Comments on: Rodney Stuckey and Tayshaun Prince make Sports Illustrated’s best/worst signings list … guess who landed on which list

By: Max

Max — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 08:01:12 +0000

@apa8ren9…..I concur and don’t understand why Prince is even controversial. For me, his is simply one of my favorites of all time. I’ve watched his entire career and I’ve seen nothing to make me think he’s not worth his contract. My worst fear this off season was losing him.
Prince puts up nearly the same numbers every year relative to NBA players. He is putting up slightly worse numbers so far this year, but started off not looking right physically. He has returned to form but is now playing too many minutes–as usual. His worst stat are his pcts and field goal pct is down in general due to league wide fatigue. Prince has missed some layups lately that he would never miss and it’s not age as Monroe is more often guilty of playing winded than Prince. His turnovers have also gone down steadily throughout the year even as his minutes have gone up which a lot of people should appreciate a whole lot more with this team. Instead people say nonsense like, “I’d just throw so and so into the fire and who cares how many times he turns the ball over.”.
Which brings up; I love Monroe but there have been two big surprises this year stats wise. The free throw shooting is an absolute revelation and considerably raised his ceiling, but last year’s historic year of not turning the ball over has now been exposed as somewhat more of an indicator of how seldom Q let him do anything than as a marker of his ability to take care of the ball. He has gone from one of the best turnover players of all time to a top 25 league leader in most turnovers or worse by my guess in one season–which isn’t to say I wouldn’t like him used more often as a hub.

By: apa8ren9

apa8ren9 — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:58:30 +0000

Ive made this point before, but with Prince everyone is being too short sighted. Its one thing to not like the signing, but to act like this will hamstring any progress going forward is just ridiculous. Moving forward, the highest salaries on the team are CV and BG. Both of which we know unless we start winning 50 games will be gone. (If that happens then they will be living up to their contracts and the point will be moot) There currently isnt anyone worthy of being paid higher than Prince that will have their contract up. Dumars stated that unless its of financial gain or a young building block they arent going for it. I know its conversation fodder but Prince’s presence does mean something. In two years tops we will have only 2 players (Stuckey and Prince) making 8+ mill a year. We expect changes to the roster during that time. There wont be many teams that will be in that situation. That’s the worst case financially if they dont make any moves. How much more flexibility will you need? Especially since we expect our lottery picks to improve considerably by 2014.

By: UncleTy

UncleTy — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 05:39:11 +0000

I couldn’t agree more, re-signing Tay for that length of time and that HUGE amount of money was CLEARLY a bad move… I mean come on we all saw he was starting to have back problems last season, I totally expected him to be moved on to a contender making less but helping a team win… Here in Detroit he isn’t hardly our best player yet is paid as if he is, bad move by Joe to say the least… We got the best years out of Tay, now we are stuck with the watcing and overpaying for the downside of them…

By: Max

Max — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 03:55:38 +0000

BTW: Something hit me a little funny. I’m in New York and the people around here were going crazy about J.R. Smith after he went 6-16 like he was the final piece.

By: Max

Max — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 03:30:17 +0000

Prince’s scoring, assists and rebounds have gone up each month. The shooting pct is interesting in that he shot well from 3 but poorly from 2 the first two months and he shot better from 2 this month but went through a slump from threes. Nevertheless, he had his best month scoring and nearly doubled what he was putting up the first two months regarding boards and assists.
On Jerebko; I said he hasn’t approached Prince as a small forward and I think Jonas’ skill set and the Pistons needs at small forward make him a better fit at the four. The trouble when comparing him to Prince is that he can’t create for anyone of help to run the offense. If they had a great point guard or scoring big to pair with Monroe things might be different, but as it stands, you can only have so many players starting who can’t get their own shot or create for others.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 02:41:45 +0000

Yes. But the comment I was responding to was comparing the deal Prince just signed to the deals Wallace and Billups signed in the early 2000s that were around the mid-level. I was just pointing out that signing a 31-year-old to a deal that is around the mid-level (and actually, Prince’s is above the mid-level) is not the same value as signing players who were in their primes to similar deals as the team did with Wallace and Billups.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 02:39:14 +0000

His last three games: 6-for-16, 5-for-14, 2-for-15. He’s shooting 39 percent in February. His stats aren’t going to help your argument at all.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 02:38:12 +0000

Jerebko has played way better than Prince this season. I agree with you on Daye though, he's done nothing to prove he's worthy of minutes. I have no issue with Prince playing over him. But Jerebko? He impacts the game more positively than Prince by just about any measure.

"Also, Prince has definitely been steadily picking it up."

What? These are his last 3 games before the All-Star break: 5-for-14, 2-for-15 and 6-for-16. He shot 40 percent in December, 41 percent in January and he's down to 39 percent in February. I don't see how he's picking it up. He's been pretty consistently bad all season, save for a few solid games.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 02:33:50 +0000

Objectively, he's not putting up good numbers at all. He's shooting by far a career low at 40 percent. He's getting to the line the fewest times per game since his first year as a starter. Career-low 3-pt percentage too.

Now, I'm willing to buy that he brings intangible intelligence qualities to the table that would be good to have around your young developing players. But you know what he brings to the table that's terrible? Until the Toronto game, he was averaging the most shot attempts of anyone on the team. Sorry, but his stats show him to be an incredibly inefficient scorer this season. Monroe, Knight, Stuckey and Gordon are all much, much better options offensively, and Prince has been shooting more than them. That's not playing intelligently. He's a serviceable player if his role is to be a fourth or fifth option on offense. Unfortunately, he has too big a role on this team, and the results are him taking away shot attempts/opportunities for players who, simply, are better on offense than he is. When you combine that with his age and a fairly large contract, it's fair to say that he wasn't a good signing. He certainly wasn't the worst signing by any team in the offseason (and Lowe, the SI writer, does have several others listed before Prince as worse signings), but he's definitely played bad enough to be in the discussion for worst investments.

As I said above, Mike Dunleavy is having a much better season at a fraction of the cost. I'm not saying that because I would love to have Dunleavy on the team or anything, but the point is the Pistons could've found comparable or even better production for less money than they are paying Prince. That is what makes it a bad signing.

By: Max

Max — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 02:28:11 +0000

Prince is 5th in field goal attempts per 36 minutes and about 6-8 players are stacked pretty evenly in that regard. The issue of leading him the team in shots is misleading.
More relevant in my view is that Daye and Jerebko have thus far failed to even approach Prince as a small forward. Further, Prince has suffered rather than otherwise from the team’s inability to find a consistent back up at the position for many years now–probably since Corliss Williamson left and for the last few, RIP was actually the best option.
There has often been the speculation that Prince demands too many minutes or something but there has never been a player earning those minutes to give him any complaint so it’s just speculation.
Also, Prince has definitely been steadily picking it up.