Archive → December, 2010
Chad Ford: Charlotte might make a decent trading partner with the Pistons
From his latest chat, ESPN’s Chad Ford had this response to a question about Rip Hamilton:
Pistons have been close on a few things with Rip, almost landed Tyson Chandler this summer … but he’s not helping himself right now. I think Charlotte is one of the few teams out there with genuine interest.
Sean from Life on Dumars already tackled a possible Charlotte/Detroit swap with a cap-relieving suggestion of Hamilton and Jason Maxiell for Boris Diaw and DeSagana Diop. That’s a nice, practical trade that certainly gives the Pistons some flexibility.
But I like to be impractical, and I would desperately love to see Gerald Wallace as a member of the Pistons.
Trade
Pistons receive:
- Gerald Wallace
- DeSagana Diop
- Matt Carroll
- Shaun Livingston
Bobcats receive:
Salaries
Pistons receive:
| Player | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 |
| Gerald Wallace | $10,500,000 | $10,500,000 | $10,500,000 | $0 | $0 |
| DeSagana Diop | $6,478,600 | $6,925,400 | $7,372,200 | $0 | $0 |
| Matt Carroll | $4,300,000 | $3,900,000 | $3,500,000 | $0 | $0 |
| Shaun Livingston | $3,500,000 | $3,500,000 | $3,500,000 | $0 | $0 |
| Total | $24,7787,600 | $24,825,400 | $24,872,000 | $0 | $0 |
Bobcats receive:
| Player | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 |
| Tayshaun Prince | $11,148,760 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Rip Hamilton | $12,500,000 | $12,500,000 | $12,500,000 | $0 | $0 |
| Chris Wilcox | $3,000,000 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| DaJuan Summers | $762,195 | $1,059,293 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Total | $27,410,955 | $13,559,293 | $12,500,000 | $0 | $0 |
- Player option
- Not fully guaranteed
- Team option
- Early termination
Pistons’ perspective
From a talent perspective, the Pistons are getting the best player in this trade in Gerald Wallace.
For all of the fans who miss the traditional toughness associated with Pistons basketball, here you go. Wallace is your guy. He hustles, he dives all over the floor, he’s a good defensive player and he’s a good rebounder for a small forward. He’d give the Pistons a very interesting starting frontcourt with Ben Wallace and Greg Monroe joining him.
Unfortunately, to come away with Wallace in this scenario, the Pistons would be taking on two not great contracts to shed themselves of Hamilton’s. Diop is making $21 million for this season and the final two years on his deal. You can bet he’s exercising that player option for $7.3 million in the last year of that deal. And Matt Carroll, although not making a ridiculous sum, is making more than he’s worth at about $12 million through 2012-13. Livingston’s contract is not fully guaranteed in the final year of the deal, so the Pistons could simply release him after next season or use him as an expiring contract next year in another trade.
The plus side to taking on long-term money in this scenario? Diop, though pricey, would at least fill a need as a defensive-minded big body who rebounds and blocks shots. And collectively, with three guys who are overpaid but on a smaller scale than Hamilton is overpaid, it becomes easier to move them in separate deals than it is to move Hamilton. I just can’t see a team taking on Hamilton’s contract and not requiring the Pistons take back bad contracts in return. In this case, at least Diop and Carroll, a good 3-point shooter, can be OK role players.
The Pistons get a player who made the All-Star team last year and makes a pretty reasonable salary for his production level and they clear out a chance for Ben Gordon to start at shooting guard and Austin Daye to get backup minutes at the two and three.
Bobcats’ perspective
There are a couple draws for Charlotte, although I admit it’s tough to expect the Bobcats to give up their longest-tenured player in Wallace.
They do, however, get significant salary relief for the trouble, picking up nearly $15 million in expiring deals to Prince, Wilcox and Summers. Add in Nazr Mohammed’s nearly $7 million in salary that expires at the end of the season, and Charlotte would be in line for some significant costs coming off the books in the offseason.
