(Tony Dejak/Associated Press)

Basketball is supposed to be confusing. Isn’t that why we watch?

I was having quite the time trying to figure out why the Pistons were pounding the Cavaliers last night. That led to sub-questions like, why aren’t Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince missing any jumpers? There was plenty happening to capture our attention.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

We’re not supposed to wonder why Rodney Stuckey was clutching Arnie Kander’s arm, whether Stuckey would be OK, whether his career would be finished. Or worse.

My mind raced – to Len Bias and drugs, to Lyle Alzado and steroids, to Hank Gathers and heart conditions.

I was at a game when Francisco Elson fainted. He was clearly woozy and walking toward the bench when his knees buckled. A couple teammates grabbed him. It was scary.

This looked much worse.

  (Tony Dejak/Associated Press)

I always hated how buddy-buddy players are after the game. Sometimes, it seems like they shake hands with the other team while the final shot is still in the air. Where’s the competition? Where’s the hate?

But last night, this seemed appropriate. More than that, it was great.

I have a lot of respect for the Cavaliers, who all stayed for a post-game prayer on the court. Stuckey is part of the NBA family. But he has another family, too.

(The Seattle Times)

As he was being carted off the court, I thought about Rodney Stuckey the person – how little we know about him.

He’s not outspoken enough that we know a lot about his personality. But he’s not shy enough I’d consider that one of his traits, either. He’s just there.

I know he couldn’t go to a bigger school like Washington because of academics. But I know he got pretty good grades at Eastern Washington.

Yesterday, I learned he liked to read HoopsHype and RealGM. I like those sites, too. So, I guess that made me feel a little more connect to him.

But he’s still so distant.

When the Pistons drafted Stuckey, the media immediately began hyping him. He was almost as fast as Mike Conley, but a lot bigger. By the end of the summer league, word was if the draft was re-done, Stuckey would’ve gone a lot higher. He would be a star.

He was stuck behind Chauncey Billups, which would be good for him. He could learn from one of the league’s premier points guard. Best of all, like Stuckey, Billups seemed more like an off-guard in a point guard’s body when first joined the league.

Stuckey looked good as rookie. After a few more years behind Billups, he would take over in a seamless transition.

Then, all of a sudden, Billups was in Denver. Stuckey was Detroit’s starting point guard. The future was now.

Stuckey did OK, but the Pistons struggled. Some were discouraged by progress, but others, including myself, were happy with how he played last year.

He was only 22. He didn’t have to be a star yet. It would come in due time.

Like last season, this was supposed to be Stuckey’s year.

He wouldn’t be burdened by Michael Curry and Allen Iverson anymore. He knew the starting job was his all off-season.

Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva were supposed to take pressure off him, too. Instead, they’ve added a ton. They’ve struggled in Detroit, and with the Pistons’ many injury problems, Stuckey has been called on to shoulder the load this season.

Until tomorrow, he’ll be the only Piston to play every game this year. His raw numbers are impressive. His percentages are not.

Simply, he’s been asked to do too much.

Now, expectations are gone. If they’re not, they should be. The focus should be on Rodney Stuckey living – not how well he does on a basketball court.

(Patricia Beck/Detroit Free Press) 

That said, if Stuckey returns to basketball – and given he’s already out of the hospital, I think he will – this could be great for him. He’s been challenged, and that hasn’t really happened before.

Until last night, nothing worried me more about Stuckey’s career than that. Not his lack of true point-guard skills. Not his shaky jumper.

He was a high draft pick. He played as a rookie. He was a sacred cow. He was handed a starting job.

Think back to the title-winning Pistons in 2004. That team won because everyone was overlooked at one point. It played with a chip on its shoulder.

How could Stuckey ever do that? I’m not saying he doesn’t work hard, but he’s been handed so much more than those guys on the 2004 team.

But now – a setback.

It could be more powerful than four teams giving up on Chauncey Billups before really giving him a chance, Michael Jordan tormenting Richard Hamilton in Washington, 22 teams passing on Tayshaun Prince in the draft, every team passing on Ben Wallace and anyone who’s ever seen a basketball game labeling Rasheed Wallace a cancer.

This could be the forces of nature telling Stuckey he’s not supposed to be one of the elite basketball players on the planet. If he overcomes that…

(Kirthmon F. Dozier/Detroit Free Press)

… I’ll be smiling that big, too.

And if he can’t come back from this, if something is seriously wrong – then I hope he finds a way to keep that grin.

