Comments on: More on Rip Hamilton/Joe Dumars

By: kamal

kamal — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 07:45:30 +0000

My whole beef with the Chauncey trade was that it was the wrong move. Our backcourt was fine. In fact, our staring 5 was fine. Improve the bench. Joe was giving our core guys like Juan Dixon, Tony Delk, Nazr Mohammed, Walter Hermann, Dale Davis, Flip Murray, Maurice Evans, Jarvis Hayes, and other bums to try and win a title.

When the Cs won their title, they got great help from their bench (House, Davis, P.J, Cassell, etc.) It wasn’t just their starters.

Our starters were great. They just weren’t good enough to beat contending teams by themselves anymore. And when Joe traded Chauncey for Iverson, the guys knew what kind of player he was. They’d been beating him for years. They knew what kind of player Stuckey was. They practiced against him and saw what he brought to the table.

We were only a key bench player away from the title. No reason to brea up the squad.

By: J

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 06:17:39 +0000

Detroit was getting old, Iverson was just pure cancer for the team. It’s neither Rip’s nor Stuckey’s fault, it’s Iverson.

By: rick77

rick77 — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 04:32:25 +0000

Man I have defended Joe Dumars til the death and it is always in the back of my mind how in hell did he trade Billups and why. I thought he knew what he was doing but now I am real about the situation and must say that sentiment must be tossed out the window and some real moves need to be made before Joe loses all his luster around here. I always ahve argued he should have kept Johnson, Affalo, along with Maxiel and even Delfino but these players had some enormous pressure put on them to be more than young role players. I feel that was our youth right there but for some reason we gave up on Johnson for Maxiel ,who cannot even get off the bench regularly. Affalo for peanuts. Defino I cannot even remeber but we may have just let him walk. These guys are all contributing players on teams and could be our starters/or role players still playing witha few of those core vets trying at a Ship. For some reason I really belive the local media dogged him out for his sacred cow comment and eventually he felt he had to make a move. I thought Stuckey was great when we had the team together and he played for Chauncey against Orlando and ate up Jameer Nelson. I felt like we had a great guard situation and that it wouldhelp get us back to where we wanted to be. I know everyone around here so eloquently forgets how much they hated our playoff exits as I felt the same,but in the end I think everyone(talking heads) around here had as much to do with him dumping his team as anything. He knew he had to make a move and it was a move to get people in the seats. In some circles they call moves like this job killers, but Joe is like a cat in that he has nine lives and has been given a chance to rectify the situation if he can…..So we will see what happens. At this point I really dont know what will happen it feels like 2001 all over again.

By: Max

Max — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 02:51:18 +0000

I think it is right to say that when Dumars traded Billups that he considered Stuckey a core piece moving forward but that does not mean to say that he thought Stuckey was going to be a top ten player or something. At the time of the trade, it was just one very good young piece, When you look at a lot of elite teams, they don’t even have one great prospect if they decided to tear it down but the Pistons did. It’s not Dumars or Stuckey’s fault that people want to create so much hype,
Dunno know why I keep thinking of the Celtics but I think the Perkins Green deal was of this sort even though Perkins isn’t really old and Ainge was envisioning a young Rondo-Green core becoming veterans together and bridging the gap after the veterans retired, but that was obviously a very controversial move that has not worked out so well.

By: Max

Max — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 02:43:52 +0000

If Stuckey was as good as Rondo, then the Pistons would have gotten to the first round the last couple of years and they would not have Monroe or Knight. Stuckey was the right transitional star since you guys are casting him that way but the truth is that Stuckey wasn’t the big ego in the room post Billups as it was between AI and RIP for that distinction.
The idea that Stuckey was looked at as the future doesn’t mean that the team was centered on him the day after that trade and most of the media attention certainly squared on AI.
Also……………RIP is posting worse numbers than he ever did in Detroit and has been little better than useless in fantasy terms for years now.

By: Murph

Murph — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:11:30 +0000

Rapid decline? Rip’s playing pretty well this year, isn’t he?

Unfortuneately, Stuckey can put up points, but he has yet to prove he can win. Rip has been a proven winner throughout his career, hasn’t he? And that includes this year.

Stuckey might have put up better numbers than Rip last year, but the team was terrible. Stuckey needs to learn how to win. And in fact, Dumars is clearly giving up on Stuckey as a PG, as demonstrated by the fact that he drafted a PG with his 1st pick last year.

I hope one day Rip’s jersey will be hanging proudly in the Palace, where it belongs.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:08:30 +0000

That's not accurate. Dumars probably hoped for more out of Iverson, sure. But the trade was clearly made because he thought Stuckey was ready for a large role.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:06:19 +0000

Not only is Rondo way more talented than Stuckey, but he also wasn't marched into the locker room and presented as the franchise savior. Rondo and Perkins started off as supporting role players. Rondo's role expanded because he got really good. That is absolutely not how Stuckey's transition was handled.

And honestly, keeping Billups with Stuckey, Afflalo and Amir Johnson coming off the bench would've probably helped that core have another title run or two, had those players been developed properly.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:04:06 +0000

"Why exactly should RIP be angry if Stuck was emphasized over him even as he was making 2-3 times as much money?"

That's not what I think was upsetting. I think it was upsetting to a veteran locker room that Billups, still an All-Star caliber player, was traded to clear minutes for Stuckey. Chad Ford after the trade:

"Second, the emergence of Stuckey made Billups expendable. Dumars believes Stuckey is the point guard of the future in Detroit. Billups has four more years on his contract, and Dumars didn't want Stuckey playing a sixth man role that long."

To have a core of veterans with one title and who came close a few other times lose Billups only to be told that Stuckey was the future of the team, well, I would guess that just didn't go over big with any of the guys in the locker room who were a part of the old guard.

Dumars wasn't necessarily wrong in his assessment that the team needed a makeover and needed youth. He just banked on the wrong player being their transitional star. If Stuckey was as legit as Dumars believed he was and the team continued winning, the veterans would've got over it. But it backfired, so obviously the veteran players will look back on that and feel like things would've been different if that trade wasn't made.

By: mcfadden

mcfadden — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:24:28 +0000

this is unfair. You know Dumars thought he would get WAY more out of Iverson. Stuckey was more like insurance.
Nobody seems to remember how shitty Chauncey was those last few years. Everybody regressed. They became self-entitled.