The Bobcats, one year after making their first playoff appearance in franchise history, are struggling at 9-16, albeit only 1.5 games out of the eighth spot in the East. Acquiring Hamilton and Prince, two players that Larry Brown is very familiar with, would give Charlotte two veteran wings to add to Stephen Jackson. Hamilton’s ability to score without having to dominate the ball for a full possession could help take pressure off of Jackson on offense and Prince’s ability to run the offense could help take some pressure off of D.J. Augustin, as Charlotte sees a significant drop-off in point guard production with Augustin out of the game.
Admittedly, there’s not a huge incentive to do this trade for Charlotte. They’re essentially swapping out Wallace for Hamilton which is a lose. It just depends on how badly Larry Brown wants to shake up his roster (and let’s be honest, LB has been known to want to shake up a roster or two on occasion) and how desperate Charlotte wants to get out of some long-term money owed to Diop and Carroll.
UPDATE: Mike Payne at Detroit Bad Boys had this take on possible Charlotte trades as well, with a menage-a-trois that would net the Pistons Sam Dalembert.
Dennis Rodman’s Hall of Fame campaign hits Facebook and Twitter
We here at PistonPowered have certainly made no secret that we think Dennis Rodman is as Hall of Fame-worthy as it gets, but someone else out there is doing more than just blogging about it.
One Rodman fan out there has started Facebook and Twitter campaigns to raise awareness of Rodman’s Hall worthiness and, hopefully, get the vindictive writers keeping him out to support him.
Rodman’s Hall inclusion is one of few things in the world fans of the Pistons and Bulls can agree on. Yahoo!’s Kelly Dwyer, a known Bulls fan, offered his support for Rodman yesterday:
Jokes about his off-court silliness aside, if Rodman doesn’t make the Basketball Hall of Fame, then you can pretty much forever sign off the entire foundation altogether, if you haven’t done so outright. One musn’t speak ill of the dead, but goodness gracious sakes alive, look at this list of players and NCAA coaches already in the Hall. For this place to pass over on inducting the greatest rebounder in the game’s history just because he embarrasses the heck (on court, or off) out of just about everyone he comes in contact with is beyond ridiculous.
If the Pistons do the right thing and retire his No. 10 (sorry Greg Monroe), that would be a step in the right direction in getting Rodman enshrined as he should be.
Forbes.com: Mike Ilitch upset with Pistons’ inflated revenue numbers
It’s been reported that, despite having a one-month negotiating period and what seemed like a desire by both sides to get something done quickly, the Mike Ilitch purchase of the Detroit Pistons fell through for some reason.
Well, Mike Ozanian from Forbes.com has a possible reason:
What happened? According to one person familiar with the negotiations, after agreeing to a price in excess of $400 million (my source was not more specific), Ilitch discovered the revenues presented in the prospectus were inflated. Ilitch, one of the great gentleman owners in sports, got pissed, lowered his offer price and the deal quickly blew up. I hope to find out more about the actual price in the near future. But from what I am hearing it will now be hard for Davidson to get $400 million for the team given the Ilitch debacle and dismal state of Detroit’s economy.
(Hat tip: The Detroit News, which unlike PistonPowered, had the good taste to edit ‘pissed’ out of that quote).
Maybe a decline in pace explain a reduction in foul outs, after all
My initial post on foul outs concluded foul outs are down, even beyond what a decline in pace indicates. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an actual reason for such a sharp decline in foul outs, so I offered a couple half-hearted explanations and solicited ideas.
It turns out, a decline in pace might actually fully explain the decline in foul outs.
A reader, Kenny, sent me the following very smart e-mail:
I don’t think you can compare percentage changes of fouls with foul-outs and expect them to be proportional. This is because there’s a limit on fouls. Take one single player, call him Kaun Shemp. If Kaun by himself averages 3 fouls per game, I suspect he’d foul rarely, let’s say 2% of the time to just pick a number out of the blue, the tail end of the normal distribution of fouls per game. If he moved that average up to 5 fouls per game, the variance would cause many more foul-outs. An average of 5 fouls per game might mean he’d foul out 30% of the time. So the fouling increased by 66% but the foul-outs by %1300.
That’s an extreme case, and somebody can probably do the math for the real case and see how responsible this part of it is. But I’m sure that as you increase in fouls, the number of foul-outs would not increase at the same or even any constant rate.
