than Thomas Robinson.

I just came in from the dentist, and ain't happy at all right now, but I'm settling in to watch the North Carolina vs Virginia game to see what I see. It's not that I don't like Barnes, it's just that I think Zeller and Henson ball! If it's about pairing someone with Monroe for the future, I'd prefer Zeller or Henson over Barnes right now.

that has always been what i've thought about barnes.
interestingly, he is moving down the mock draft board on draftexpress, while kidd-gilchrist is moving up.
i'd take gilchrist - if i was going to draft a wing - over barnes any day. barnes doesn't do much other than score. and he is not even that great at that.

of course, one always thinks back to jordan at NC and remember that he really didn't do much besides play defense and shoot stand still midrange jumpers. there is always the possibility that barnes is filling the same kind of role - and sacrificing a lot of his own game - but i don't think so. i'd pass on him.

[Grizz]

Linwood... Nice to see ya posting always enjoyed your contributions on the News.. still in the Seattle area?

Thanks for the invite! It's been quite a while since I posted to the News site. It ain't easy being a Piston fan out here in Seattle. Believe it or not, the local papers hardly ever print updates on Charlie V's ankles.

You're getting about as much news on CVs ankles as we are... we've determined it chronic brain spurs

Hearing rumors of new investors planning on bringing a new franchise back to Seattle... true?
Cuban saying he wouldn't support an expansion franchise.

Seattle now has a billionaire investor for a new stadium, but still faces a few hurdles on the way to an NBA team. The first problem is finding a team. The Hornets, Kings, and T-Wolves are highly discussed, with the Hornets being the most likely.

The other hurdle is the anti-NBA movement here in Seattle. David Stern made no friends when he allowed the Sonics to move out. Combine this with the general Revenge-of-the-Nerds climate here, and it makes a new team a hard sell. As a huge basketball fan and Detroit transplant, it's hard for me to understand. Seattle has a soccer team that has only existed for a few years, but yet has an obsessive fan base that packs 40,000 people into a stadium to watch a game that could end in a tie, and which has several games a year called "friendlies" where it doesn't count... while the Sonics (when they were here) struggled to draw 5,000 people unless they were playing against the Heat or the Lakers.

Nothing is served by giving DNPs to young players .. and in fact, we are destroying any chance of a future by doing that .. We are rebuilding .. Dumars said so for the first time since Billups was traded ... YET .. we have by my count at least 4 places on the roster that are outright GM failure .. Macklin, Russsell, Wilken, and Daye ... The first 2 are simply players with no past, persent or future and cannot be recitified nor rationally explained but can be ignored and they are, by our cover-the-GMs-butt local Piston writers .. Daye and Macklin ... play them or cut them and try to find the next Lin .. Hold that... cut the 2 old guys right now and get their rosters filled with someone who has a chance to develop .. Daye and Macklin should be given 10 minutes a game each ... and if they earn more, let them play more .. but DNPs are destructive to their development and to the Pistons as a a team .... If we were contending .. and or at least had a good chance at the play offs .. sure .. bury them on the bench ..But the whole point of rebuilding is not WINS but YOUNG PLAYERS becoming the best Piston player he can become ..Write that last sentence 10,000 times, Mr. Dumars and Mr. Frank .. Your All Star Weekend Homework. ..

[deusXango]

This player has not hurt the team when given a meager chance to play, every now and then, and I fail to see the justification as to why he's not given rotation minutes, if we're truly in rebuild mode. I look at the body language of him and his team mates as they intereact doing games and they seem to be genuinely, mutually, respectful....he's treated like a player who's playing and making a positive contribution and I can only attribute that to what they see doing practice sessions and locker room demeaner. Ben Wallace is a no nonsense guy and you're not readily embraced by him unless you're a hard worker and he seems to like Macklin. What's up with Lil' Larry and this man? I mean given the overall array of team bigs, why is he turning his back on a player who's a 6'10", 240 lb. PF who if given a chance to play it's always at the end of games (garbage time) from 45 seconds to 5 minutes and he posts positive contributions? I would like to see for myself that Jason Maxiell is the superior PF. I wonder if he's better than Charlie Villanueva? If Macklin is the best PF on the team and not being played then it's covering up the fact that Joe Dumars wasted $12 million a year on PF's that's been beat out by a late 2nd round rookie. All the Piston fans know the qualifications and limitations of JMax and Charlie V. by now which makes it more mind boggling why Macklin is not playing or cut by now. I think it's a case of "shame on you, Lil' Larry!"

[Grizz]

This player has not hurt the team when given a meager chance to play, every now and then, and I fail to see the justification as to why he's not given rotation minutes, if we're truly in rebuild mode. I look at the body language of him and his team mates as they intereact doing games and they seem to be genuinely, mutually, respectful....he's treated like a player who's playing and making a positive contribution and I can only attribute that to what they see doing practice sessions and locker room demeaner. Ben Wallace is a no nonsense guy and you're not readily embraced by him unless you're a hard worker and he seems to like Macklin. What's up with Lil' Larry and this man? I mean given the overall array of team bigs, why is he turning his back on a player who's a 6'10", 240 lb. PF who if given a chance to play it's always at the end of games (garbage time) from 45 seconds to 5 minutes and he posts positive contributions? I would like to see for myself that Jason Maxiell is the superior PF. I wonder if he's better than Charlie Villanueva? If Macklin is the best PF on the team and not being played then it's covering up the fact that Joe Dumars wasted $12 million a year on PF's that's been beat out by a late 2nd round rookie. All the Piston fans know the qualifications and limitations of JMax and Charlie V. by now which makes it more mind boggling why Macklin is not playing or cut by now. I think it's a case of "shame on you, Lil' Larry!"

i guess should ask: Is this on Frank or on Dumars or Both?

[FlyDog]

I joined the DN Forum in 2008, and don't remember you. Were you before my time, or did you post under a different name?

[merc]

I joined the DN Forum in 2008, and don't remember you. Were you before my time, or did you post under a different name?

Linwood is a Detroit native (African American if I recall)... he's got a real good spirit... a likable fellow... I think ur right Fly it might have been 2008 or earlier... we've lost touch with some quality posters from the News (several moved on to PF)... like G-Man & Jtrain... We need to find out where Uncle Ty is hanging out.

[merc]

DX, thanks for the perspective on Barnes... IMO the big man depth is good enough where we don't have to just look at BPA... if we had to settle for another SG or SF you can bet that Joe should be looking at trades... sorry man but this is NOT the year for swing players... they can be found in your sleep.

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