Comments on: Pistons receive B grade for offseason

By: Keith

Keith — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 19:24:54 +0000

Henson was came out as a junior, playing for a great coach on a great team. It should come as no surprise that he is more prepared for summer league level competition. Same with Zeller. Not saying they don’t also have the skills to succeed in the regular season, but Drummond is a 2 year away project. Just because Henson or Zeller look like rotation players early doesn’t mean Drummond won’t be a star (something neither of those two are likely to become) later.

By: ryan

ryan — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 08:11:16 +0000

He’s a summer league superstar.

By: jacob

jacob — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 04:05:20 +0000

Ford did state at the beginning of this article that this (grading teams) would be like giving a student a final grade after the first week of class.

By: Giles mills

Giles mills — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 03:37:23 +0000

I just want to say, John Henson looked really good in the summer league…..

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 02:28:40 +0000

Why? He’s probably the national writer who is most well-connected to the Pistons front office. He seems to have a decent relationship with Dumars and has broke a lot of Pistons news over the years.

By: ryan

ryan — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 02:09:21 +0000

All things considered I’m pretty happy with where we are right now but of course i wish we could’ve done a little better. For example the Ben Gordon trade was a very good move because we had to get rid of Gordon but giving up that pick was too much with too little protection. The deal straight up would’ve been a clear win as it is it’s a gamble.

Drafting Andre Drummond is also a move I like but I still think we could’ve found a way to trade down for two picks. Nobody knows how the various rookies will turn out at this point but given Meyers Leonard’s positive showing in Vegas I would’ve preferred a combination of Leonard and Jeremy Lamb to only Andre Drummond (even though Kim English is already set to have his jersey retired on opening night). We gambled with Drummond and I think it’s a solid gamble but I would’ve liked to get a little more.

The signing of Vyacheslave Kravtsov seems like a good move even though we know very little about the guy so again I like this move. The other thing is that by losing Vernon Macklin for nothing we’ve kind of negated this positive move. Why didn’t we get on the ball and get Macklin a job in Europe where he can get minutes and a good salary and we retain his rights? That’s the kind of smart move top teams make because it keeps an asset in their hand (more so) and it sends a very good message to the rest of the league about how they take care of their guys.

So I give our off season a C based on it being largely a product of luck (AD falling to us), with a little smarts (picking up Kim English) and a lot of one step forward one step back moves (the trade and free agent signings). Also because there is more dead wood that needs to be trimmed from our roster and so far that hasn’t happened. I am hoping that we’re waiting to find better deals but who knows.

Also I REALLY appreciate the general friendly atmosphere here. I’ve left discussion groups because they degenerated into ridiculous bickering and personal attacks so it’s nice to see people here can be pretty cool with each other.

By: Jodi Jezz

Jodi Jezz — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 00:00:35 +0000

Chad Ford is a joke…I’ll never take what he says seriously…

By: labatts

labatts — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:23:52 +0000

You are so right. I’ve kinda burnt out of the whole blog commenting thing — except for here. IMHO, the authors deserve credit as well as the friendly commenters.

By: MNM

MNM — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 20:40:20 +0000

I don’t really consider the draft an “offseason move”. I consider the draft to be “the draft” and “offseason moves” to be like trading and/or releasing players, signing free agents, firing/hiring coaches, etc. Therfor, the only thing the Pistons have done was trade the most expensive multi-year contract veteran on the roster (Ben Gordon) 2 days before the draft for a expensive expiring contract veteran (Corey Maggette), where they also had to give up a future 1st round pick to make the deal in the 1st place. Then the other day signed a young big man from the Ukraine (who, if we are all being honest with ourselfs, we know little to nothing about) to a multi-year deal. This is all they have done up to today which is July 25th..after telling us how for 3 years they were in a “holding pattern”, because they were without a “real owner” and were not allowed to make any moves in fear that it would or could hurt an impending sale of the team.. So far, this is all they’ve done.. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again.. “That’s not good enough”.
There are plenty of teams that have been making moves like trading guys who I’ve never heard of for draft picks (which is something the Pistons can use). Why Detroit sits around and does nothing, I’ll never understand. Im sick of reading about “Is Ben Wallace coming back?! We don’t know, but he’s 50/50 right now and they have 1 spot left on the roster!”.. The fact that this is what we are left to breakdown is L.A.M.E. The fact that Chad Ford gave them a “B” is not suprising, because that’s what he does.. He’s never short on givng credit to teams.. He typically tends to be too generous. But at this point, Im giving the Pistons a “C-” or a “C”..and that’s only because they did SOMETHING over a month ago. I understand that it’s only July and they still have time this offseason to make a move. If they do, then I will give them a better grade. For me the offseason ends on the night before the Pistons regular season starts.. I just hope they are pro-active by then.

By: Daye and Knight

Daye and Knight — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 19:03:43 +0000

No problem douche bag!!! Lol it can get crazy here but it hasn’t been in a while so that’s always a good thing