In my initial post, I failed to account for the fouls limit (six) holding steady the last 25 years. I watched pace and fouls per game decline during the last 25 years and expected foul outs to shrink at the same rate. But the fouls limit didn’t decline, and that obviously affects foul outs.
I ran the numbers Kenny suggested, and here here’s my new conclusion (if you want to see just the chart that goes with it, jump to the final section):
Foul outs are down, but the league’s decline in pace appears to explain the reduction in foul outs.
Review
Here’s the key portion of my previous post on fouls that incorrectly led me to believe pace doesn’t explain foul outs:
As I said above, foul outs per game have declined 43.3 percent in the last 25 years.
In that same span, the league’s pace has declined a mere 8.7 percent, and fouls per game have declined just 11.8 percent.
To illustrate this, I created foul outs per game plus, fouls per game plus and pace plus. I set the average foul outs per game, fouls per game and pace for the last 25 years each at 100. Then, I adjusted each season’s value for all three measures accordingly.*
*This model is similar to OPS-plus and ERA-plus for baseball.
Foul outs per game plus is in gray. Fouls per game plus is in red. Pace plus is in blue. Solid lines are actual numbers, and dotted lines are the linear trend lines.
Finding odds of fouling out
The first thing I needed to do was find the odds of a player fouling out based on his fouls per game.
So, I plotted everyone who played in the last 25 years by their fouls per game and the percentage of their games they fouled out.
A black dot represents each player. The vertical blue lines represent the average number of fouls a player committed per game in 1986-1987 and 2010-11. The red line is a best-fit regression line (which is statistically significant.
Applying odds of fouling out to each season
The next step was applying the formula for the regression line* found in the previous chart to each season, based on the average number of fouls a player committed per game.
*y=0.00700494x^2+-0.00813879x+0.0021663
Players per game
Then, I needed to find the number of players who played per game each year.
This step was also useful in analyzing one idea for why foul outs have declined – because of expansion, teams have less depth and are therefore less willing to allow a player to foul out rather that bench him with early fouls.
The data doesn’t support that theory. Players per game has has fluctuated slightly during the last 25 years, but not in any particular direction.*
*I wouldn’t read much into the spike this year. It’s the only partial season included.
Expected vs. actual foul outs per game
Based on Kenny’s theory, I found the expected foul outs per game (an individual’s likelihood of fouling out each game multiplied by the number of players per game) for each season. Then, I charted that against foul outs.
Voila: we have what appears to be an explanation.
Blue is expected foul outs per game, and red is actual foul outs per game.
As you can see, both measures match up fairly well. That indicates the decline in foul outs is based on pace after all.
But since 2008, actual foul outs per game has been below the expected value. Is that just statistical noise, or is there more to it?
Joe Dumars on a Pistons trade: “Am I close? I hope so”
Joe Dumars spoke with Matt Dery of 97.1 The Ticket last night and indicated a trade might be coming. Dumars said he was five minutes late to the interview because he was on the phone with another team.
Two conversations I had with teams today, and they say, “You know what? Uh, that might work for us, but, you know, got to go and talk to the owner, got to go and talk to my head coach, and I’ll get back to you. So, you know, am I close? I hope so. I hope so.
I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for a trade, but hopefully this is more than Dumars just appeasing the fans.
Dumars also said John Kuester is not the problem right now.
Ex-Detroit Pistons Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman and Rasheed Wallace featured in complex.com’s list of The 50 Dirtiest Players In Sports History
Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman and Rasheed Wallace were featured in complex.com’s list of The 50 Dirtiest Players In Sports History (hat tip: Detroit Free Press).
Each entry in complex.com’s list features an explanation and a video. I’ll relay their explanations, but instead of posting the same video, I’ve selected completely biased alternatives that paint these players, whom I like, in much better lights.
11. Bill Laimbeer
As the only white dude starting on the Pistons’ "Bad Boys" squad of the 1980s, Laimbeer used a combination of aggressive elbows, dirty play, and Oscar-worthy flopping to become one of the league’s most hated players. In 1991, his aggressive tactics even led Nintendo to develop Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball, a science-fiction basketball game staged in the year 2030. Yeah, us neither.