John Hollinger had a cool column today about the league’s most underrated shooters, as defined by secondary percentage. I’ll let Hollinger explain the stat:

Chauncey Billups shoots 43.9 percent, and yet he’s one of the most valuable offensive players in the league. That’s a fact. But I’ve had an unusual difficulty explaining it to people concisely. Yes, he has a great True Shooting Percentage, but that’s not quite the entire answer. Lots of players have great TS percentages, and Billups is pretty much the only one to do so while shooting such a low percentage from the floor.

I tend to say that "He shoots a lot of free throws and 3s," or, more precisely, "He makes a lot of free throws and 3s." But that, too, seems unwieldy. What we need is a single tool, a simple two-word explainer that shows how a player like Billups can be such a devastating weapon while missing nearly three-fifths of his field goal attempts.

It turns out we have it, and it’s something called "secondary percentage." First mooted, as far as I can tell, by my Basketball Prospectus successor and occasional ESPN.com contributor Kevin Pelton 15 months ago, the idea is to simply take the difference between a player’s TS% and his field goal percentage.

…

Baseball fans will recognize this instantly as a knockoff of Bill James’ "secondary average" formula, which in one number explains all the things a player does — besides hit for average — to contribute to his offensive value.

I’m sure you don’t want to hear it, but not only is Billups leading the league this year, his secondary percentage would be the best season all-time. In 2005-06, his secondary percentage was third-best all-time.

Anyway, I decided to see how this year’s Pistons’ stack up.

DaJuan Summers (11.2 percent) leads the team. It’s a small sample, but if you want to make a case he should get more playing time, this is probably your best weapon.

Among rotation players, Ben Gordon has the best secondary percentage (11.0). So, I guess that’s encouraging.

Unsurprisingly, Ben Wallace and Kwame Brown have negative secondary percentages.

To see every Pistons’ secondary percentage, see below the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s become widely accepted: trading Chauncey Billups was a mistake. Joe Dumars should’ve traded one of Detroit’s other core players. They’re useless at best, in the way of rebuilding at worst.

But Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince are playing like they’re on a mission to disprove those beliefs.

Hamilton has seemed genuinely happy to be with the Pistons since they fired Michael Curry. I questioned whether Prince was playing hard just to get a trade, but he has continued to play well since the deadline.

Both their numbers have been stellar the last four games.

• Hamilton: 30.5 points per game on 54.5-percent shooting.
• Prince: 15.8 points, 7.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.3 blocks per game.

They might even be proving Dumars made the right call by keeping them around instead of Billups.

Before we go further, I want make clear that I’m not dealing with Dumars’ execution with the Billups trade and the subsequent cap space it created. I’m just talking about his decision to trade Billups instead of one of Detroit’s other core players.

The season before the trade, the Pistons lost in the Eastern Conference Finals for the third straight year. It seemed like a bit of a stretch they even made it that far again. The team was getting older, complacent and disinterested.

By this point, the Pistons had four key players: Billups, Hamilton, Prince and Rasheed Wallace. It made sense to break up that core, at minimum, to create a spark.

Let’s look at each of them to see why Billups was the one to go.

Rasheed Wallace

With his reputation and hard-headedness, Rasheed Wallace is virtually untradeable – at least for any real value. That’s why the Pistons got him so cheaply, and it’s why they had to hang onto him last year.

I have to believe Dumars thought Wallace would continue to decline. But what’s the point of trading him for pennies on the dollar? You trade for a Rasheed Wallace. You don’t trade a Rasheed Wallace.

So, the Pistons were stuck. They couldn’t trade him to improve their team. And if they kept him, he would likely struggle.

Stuck in that conundrum, I think the best option was to hold onto him and pray for the best. If a miracle happened and a light clicked in his head, you had an excellent player.

And if it didn’t, you ccould let him walk in the summer – which ended up happening.

Tayshaun Prince and Richard Hamilton

Of the core group, Prince and Hamilton are the youngest. So, there’s a simple reason it made sense to keep them.

It’s easy to point to their production since Billups was traded and say they weren’t worth keeping around. But they’ve been faced with a slew of challenges:

• They played all of last year under Michael Curry, a failure as a head coach.
• They spent last year with a point guard, who was not only in his first season as a starter, is still working to be more than a shooting guard who brings the ball up the court.
• Last year, they shared the court with Allen Iverson, who completely disrupted the team’s chemistry.
• And they’ve been hampered with injuries this year.

So, I don’t think we’ve had a great look at Hamilton and Prince post-Billups. Yes, their last four games have been awesome. But I don’t think that’s a large enough sample size. So, I’m going to try to use a bigger sample, but still remove some of those mitigating factors.

