Comments on: Detroit Pistons show next to nothing in preseason opening loss to Miami Heat

By: Laser

Laser — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:09:42 +0000

i think we’re looking at a situation similar to nepotism. stuckey was the reason joe traded chauncey, he was supposed to be the future of the team. many of us thought stuckey had not shown enough to warrant such faith. we were proven right. to date stuckey has done nothing to prove to anyone that he deserved such faith. but joe dumars is a stubborn man. iverson didn’t work out, he would have been hard-pressed to spend the resulting cap space in a more irresponsible way, the team has been in a free fall… joe just wants to be right about one thing in this whole mess. unfortunately stuckey is incapable of proving joe right. but he’s been given every chance imaginable, so why stop now? he’s probably a very nice guy, maybe even a good basketball player, but he’s the last thing this team needs right now. especially running the point.

also, not to be TOO argumentative here, but 100% of people want a playmaker at that spot. if you asked kuester or joe about stuckey’s playmaking, they’d say they think he is (or can be) a playmaker. nobody would put someone in the PG spot if they thought otherwise. unless it was iverson maybe, another guy who gets undue credit from his long-suffering admirers.

anyone who’s happy with stuckey’s career so far is beyond help.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:30:08 +0000

I’m not coaching the Pistons or deciding how I want the offense to run. Personally, yeah, I’d like a playmaker at that spot. The best I can gather from John Kuester is that he wants Stuckey to play the way he plays — slow, not aggressive, pass to the wings, etc. Stuckey played that way much of last season, and he still played big minutes. There’s never really been any rumbling that he could lose the starting job. I have to assume those things mean that Kuester is reasonably happy with what Stuckey does.
I think Stuckey can be a playmaker, he just isn’t one in this offense, and I don’t think he had a terrible game (other than shooting the ball, which was terrible) in Kuester’s eyes because all Kuester seems to care about with is PG is not turning it over.

By: Laser

Laser — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 18:44:30 +0000

also, hayes, one of your bullet points says in bold type: “Rodney Stuckey is not a playmaker.” nobody who pencils someone in as a point guard, let alone a starting point guard, would describe them like that. the primary job of a point guard is to be a playmaker, get people involved, make people better, run the offense. you just said stuckey doesn’t do those things. why is he still on this team, and why are you defending him? the last thing in the world this team needs is an inefficient scoring wing player who needs the ball in his hands.

By: jim

jim — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 23:26:48 +0000

Starters? Bynum, Rip, Prince, Monroe, Wallace? Too many guys trying to play the same position. Charlie V is just a big small forward. Nobody knows their role and we play horrible yeam defense. We need a big trade. I agree that Stucky, Mcgrady, Wilcox, and Villenueva should go.

By: Laser

Laser — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 20:54:05 +0000

@nuetes: i thought the exact same thing about tayshaun. god knows what we’ll do. but he’s not getting younger, and the reality is that we have to trade him to improve in other areas. i just hope he keeps this up, maybe makes a long-overdue all-star team and gets us a good return. because we can’t get rid of rip or gordon or cv. sorry.

By: Laser

Laser — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 20:52:26 +0000

@hayes: about the chicken little comment, it’s not chicken little if the sky is actually falling and has been for years now with no end in sight.

about the other comments, we’ll have to agree to disagree on stuckey. you and kuester think he did great. me and probably stuckey and everyone else feel otherwise. he was not a floor leader and hardly “ran” anything at all. he’s been crying wolf about being aggressive, playing faster, being a leader. and i saw none of that.

and yes it was just one preseason game, but this is the same squad from last year. the only new additions were t-mac (who was invisible) and monroe (who i didn’t complain about). it’s the same sorry team running around, not defending, getting bad shots, missing open looks, looking confused. it’s not like we’re incorporating a bunch of new key players or a new system. some of them may have spent chunks of the offseason injured, but THOSE WERE THE GUYS WHO LOOKED GOOD! i didn’t complain about rip or gordon or tayshaun. i thought all three of them played great. it’s basically everyone else (monroe and daye aside, and bynum was “fine”) who stunk.

i expected rust. i can forgive rust. last night, the problem wasn’t rust. heck, they didn’t look any better or worse on the whole than the team i watched all last season. they looked rather exactly the same, and i think that’s what was most crushing about last night. i didn’t expect the team to win or to play well, but i was still hugely disappointed. same sorry defense from last year, same disjointed offense. that’s the problem. it was an all-too familiar sight.