Alternate video:
13. Dennis Rodman
The Worm had a habit of getting under opponents’ and officials’ skin during his career. From kicking cameramen to headbutting officials to flagrant-fouling opponents, homie had no problem getting gully. The kicking of the cameraman led to a lawsuit later settled for $200,000, plus an 11-game suspension. As one of the top rebounders of all time, Rodman went hard in the paint, no matter the consequences.
Alternate video:
27. Rasheed Wallace
During his 15-year career, Sheed brought the kind of streetball shit-talking and over-the-top antics to the league that made David Stern cringe. The Philly native became the all-time NBA leader in technical fouls by using heavy hands on opponents and a sharp tongue on the refs. Pause.
Alternate video:
Ben Gordon, Tracy McGrady and Charlie Villanueva deserve more credit for a pair of fourth-quarter 3-pointers than Sebastian Pruiti grants them
It’s always a treat when Sebastian Pruiti features the Pistons on NBAPlaybook.com, even when their opponent is spotlighted in the post, as was the case with the Hawks last night.
Pruiti highlights a pair of Pistons fourth-quarter 3-pointers and reaches this conclusion:
You have two really poor/lazy rotations from the Atlanta Hawks that helped power the run that allowed Detroit to stretch their lead out. When people look at this score, they are going to wonder how the more talented Hawks lost to the Pistons. This is how.
Check Pruiti’s post for his breakdown and video of the plays. I’m not going to re-recap them here, but I will offer alternate explanations for their results.
- First play: Three Hawks closed on Ben Gordon, who has the somewhat undeserved reputation as a selfish shooter. Gordon wisely passed to Tracy McGrady, who made the extra pass to Charlie Villanueva. Because of that extra pass, Damien Wilkins had the extremely difficult tasking of running all the way across the court to close on Villanueva. Wilkins didn’t make it, and Villanueva made the shot.
- Second play: Josh Smith saw McGrady, who made just 2-of-13 3-pointers in 25 games entering last night and drove powerfully to the basket earlier in this game, with some room behind the 3-point line. Smith made the logical choice to sag off McGrady, but McGrady’s legs have finally become strong enough to make that shot.
Did the Hawks hustle enough on those plays? Not quite. But that doesn’t mean the Pistons shouldn’t get credit for executing.
Tracy McGrady could save the Pistons season
Although it’s not the only thing we do around here, Dan Feldman and I generally try and use both traditional and advanced statistics (and graphs, in Feldman’s case) when we do any type of analysis.
This isn’t one of those posts.
There is a sound statistical case, based on the fact that Tracy McGrady is second on the Pistons in the Wins Produced behind Ben Wallace (if you’d like to learn more on Wins Produced as the stat relates to the Pistons, check out Ben Gulker’s blog), that McGrady should play more.
But stats aside, I just feel better about the Pistons when McGrady is in the game. I watch more closely. I expect more exciting plays to happen. I expect the pace to be slightly faster. I expect the ball to move more freely.
I’ve made no secrets about that fact that I’ve been a longtime fan of McGrady. The rational side of me knows that there’s no possible way that someone who has dealt with the serious chronic injuries he has can be anywhere near the same player he was in the past. But then McGrady goes out and does things like score 16 points (5-for-9 shooting), with 6 rebounds, 3 assists (one turnover), a steal and a block in 25 minutes and I admittedly get some irrational thoughts popping into my head.
Like, what if McGrady can still be the best player on a good team? Or even the second best player, which would be a major accomplishment considering his age and the nature of his injuries?
McGrady was terrific against Atlanta, and he’s steadily improved all season. The best part about his game is that although he often dominates the ball on offense, he doesn’t do it in a ball-stopping way that a certain unnamed facilitator of the offense does (cough * Tayshaun Prince * cough). He orchestrates things. He finds cutters. He’s a willing passer. He commands the attention of the defense. He sets up good shots for teammates. And the Pistons just look better when he’s out there.