So how have Prince and Hamilton done in:

• The two games after Billups was traded but before Iverson arrived
• The games last year after Richard Hamilton permanently returned to the starting lineup (excluding the final game of the season for Prince because he played just nine minutes in an effort to continue his streak of games played)
• The first game this season, when both were healthy
• The games since they returned from injury Dec. 27

Hamilton: 20.1 points, 5.4 assists and 3.3 rebounds per game.

Prince: 14 points, 4.8 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game.

Keep in mind that still includes games with Curry, Iverson, a young Stuckey and when they were getting acclimated after injuries. Those stats could improve.

Evidenced by the last four games, they are.

Chauncey Billups

That just leaves Billups.

Billups is two years older than Hamilton and four years older than Prince. His numbers had been dipping, and as a post-up player who thrive on getting to the free throw line, you had to wonder if his body was breaking down.

And, interestingly enough, he might have had the highest trade value on the Pistons. I have no idea what Detroit could’ve gotten for Hamilton or Prince, but the expiring contract of a high-end player is quite the get.

Allen Iverson averaged 22.8 points, 6.2 assists and 1.7 steals per game the season before the trade. Although there were signs his body was wearing down, too, there was a chance the Pistons were acquiring a heck of a player. And if they weren’t, they’d get a ton of cap space. Basically, Iverson represented two tries to make it work.

Another reason trading Billups made most sense: his replacement.

In Rodney Stuckey, the Pistons had a good, young alternative for Billups. What young player was going to replace Hamilton or Prince?

Don’t say Arron Afflalo. I wish the Pistons still had him, too. But he’s not nearly the player Stuckey is and likely won’t come close.

Afflalo’s PER this season is 11.3. His defensive rating (110) is ninth on the Nuggets. And J.R. Smith still plays more minutes per game than him.

And I’ve covered this many times, but the trade rejuvenated Billups. There was no way the Pistons would have had the same Billups Denver got.

Takeaway

If Hamilton and Prince continue to play well, especially if that’s due to Stuckey becoming a better point guard, you have to give Dumars more of a break on the Billups trade.

I have so new software that I hope will allow me to show data in better ways. This is my test run. A quick explanation of this chart:

• The farther right a team is, the better its offensive rating.
• The higher a team is, the better its defensive rating.
• The axes represent the league average (106.8).
• Teams in the top right quadrant are above average offensively and defensively.
• Teams in the top left quadrant are above average defensively and below average offensively.
• Teams in the bottom right quadrant are above average offensively and below average defensively.
• Teams in the bottom left quadrant are below average offensively and defensively – and yes, this includes the Pistons.
• You can also view the data by division. Just check below whichever division(s) you want to view.

Well, the trade deadline passed and the Pistons didn’t make a move. As I wrote before, that makes sense given their assets.

Joe Dumars probably wasn’t too interested in trading his new players, including Ben Wallace, who’s an old new player.

That leaves four veterans Dumars probably shopped to some degree. Below are my thoughts on each of them returning for at least another 29 games.

Richard Hamilton

I’m really glad Hamilton is still a Piston – really glad.

In a time when many are ditching their support – see Tom Wilson – Hamilton wants to be a Piston. That should be celebrated.

Dumars obviously signed Ben Gordon because he believes Gordon can be the type of player you don’t pass up, regardless of whom you already have. That still may be the case, but Gordon certainly hasn’t shown it yet.

The Pistons should wait to trade Hamilton until Hamilton’s value increases or Gordon becomes good enough to handle nearly all the minutes at shooting guard.

And for all the loyalty Hamilton has shown this year, I hope – probably naively – that Hamilton retires a Piston.

Tayshaun Prince

Admittedly, I’m getting a little sick of Prince. But it’s probably a good thing he’s back, too.

He’s just starting to regain his form, and nobody was going to have a strong interest in such of an expensive player who’s had only about eight strong games this season.

After this season, Prince, with his expiring contract, should be one of the Pistons’ most attractive assets. He’ll probably be playing for a different team before the next trade deadline.

And that’s sad. I’m rooting for Prince. He meant so much to this team during its six-year run as a title contender. I hope his attitude and play improve.

I just don’t see it happening.

Jason Maxiell

I really like what Maxiell has been doing as of late. He’s overpaid, but his his salary isn’t so high that can’t change.

He’s been playing very well at backup center for a team in dire need of one. Not only is he productive, he’s playing with purpose. I like this Maxiell.

I’m not sure of his ideal position going forward, but he keeps doing enough that I’m not ready to give up on him.

