Comments on: Greg Monroe, Brandon Knight shine, but Pistons lose on the road to Hornets

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 16:49:34 +0000

Does Joe not get credit for acquiring Monroe and Drummond?

Sure it wasn’t because of any shrewd moves, but it doesn’t matter how you get the players onto your roster, as long as you get them. And in the past 3 yrs he’s once again assembled what could be the best frontcourt in the league as early as next year.

He’s already once assembled one of the all-time great frontcourts in Wallace x2. So this is now 2 of the best frontcourts in the league he has put together in his tenure. What makes it even more impressive this time is that he did during a period where he was prohibited from trades and FA signings. He had one option – the draft – and relativily low picks to do it with at that.

Not often you assemble the best frontcourt in the league with the 7th and 9th picks.

Acquiring both Wallaces was in much the same manner. He found Big Ben as a throw in player in a trade, and then got Sheed for a bunch of scrubs off his bench.

By: ryan

ryan — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 15:50:30 +0000

Very well said. I don’t think Brandon Knight is perfect or even as good as Kyrie Irving but it does seem clear that he’s 1) hardworking 2) pretty skilled and a pretty good athlete and 3) a likeable young fella. I really enjoy having him on the team and feel like he’s making good progress.

if you look at a guy like Jrue Holiday I think you see a good example of the type of development that Knight could make. They have different games but it wouldn’t surprise me to see Knight in his fourth year producing at an all-star level on both ends of the floor.

By: I HATE FRANK

I HATE FRANK — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 05:39:00 +0000

not to debate with u…but he was saying he wasn’t efficent because he didn’t get to the line …is a terrible arguement …He was not getting calls… he was getting hammered …

But its okay… I love that he was attacking the rim

By: frankie d

frankie d — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 00:21:07 +0000

”Tay felt that he had to be Kobe for the team…”
no disrespect for tay, cause he was a fine player on their good teams.
but tay, as kobe on any team is a nightmare.
he is what he is…a 4th or 5th option on a good team. any team that looks to him as a first or second or third option is in trouble. and if he truly believed that, tay is delusional, as well.
no doubt joe felt he could play that role, which was one of the team’s bigger problems over the last 5 years. he fell in love with his guy – tay – and did not view him as the player he truly was.

By: frankie d

frankie d — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 00:17:58 +0000

is this coming up on what…the 11th anniversery of that move.
great signing by joe. one of the best by any gm in the last 15 years or so.
but come on! if you gotta go back to 2002 to find an example…
well, the facts speak for themselves.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:50:52 +0000

He got Chauncey for cheap…

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:49:30 +0000

Calderon sets his teammates up and that’s the difference between him and Tay. Tay felt that he had to be Kobe for the team but Calderon is different. He passes to the young guns and let them learn.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:45:37 +0000

Hit it on the nail Vic. Knight can be a good PG if he had the RIGHT coach. Larry Brown did wonders for Chauncey. Mark Jackson is doing a pretty good job with Steph Curry and Dwight had success with Patrick Ewing helping him. Dee Brown (guards coach for those who don’t know) and Lawrence Frank are not the right coaches to develop Knight.

By: oats

oats — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:38:59 +0000

1)Henderson guarded him more than Walker did.

2) Yes, but not in the manner you seem to be using the word comparing. I am comparing them as in compare and contrast, but that is not the same as equating them. I thought the fact that I said that Knight outplayed him made that pretty clear. I’m saying Gordon still had a decent game. Not as good as Knight’s, but still a good game. If Knight had that game we’d point out his shooting wasn’t great, but he got to the line and got his points anyways, then praise him for the good game. Then you’d probably get on our case for pointing out the bad shooting an accuse us of going out of our way to find something to complain about with Knight, but that is neither here nor there. It’s hard to call it lock down defense if your opponent still had a good game and played a key part in his team winning.

That said, we lost for a lot of reasons. Calderon and Bynum playing poorly on defense was one of them. Ryan Anderson killing us on the boards despite being a pretty crappy rebounder was another. Having a small forward also kill us on the boards was another, although Aminu is a really good rebounder for his position. Eric Gordon’s solid first half also left them in a position to win. A lot of factors contributed, but the credit for the win or loss wasn’t really the point of what I was saying either. The point was that Knight played good defense, but it wasn’t exactly lock down defense. He locked him down in the second half, I’ll give you that, but over the course of the entire game Eric Gordon still played pretty well.

As for the debate, it’s because you constantly are searching for excuses for Knight or putting words in mouth. I’ve never wanted him to fail, but I still don’t think he is as good as you make him sound. You keep putting him at a status he hasn’t earned. First you argued he was the point guard of the future, and that if he was just in a different situation he’d look like one. There is no evidence to suggest that, and I do not think he will ever be a good or even average starting point guard. Making him into a score first point guard won’t change that, he just hasn’t been an effective enough scorer to make up for not getting assists or turning it over so often. He just isn’t an efficient enough scorer for that to work, because you have to be really efficient to make up for the fact that you aren’t helping you team mates as much as a passing point guard would. Besides, he is the one who had the ball and wasn’t shooting, that was how he chose to play the position. Now you are already wanting to make him the shooting guard of the future. I’m saying wait to see if he can sustain his success at the position before we stop evaluating other guys there. He’s an up and down player who happens to be up now. Let’s see how long he can stay there, and how he handles his next cold streak. That’s how we start to figure it out.

So, in a sense I actually am saying Knight isn’t that good, or at least not as good as you keep declaring him to be. I’m saying he’s a useful player that hasn’t proven he can competently start for a good team. I want to give him a chance to prove he can be, but until I get a good reason to I’m not going to assume he will get there. These last few games are encouraging, just not definitive. Essentially I’m saying slow your roll and stop handing him unwarranted status on such limited evidence. You might not be calling him the basketball savior, but you are calling shooting guard a filled position before Knight has given us much of an idea how he will handle the position over the long term. I’m just calling for us to be patient and not to over rate him.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:37:02 +0000

Don’t even get me started on Frank.

TBH, I like the guy. He seems like a real down to earth person but the fact of the matter is that he is not the coach for us. He did a pretty decent job last year in getting the team chemistry together after all of that Kuester stuff but this year was more so about trying to win games/develop instead of getting chemistry up to par. As many PP fans stated, Frank is a smart guy that seems like he takes multiple hours in order to make sure every i is dotted and every t is crossed but he sucks at his in game decisions. I still believe that Woodson was the better choice, not because the Knicks are playing well but because he he puts the best lineup out on the floor in order to win. Many coaches would have kept Melo at SF while Amare was hurt and I’m sure that others would quickly thrust Amare back in the lineup when he was healthy but Woodson has made rational rotations as head coach.

On a side note, I don’t believe Frank will last much longer here. I really like our AC Brian Hill and I was also hoping for him to be the HC as well after Kuester. So my choices for a HC would either be Brian Hill, Shaw from Indiana (really love the guy) or Scott Skiles (love his defensive schemes.)