my proposals for who i’d squeeze out of the rotation are based partially on last night, partially on years of watching most of these guys have various levels of success. and i said my team was based on a limited sample size. nothing’s written in stone, we’re paying all these guys, they’ll be around. but some of them can’t play if we want to experience success. as of now i’d make those guys stuckey and t-mac. stuckey based on his entire career and history of promising to take that next step he’ll never ever take because he’s not a leader or a playmaker. and t-mac based more on how rip, tay, gordon and daye played. we don’t need six scoring wing players. you’re better off NOT having that many options if you have 3-4 reliable ones. and those four (along with monroe) showed me a lot last night. i’m even willing to reserve judgment that rip and gordon can’t play together… for now. on account of the decent job gordon did making decisions with the ball.

By: nuetes

nuetes — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 19:59:31 +0000

Ahh i’ve been waiting all day to find the time to comment on this. And after all this anticipation my in-depth analysis boils down to Villanueva sucks. Yes. That is all. Also if Mcgrady is cut before the start of the season I won’t even be surprised. I know it’s just a preseason game, and his first with the Pistons, and he’s a walking cripple, but even with all those things considered he just doesn’t have it anymore. Prince – what are the Pistons going to do without him? They almost have to offer him an extension don’t they? Something for less and try to get a good value contract. Trade off some of these contracts because I’d rather keep Prince over Gordon, CV, or Rip.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 19:38:25 +0000

@Laser again:
Yes, I watched the game. Yes, Stuckey ran the offense. He walked it up court, just like Kuester likes. He didn’t turn it over, just like Kuester likes. And for your nitpicky “two of his passes were to cherry pickers” rant, he also had two good passes in the first that would’ve been assists. On one play, Jerebko was fouled right by the basket on a shot he would’ve made and on the other, Villanueva went up really weakly and had his shot blocked by Joel Anthony.
He didn’t do anything running the offense that would’ve caused the Pistons to lose the game in and of itself. He was fine. He passed to others, he got out of the way and he had some good feeds when he penetrated. In those respects, yeah, Kuester’s comments make sense.
What he didn’t do was make wide open jumpers, aggressively attack the basket or look to run. The missing shots part is obviously on him. I’m not sure if the lack of attacking the basket and the lack of a running game is on him or on Kuester for telling him not to. I lean towards Stuckey because when Bynum is in, he tends to play faster.
I don’t have to take off any glasses. I can deal just fine whether they win 60 games or 6 games and I can provide accurate analysis either way. It is accurate to say that for the most part, Stuckey did what Kuester asks him to do — don’t turn it over, get the ball to the team’s playmakers on the wing. That’s running the offense, even if it is a bad offense.
I prefer not to use one preseason game to play the Chicken Little game, but hey, that’s your schtick. Screaming loudly that you are going to be vindicated and proven right down the road isn’t an argument. They played bad in this game, and I said as much in the post. But let’s not get carried away with the significance of this game.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 19:29:09 +0000

@laser:
“I made a lot of truly wonderful points.”
Haha … Love the slow clap you are giving yourself there.
It makes no sense for you to be basing who should be in the rotation on one preseason game. It’s silly. McGrady is recovering from the worst injury for a basketball player. Hamilton, Gordon and Bynum all missed significant time due to injury. To expect that those guys won’t be rusty is crazy.
Right now, Prince and Wallace are sure bets to play significant minutes (I don’t by the “Wallace needs to limit his minutes” theory … 30 a game is fine for him). The rest will work itself out. Maybe McGrady won’t be healthy enough to contribute. Maybe he will. Maybe Gordon beats out Rip for the starting job, or Bynum beats out Stuckey. Ultimately, Kuester is gonna settle on playing 10 guys, and it’s going to take all of the preseason to figure out which players, other than Prince and Wallace, will get the bulk of those minutes.

By: Laser

Laser — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 19:11:18 +0000

@hayes: did you watch the game?? stuckey didn’t run the offense. he didn’t run anything! nothing. watch it again. he was a waste of space and skin. 2 of his assists were half-court feeds to cherry-pickers who should get credit for the bucket and the assist, since they’re the ones who created those easy buckets. so in effect, stuck had 3 assists to 2 turns. he didn’t run the offense at all. when the team looked good, tayshaun was running the point. ben wallace can stand at the top of the key dribbling and wait for someone to get open.

it’s hard to remember if it’s you or feldman who’s known for being glued to stuckey’s jock, but i’ll just assume it’s both. take off the rose colored glasses; the season will be a lot easier to deal with.