I think a very good case scenario would be him playing up to his contract. I’m at least enticed enough by what he’s shown lately to be happy he’s still around.

Kwame Brown

I said before, the Pistons should trade Brown. I even offered a few suggestions. But the Pistons wasted his expiring contract – at least until it provides more flexibility in the offseason.

Brown and John Kuester clearly aren’t one the same page, and I doubt there’s enough time left in the season to fix that.

I just hope there’s not a substantial feud that distracts the Pistons from progress the rest of this season and Brown sails off quietly into free agency.

John Hollinger (insider):

Overrated: Joe Dumars

Let’s look ourselves in the mirror, fellow media members: We’ve all given the guy a free pass because of his amazing run to six straight conference finals and blithely ignored the fact that he’s screwed up a hundred ways from Tuesday since he decided to whack Flip Saunders after the 2008 conference finals.

Check out the résumé and find me a correct decision. Just one. Fire Saunders? Wrong. Hire Michael Curry? Wrong. Trade Chauncey Billups? Wrong. Extend Richard Hamilton? Wrong. Sign Kwame Brown? Wrong. Go after Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva? Wrong again.

In two years, the Pistons have gone from one of the best teams in basketball to among the worst. They stink, they’re capped out, and they don’t have much in the way of young talent; for all we know, in two years they’re going to be the Pittsburgh Pisces or the Seattle Grunge or something. If Isiah Thomas or Rob Babcock had done this, we’d have buried them alive by now, so it’s only fair for us to point out that regardless of his previous track record, Dumars is on a two-year losing streak of McHalian proportions.

If you’ve read my previous posts, I’m a big believer in Dumars. Let’s go point-by-point with what Hollinger wrote.

Hollinger: “We’ve all given the guy a free pass because of his amazing run to six straight conference finals and blithely ignored the fact that he’s screwed up a hundred ways from Tuesday since he decided to whack Flip Saunders after the 2008 conference finals.”

Me: Sustaining success after a long run of being elite is nearly impossible in the NBA. The core players get old, and there are no young reinforcements because teams get stuck with low draft picks. So, I can’t blame Dumars too much for being in a position many other elite teams have faced:

• The Lakers had consecutive losing seasons in 1992-93 and 1993-94.
• The Celtics never won more than 36 games between the 1993-94 and 2000-01 seasons.
• The Pistons had three straight losing seasons after the Bad Boys broke up.
• Once Hakeem Olajuwon hit 37 and his production fell dramatically, the Rockets missed the playoffs for four straight seasons.
• In the six years after Michael Jordan retired, the Bulls won an average of 20 games.
• The Heat when from winning the 2006 title to 15-67 two years later.
• The Lakers kept have kept it going with half their core in Kobe (minus Shaq), so you can call them an exception if you’d like.
• And let’s see how the post-Duncan Spurs look.

Hollinger: “Check out the résumé and find me a correct decision.”

Me: Firing Flip Saunders, signing Will Bynum, signing Antonio McDyess, draft Jonas Jerebko, firing Michael Curry, signing Ben Wallace.

Hollinger: “Fire Saunders? Wrong.”

Me: Flip Saunders is a good, not great coach. But he had completely lost the respect of that team. There was no way he could continue in Detroit. Firing him was a no-brainer.

Hollinger: “Hire Michael Curry? Wrong.”

Me: No question, that was a terrible hire. But how many generals managers have the guts to fire their hand-picked and young head coach a season after hiring him?

Hollinger: “Trade Chauncey Billups? Wrong”

Me: In hindsight, I wish the Pistons wouldn’t have made the trade. But it’s not as bad as it looks. Billups was in a rut in Detroit. There’s no way the Pistons could have had the same Billups that Denver does.

Hollinger: “Extend Richard Hamilton? Wrong.”

Me: As I’ve covered here many times, Dumars offered Hamilton the extension before Billups was traded. Dumars didn’t want to go back on his word after the trade. You can still say it would have been a mistake even if Detroit had kept Billups, but it wouldn’t nearly look as bad.

Hollinger: “Sign Kwame Brown? Wrong”

Me: He was signed to provide depth on the front line. How is this a bad signing? He was never expected to be a major contributor, and he was pretty good the second half of last season.

Hollinger: “Go after Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva? Wrong again.”

Me: The early returns haven’t been encouraging, but it’s way too early to label these bad signings.