The Pistons have been careful with McGrady, bringing him along slowly, understandably so. But it’s getting to the point where he needs to be unleashed. They need to find out what they have, and I don’t just mean give him minutes to see if he can build some trade value. I mean give him minutes to figure out if he’s worth a two year deal (not for huge money, of course, and contingent on the fact that some other wing players are traded) as a potential starter next season.
It’s weird to advocate an expanded role for him coming off of a game against Atlanta when Rip Hamilton played well and Prince was efficient. But even at their max, we’ve seen what the Pistons are capable of with Hamilton and Prince as their primary options. The ceiling for that team is low.
It’s possible the ceiling for a McGrady-led team is just as low, if not lower. But there’s also the possibility, however remote, that McGrady really is working his way back to being a productive and dynamic NBA starter. The Pistons gave McGrady a minimum deal because really, there was no risk. He’s already been a value with his production in limited minutes. Now it’s time to figure out if there’s a reward for signing him by playing him in a primary role as long as his body holds up.
Of course trading him in the right deal is always a possibility, but a healthy McGrady offers other options as well. Unlike Prince and Hamilton, fans will pay to come out and watch a healthy McGrady even if the team isn’t good. As we saw by the sparse crowd against Atlanta, no one is going to pay to come and watch a bad team with Prince and Hamilton as its faces.
McGrady also offers a redemptive presence for Joe Dumars. Dumars’ series of not good moves over the past few years have been well-documented. Seeing a low risk signing like McGrady pay off with big production would not change the other questionable moves he’s made, but it would certainly be a good bit of karma for a GM who has seen his once sterling reputation as one of the league’s best slowly erode.
This post is probably entirely premature. McGrady has yet to show that he can handle a consistent heavy workload (and by heavy, I mean 25-30 minutes a night, which isn’t exactly Kevin Durant minutes). But the Pistons beat a good team last night and had a dynamic fourth quarter to put the game out of reach, something they have not done much this season, with McGrady as the key player on the floor at the center of that success. At some point, if he keeps playing this way, he’s going to want and deserve to be more than a role player off the bench.
Detroit Pistons show reproducible signs of progress in win over Hawks
The Pistons deserved this celebration, the extra few moments to take credit.
The streamers fell from The Palace rafters 0.2 seconds too soon, but a review and cleanup just gave the Pistons more time to hang out in front of their bench and bask in easily their best and most complete victory of the season.
They didn’t have to play the role of Josh Smith, pleading to just end the game already. Rather, they high-fived and chatted. Cool and confident is not a role the Pistons have played often this season, but they played it well late tonight.
With a 103-80 victory over the Hawks, the Pistons leave the Wizards and Kings as the only teams that haven’t beaten an opponent with a winning record.
Best of all, the Pistons showed plenty of positives they can sustain throughout the season.
Before we get carried away, the Pistons can’t always play this well. But they beat a good team by 23. Not everything has to be this perfect every night.
They can get by without Tracy McGrady making four 3-pointers.* They’ll survive not making 19-of-21 free throws. They won’t be done in by Chris Wilcox not playing the type of post defense that helped him finish plus-20.
*Boy, his lift on those shots looked impressive.
But a lot of things that went right could continue to go right, even if on a slightly smaller scale.
Richard Hamilton’s shooting
Richard Hamilton’s field-goal percentage has dropped, in large part, because he’s taking fewer good shots. He’s not necessarily missing the shots that used to be his specialty. He’s shooting more 3-pointers and jumpers he has to create for himself off the dribble. Those aren’t his game.
Tonight, Hamilton worked harder before getting the ball than he did afterward. He continuously put himself in position to score when receiving the pass, and that’s why he scored an efficient 24 points.
The implicit benefits of Hamilton’s performance tonight could be important, too. To get his best shots, the type of shots he got tonight, Hamilton has to trust his teammates. He needs them to set good screens and deliver him the ball when he’s open.
Both clicked tonight, and maybe that will lead to more camaraderie between Hamilton and his teammates.
Charlie Villanueva’s activeness
Charlie Villanueva’s stat lines don’t always tell the whole story, but his numbers tonight are as impressive as they look.
He scored 23 points because he worked his way inside and picked his spots outside. He grabbed 11 rebounds because he battled in traffic. He had three steals and a block because he gave his all on defense.