Hollinger: “They stink”

Me: If the Pistons were healthy this year and  battling for one of the final playoff spots in the East, would Dumars have been included as overrated in this column? I don’t think so. Sneaking into the playoffs isn’t this team’s long-term goal, but it would’ve have been enough to keep a lot of people off Dumars’ back. Injuries didn’t allow that to happen.

Hollinger: “they’re capped out”

Me: They’re over the cap, but I don’t think they have a single player who’s untradable — even Hamilton. I think they could easily position themselves to have cap room in the summer of 2011 if that’s the direction that makes the most sense.

Hollinger: “they don’t have much in the way of young talent”

Me: I’d consider Ben Gordon (26), Charlie Villanueva (25), Rodney Stuckey (23), Jonas Jerebko (22) and Austin Daye (21) young talent.

Hollinger: “for all we know, in two years they’re going to be the Pittsburgh Pisces or the Seattle Grunge or something”

Me: I’ll let Justin Rogers of Full-Court Press take this one.

Hollinger: “If Isiah Thomas or Rob Babcock had done this, we’d have buried them alive by now”

Me: Thomas and Babcock had a nasty habit of compounding bad moves with more bad moves. It’s not like Dumars didn’t make plenty of mistakes during the Pistons’ run as an elite team. But he fixed them.

Darko Milicic, Mateen Cleaves and Rodney White were all notoriously bad draft picks. He turned all of them into valuable assets.

It’s way too early in the rebuilding process to throw Dumars under the bus. Let’s see where he’s going before we freak out. His last plan worked. I’m willing to give him time to let this one unfold.

We’re 10 days from the NBA trade deadline, and the Pistons have frequently been mentioned as one of the league’s most active teams. They have plenty of assets and plenty of holes. They could benefit by adding or shedding salary. It almost seems inevitable they’ll make a trade.

But in all likelihood, they won’t. And I think there’s good reason.

I’m all for making trade that upgrades the team – whether that be short- or long-term. But the odds of that happening are low. Nearly any trade the Pistons could make would involve selling low.

Go through the Pistons’ roster. How many players do you think will be more valuable at this time next year than they are right now?

Charting expected value

Value is determined by two factors: how good a player is and how much he makes. (Age factors into both). So, here’s how I see each factor applying to the Pistons’ trade bait.

• A plus mean a player should be more valuable next year.
• A minus mean a player should be less valuable next year.
• An equal sign means the player should be equally valuable next year.

The Pistons seem intent on building around Rodney Stuckey, so I don’t think he’s tradable. And rookies aren’t traded often, so I didn’t include them, either.

My thinking on the first seven players in the chart:

• Hamilton, Prince, Gordon and Bynum all lost significant time to injury. They have to be better next year, right?
• Hamilton will have one fewer season left on his contract, and Prince’s expiring deal could be quite valuable. On a smaller scale, the same is true with Maxiell and Wilcox’s expiring contract.
• Gordon and Villanueva will each have one few year left on their contracts, but the amount they’re owed per year goes up. Any team that acquires one of them would making a long-term commitment. I’d call that a wash.
• Bynum’s contract is up after this season, and he will be paid more next year, likely by Detroit.

The exceptions

That leaves only two players whose value will likely decrease next year – Ben Wallace and Kwame Brown.

It’s amazing what Wallace is doing at 35. He’d be even more amazing if he’s doing it at 36. His value is probably the highest it will be the rest of his career.

But he came back to play in Detroit. I don’t think he’ll be traded without his permission.

So, the only player I think the Pistons should make a concerted effort to trade is Brown. Many teams need an extra center and an expiring contract, and he would provide both.

Brown hasn’t been in the Pistons’ rotation in a couple months, so I’d guess this is his last year in Detroit. If his contract expires at the end of the season and he signs elsewhere, the Pistons will get nothing in return for him.

Maybe the right deal is out there for Hamilton or Prince – but it’s far more likely Detroit would receive the most value from trading Brown.

I’m sorry, typical Pistons fan. You’re not going to like this. You’re already sick of Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince, and this won’t make you like them more. Ken Berger of CBS Sports:

Hamilton and Prince didn’t elaborate on the improvement in chemistry that is required, but you don’t have to be a psychologist to figure it out. Take the lingering bitterness over the Billups trade, combine it with three coaches in three seasons, and lather it all up with losing and you have a team that one person close to the situation said is "in need of serious change."

The way the veteran core of Hamilton, Prince, Billups and Rasheed Wallace ran roughshod over Flip Saunders at the end of his tenure has come full circle. After a dismal year under the inexperienced, but no-nonsense Michael Curry, the Pistons have another pushover in the lead chair on the bench. Old habits have returned under first-year coach John Kuester, whose vision for the future is being clouded by the faces of the past.

There’s a growing feeling in the locker room that Kuester isn’t holding the veterans on the team accountable, and that he’s "too soft," said a person with direct knowledge of locker room conversations.

"Once Joe traded Chauncey, that was sort of the tipping point for all that stuff," the person said. "There is this old-guard mentality there, and it holds them back."

Berger’s column has plenty of flaws (see below the jump). But I think the above passage gets at a huge issue with the Pistons.

I’ve noted Tayshaun Prince’s apparent poor attitude with his new coach and his new teammates. And I expressed doubt’s about whether Kuester could transition from being an assistant to a head coach who commands respect.

I’m not ready to vilify Hamilton. I think he really wants to be in Detroit. He went out of his way to praise Ben Gordon before the season, and I think that was, in part, an effort to show the two could coexist. And he’s transformed his game to fit better as a second fiddle. Still, this column gives me pause.

Looking for a silver lining? Maybe these issues will make it more likely Joe Dumars trades Prince and Hamilton. Not so fast. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports:

“Teams calling the Detroit Pistons about Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince are finding out that GM Joe Dumars isn’t interested in expiring contracts, but getting value for his players.”

Read the rest of this entry »

TrueHoop’s Henry Abbott often talks about the value of advanced statistics. His opinion, and one I share, is they’re valuable. But they shouldn’t always stand alone. They should be combined with qualitative observations. Here’s my attempt at doing that.

In his recent Q&A with Keith Langlois, Joe Dumars talked about what he’s learned this season. The general manager said, with all of Detroit’s injuries, you really can’t tell what kind of team you have. But you can evaluate individual players.

I’m just not sure we’ve been doing that properly.

If you’ve watched the Pistons this season, you know Ben Wallace has been their best player. You don’t need advance statistics to tell you that, but here are a few anyway:

• His plus-minus per 48 minutes (-1.3) leads the team.
• He leads Detroit in win shares (3.4).
• He leads the Pistons in offensive rating (117) and defensive rating (104), too.

By almost any measure, quantitative or qualitative, Wallace is Detroit’s best player.

He gets most of his credit for defense. He blocks a lot of shots and alters even more. He’s a very good defensive rebounder. He also collects many of steals.

Wallace provides plenty on offense, too. He leads the league in offensive rebounding percentage. He sets excellent screens. He’s a good passer for his size. His true shooting percentage is even its highest since his second season in Detroit.

On both sides of the court, Wallace knows his assignment. When Wallace is playing, Pistons coach John Kuester can focus on the other four players – just another way Wallace makes Detroit more effective.

After Wallace, ranking the Pistons gets pretty murky.

Think about your ideal Detroit lineup. Wallace is obviously in it. But who are the other four players? Besides DaJaun Summers, you could make a semi-reasonable case for anyone else on the roster.

(And before you say it, playing Chucky Atkins at point guard might be the way to make Rodney Stuckey most effective, if that’s what you’re going for.)

Still, you have an idea of which players besides Wallace are best. But I think most evaluations of the other Pistons miss a critical factor.

My theory: Someone who plays a high percentage of his minutes with Wallace is more likely to be overrated. Someone who plays a low percentage of his minutes with Wallace is more likely to be underrated.

That’s not to say this is a rule. But if someone has more opportunities to play with Detroit’s top player, especially one who does so many little things well, I think that’s a tremendous advantage. That player could easily end up looking better than he is.

Let’s look at a visual.

Chart

Some keys to reading this graph:

• The farther right the player, the more minutes he’s played with Wallace.
• The higher on the graph a player, the better his plus-minus per 48 minutes.
• The red line represents the expected value of a a player’s plus-minus per 48 minutes based on the percentage minutes he’s played with Ben Wallace. The farther a player is above the line, the better he’s done that expected based on the percentage of his minutes he’s played with Wallace. The farther a player is below the line, the worse he’s done that expected based on the percentage of his minutes he’s played with Wallace.

Most likely to be overrated

Obviously, there are a lot of ways to assess whether a player is overrated. But let’s just stick with this measure. Here are the percentage of each player’s minutes he’s played with Wallace:

1. Tayshaun Prince (73.7 percent)
2. Jonas Jerebko (73.7 percent)
3. Richard Hamilton (73.6 percent)
4. Rodney Stuckey (71.2 percent)
5. Ben Gordon (63.7 percent)
6. Charlie Villanueva (60.4 percent)
7. Chucky Atkins (56.6 percent)
8. Jason Maxiell (48.1 percent)
9. Will Bynum (42.5 percent)
10. Austin Daye (36.1 percent)
11. Chris Wilcox (29.3 percent)
12. DaJuan Summers (23.2 percent)
13. Kwame Brown (7.3 percent)

So, if the goal is to evaluate which players are best, the players near the bottom of that list should play more minutes with Wallace instead of the players near the top.