Villanueva has provided effort most of this season. Tonight was an extreme case of everything going right for him, but when plays this hard, that’s bound to happen sometimes. And when the breaks don’t fall his way, as long as Villanueva plays this hard, those results won’t be bad, either.
Pistons’ rebounding
The Pistons, 28th in rebounding, outrebounded the Hawks, 17th – by an impressive 43-31 margin – largely due to John Kuester’s lineup changes.
Greg Monroe, in his first start next to team-leading-rebounder Ben Wallace, played a large majority of his minutes with the first unit. The way Monroe rebounds – with excellent positioning and strong, soft hands – he can excel on the glass against anyone. So, the Pistons essentially gave a larger rebounding role to Monroe (14.8 rebounding percentage) at the expense of Jason Maxiell (9.4 rebounding percentage).
On the backend, Chris Wilcox – whose 14.3 career rebounding percentage trails only Wallace and Monroe among current Pistons – joined the rotation in place of Maxiell. He grabbed just three rebounds in 20 minutes, but he figures to help on the glass if he keeps playing.
Rodney Stuckey’s aggressiveness
Rodney Stuckey has become more aggressive, bordering on reckless, the last three games. It’s not the most efficient way to play, but for Stuckey, it might be a worthwhile compromise.
On the bright side, he’s averaging 19.3 points (8-of-8.6 from the free-throw line) and 9.3 assists per game. Defenses can’t stay in front of him when he plays at this tempo. But he can’t always play within himself at this speed, and that’s why he’s averaging 3.0 turnovers per game in the last three games.
Stuckey’s attacking style has also carried to defense, where he’s averaging 1.7 steals in the last three games. He’s really pressuring his opponent more.
When Stuckey plays like this and things don’t go right, he looks like he has no clue what he’s doing. But I think it’s worth the higher upside.
Tayshaun Prince’s focus
Aside from a brief moment in the third quarter when Tayshaun Prince lifted his arm in disbelief at a referee rather than getting back on defense, Prince was engaged in this game.
There’s no reason he can’t play like this – 10 rebounds, five rebounds, four assists and committed defense, including a chase-from-behind block on a fastbreak – most nights.
Really, there’s no reason the Pistons can’t reproduce most of what they did tonight. Sometimes, their opponent will play better than the Hawks, and Detroit will lose anyway. But the effort, focus and gameplan should come together like this much more often that it has so far this season.
Greg Monroe will start and Chris Wilcox will join rotation against Hawks
Essentials
Teams: Detroit Pistons vs. Atlanta Hawks
Date: Dec. 14, 2010
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Television: Fox Sports Detroit
Records
Pistons: 7-18
Hawks: 16-9
Probable starters
Pistons:
Hawks:
- Mike Bibby
- Marvin Williams
- Josh Smith
- Al Horford
- Jason Collins
Las Vegas projection
Spread: Pistons +4.5
Over/under: 186.5
Score: Hawks win, 95.5-91
Three things to watch
1. Greg Monroe starting
Greg Monroe will start in place of Jason Maxiell, according to Keith Langlois of Pistons.com. Langlois also reports Chris Wilcox will be Detroit’s backup center, likely forcing Maxiell out of the rotation.
I’m happy to see Monroe starting. He’s earned it, and his rebounding should help.
But I’m not happy about Maxiell likely joining Austin Daye as Pistons who have gone from starting to out of the rotation. I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face – Maxiell is a much better backup center than Wilcox.
2. Facing a winner
The Pistons have a chance to leave the Kings and Wizards in their dust as the only teams that haven’t beat a team with a winning record.
3. Hawks’ huge lineup
The Hawks have replaced injured shooting guard Joe Johnson in the starting lineup with center Jason Collins. They’ve slid Marvin Williams to shooting guard, Josh Smith to small forward and Al Horford to power forward. The new frontcourt has been very good. It works, in part, because Josh Smith has improved as a jump-shooter.
There will be a lot of interesting mismatches on both ends of the court tonight.
Pregame Reading
- Bret Lagree previews the game for Hoopinion.
- Mike Payne of Detroit Bad Boys also previews the game.