Let’s look at a couple specific switches the Pistons should make to their rotation:

Kwame Brown for Chris Wilcox

Brown’s plus-minus per 48 minutes is farther above his expected value than any other Piston. But getting on the court with Wallace could be difficult.

Wallace and Brown are the only two Pistons who can legitimately play center in the NBA (and judging by Brown’s minutes, Wallace is really the only one). That explains why Brown has, by far, played the fewest minutes with Wallace.

Wilcox hasn’t played a lot with Wallace, either. But it’s been more than three times as much as Brown.

And despite more playing time with Wallace, Wilcox has been less effective than Brown in terms of plus-minus per 48 minutes.

Before the season, there was talk of Wallace and Brown starting together. I think it’s time to give that duo another chance. Maybe Brown wouldn’t look as terrible as he has.

Austin Daye for Tayshaun Prince

Next to Brown, Daye has performed the second best based on how much he’s played with Wallace. Prince is third worst behind Wilcox and DaJuan Summers.

Prince and Daye both play small forward, so the switch makes a lot of sense. A bonus: Daye is younger and a key part of the Pistons future, and Prince isn’t.

Daye has played a lot in garbage time, and Prince has been injured. So, there’s a good chance Daye would flop if he took Prince’s minutes.

But I’d be willing to take the chance to find out.

A new lineup

To restate, I’d like to see Austin Daye and Kwame Brown play more minutes with Ben Wallace. Those three haven’t played together much this season, just 7:20.

I know the sample size is small, but in that limited time, they’ve been awesome. They’re plus-11 with an offensive rating of 135.7 and a defensive rating of 57.1.

By conventional wisdom, Wallace, Daye and Brown would best be paired with a backcourt of Stuckey and Hamilton – maybe Stuckey and Gordon. Neither of those combinations has played together this season.

The Pistons should take a serious look at these changes. It would help them evaluate their players better. And it might even help them win some games.

Summary

• Ben Wallace is the Pistons’ best player.
• Players who play most of their minutes with Wallace might look better than they really are.
• Kwame Brown, in lieu of Chris Wilcox, should play more minutes with Wallace.
• Austin Daye, in lieu of Tayshaun Prince, should play more minutes with Wallace.

With all his missed games, it barely seems like Ben Gordon has joined the Pistons. He might return tomorrow, so I thought it would be a good time to take an in-depth look at him.

Ben Gordon (Daniel Mears / The Detroit News)

Essentials

Position: Shooting guard/ point guard

Age: 26

Height: 6-foot-3

Weight: 200 pounds

Years pro: Five

From: Connecticut

Role

Gordon is Detroit’s sixth man, but he should play close to the minutes of a starter. He’s owed more money than anyone else on the team. You don’t sign someone for so much money to play him like a backup.

Scouting report

Will: Score.

Gordon can shoot from the outside and mid-range. He can drive to the basket and get to the line. He makes easy shots, and he makes tough shots.

In many ways, Gordon is just a role player, and his role is scoring.

As note previously, just eight players scored more with a higher true shooting percentage than Gordo last season:

• Dwyane Wade
• LeBron James
• Danny Granger
• Kevin Durant
• Kevin Martin
• Chris Paul
• Brandon Roy
• Amar’e Stoudemire

When he’s healthy, Gordon will prove he belongs among the league’s elite scorers.

Won’t: defend.

I talked with Matt McHale of By the Horns (more from him later) a little bit before the season about Gordon’s defense. Matt said if Gordon is around good defenders, he won’t be a liability. Gordon just doesn’t have the size or instincts to be a good defender – no matter how hard he tries (and he does try).

Basically, Matt told me not to waste time figuring out how Gordon can become a better defender. It’s not happening.

That reminded me a lot of Richard Hamilton, who was probably the weakest defender in the Pistons’ recent-glory-days starting lineup. But Ben Wallace, Rasheed Wallace, Tayshaun Prince and Chauncey Billups didn’t really have to cover for him. Around those guys, he could hold his own.

So, even though Gordon won’t ever be a good defender, I’m encouraged for a few reasons.

1. Playing with Rodney Stuckey should allow Gordon to cover more point guards, who will probably be a better matchup for him.

2. Gordon has a 6-foot-8.5 wingspan, which should help make up his lack of lateral quickness.

3. With Gordon’s top-end scoring ability, it makes sense for the Pistons to surround him with good defenders in the long run, anyway. It’s nice to know he won’t cripple their defensive efforts.

Must improve: playmaking.

In the short term, it would be great if Ben Gordon could play some point guard, so he can play minutes with Richard Hamilton. This is especially important if Will Bynum remains out with an injury.

But the long term is much more significant here. Unless the plan has changed, Ben Gordon and Rodney Stuckey are the Pistons’ backcourt of the future.

As we’ve learned, Stuckey plays best when he spends some time off the ball. For Stuckey to do that, Gordon will have to play some point guard.

Gordon has talked about a desire to be more a playmaker, so I don’t think he’s just stuck on scoring. But he still needs to show he can be one.

Stock

Falling

With his injuries and lack of production so far, Joe Dumars has taken a lot of heat for signing Gordon. Gordon has only played 25 games with the Pistons, so this could easily change. But the early returns have been poor.

Three predictions

1. Gordon will lead the Pistons in scoring next season and several straight after that.

Since arriving in Detroit, Richard Hamilton has led the Pistons in points per game for seven straight seasons. He’s leading again this year, and I think he’ll hold on.

But I think he passes the torch to Gordon next year. Gordon will have a lengthy streak of his own, but I don’t think he passes Hamilton’s – whether it ends at seven or eight.

2. Gordon will be the Piston to make an All-Star team.

Ben Wallace might deserve to go this year, but playing strong defense on a bad team doesn’t usually garner an All-Star berth.

Gordon will develop the stats and recognition to become an All-Star. As I wrote above, Gordon might be just a role player. But his role, scoring, is the most noticed.

3. This season will be Gordon’s worst as a Piston.

He’s suffered multiple injuries and just hasn’t gotten into a rhythm yet this year. He’s only 26, so I think his best years are ahead of him. And there’s a decent chance Richard Hamilton isn’t a Piston next year.

Add all that up, and Gordon has plenty of room to go up.

In other words

Matt McHale of By the Horns sent this great analysis:

“Here’s the thing about Ben Gordon: He will always go balls to the wall (or all out, if you want to put it cleanly) at what he does best: scoring. Having a player who can give you 20 PPG, no matter what, is quite an asset, especially when that guy knocks down 40+ percent of his treys. He also can drill clutch shots, and he’s never afraid to take them. Ben’s not quite Reggie Miller in that respect, but he’s closer than you might think. (It would probably help if he got more chances to make waves in the playoffs.)

His weaknesses are in the following areas: ball-handling, playmaking and defense. Basically, everything else (other than scoring) that you want from a shooting guard. It’s not that Ben doesn’t try on defense — he does — but he’s simply too small for his position. He might match up pretty well against opposing point guards…I wouldn’t know. But he simply can’t match up against guys 6′5" or taller, because what he lacks in height, he does not make up for with quick hands or feet.

BG is a conundrum. On the one hand, he’s almost completely one-diminsional. On the other hand, his one dimension is pretty darn useful. I’ve always felt that Gordon would be an invaluable resource if he could find the right niche with the right team. Ideally, he could be a (much better) Eddie House for a contender: a fearless and unstoppable shooter/scorer off the bench.

Unfortunately, Ben (probably rightly) feels he should be starting. I mean, how many 20-point scorers come off the bench, right? (This is where guys like John Havlicek, Kevin McHale, Detlef Schempf and Ricky Pierce cough lightly and raise their hands.) He kinda wants to be The Man, but Ben Gordon cannot carry a team by himself (save for the occasional spectacular game).

To summarize: Great scorer, limited "other" skills, has to be hidden on defense.

One last thing (or perhaps a couple things) worth noting. The biggest dig on Ben has been "He may score 20 PPG, but he gives up 25 PPG." That’s not quite fair. According to 82games.com, the 2008-09 Bulls scored 23.8 PPG from the SG position while giving up 20.2. That’s a net production of +3.6, which ranked 6th in the league at that position. The Bulls also had a net PER of +2.6 at shooting guard, which ranked 7th in the league. Since BG played about 37 MPG, most of that was his handiwork. The point is, Ben Gordon — on average — solidly outperformed opposing shooting guards last season.”

Previous player previews

Deron Washington

Jonas Jerebko

DaJuan Summers

Chris Wilcox

Chucky Atkins

Austin Daye

Charlie Villanueva

Ben Wallace