Keith Livernois' take on the roster - position by position

PG: Pistons by Position: Point Guard | THE OFFICIAL SITE OF THE DETROIT PISTONS
SG: Pistons by Position: Shooting Guard | THE OFFICIAL SITE OF THE DETROIT PISTONS

I'd like some better options at back-up PG than Bynum. I actually don't mind Stuckey moving over as a change o' pace to BK.
I think that Joe can easily do better than Stuckey at starting SG. I'd like to think that your starting SG should be a lock for 20+ ppg. The dude should also be one of your two best 3-point shooters on the team.

As much as we used to rip Rodney for being a combo guard back when he was replacing Chauncey as "Piston PG of the future", the dude would be the perfect back-up to Knight and and upgraded starting SG (a little overpaid but a good fit in that role).

If anyone knows the Pistons, it is Keith Livernois. LOL

These pieces are fluff, rah-rah promos for the season. It's nice to hear how hard they worked in the summer, but all good players do that.

I like what you are saying BDL. Put BK as your starting PG. Somehow acquire a stud starting SG, and then use Stuckey as your combo backup for both positions.

I thought a guy like Walker Russell Jr, despite his obvious limitations, made a big difference last year. I'd rather they go in the direction of getting a better version of him than having Stuckey back there.

Fluff or not, it pumps me up. He wouldn't have written those pieces that way if Knight and Stuckey would have retreated to their hometowns all summer and lived it up.

I find it credible that both of these players have good heads on their shoulders and spent a huge chunk of the summer doing exactly what we would be hoping that they would be doing.

It took me a while to warm up to Stuckey, but I'm almost there. He just needs to be a notch better than last year and I'm a believer.

With Knight, I see the potential and am super interested to see how it plays out, but he just has a lot further to go. Reports of his leadership interest and his ball handling practice are reassuring. He slices and dices like crazy, but he was a bit of a sloppy dribbler.

You can't tell me that this doesn't pump you up can you? This is a visual representation of Keith's article.

Only 4 SG scored over 20 PPG last season and only 2 of them are locks to do so this season so the first part might be hard (unless Joe trades Stuck for Stuckey 0.5)

I enjoyed reading it, too. The fact that Prince and Maxiel are the only two NOT currently showing up to the daily workouts says something to me, as well.

I have way more faith in Knight having a strong year than Stuckey especially right out of the gate. It was good to hear that Hot Rod was leaning out.

I'm intrigued to see what a roster like this, in a middle of a game, can do. Just to be clear, i'm not naming starters, just a shake up roster in the middle of a game if Knight is in foul trouble.

Stuckey
English
Maggette

And in the 4 and 5 position I don't care, it can be Monroe and Drummond, or Monroe and Kravtsov. But what i'm saying is.. what if Stuckey AND English are the guards for a while?

do you see that convinient if Knight is with foul problems? I like this roster better than the "Bynum - Stuckey - Prince" we are all used to.

English is a major question mark at this stage. Many reports say he shows some promise, but I can't see him getting many minutes early in his rookie year unless we have some serious injuries.

Yeah.
I'd hate to slip from 10th to 11th in the East because Larry Frank decided to give Ken English 12 minutes per game instead of going with the proven leadership of Corey Maggette.

Exactly. You can't sacrifice minutes on guys like Singler either because you have to get Tay his nightly 38 mpg.

I wasn't thinking of some MLE guy this season. I was talking about a stud SG in a trade or free agency sometime in the next several years. We have a lot of young players. We need to just keep adding the right pieces and eventually get a stud or two.

Joe seems to be on the program of attempting to un-do past mistakes.
Handing the keys to Stuckey and sending Chauncey to Denver was one of those mistkes.
Re-signing Stuckey to $8.5 million per year when he wasn't bidding against anyone else was another.

I'd "hope for a trade" but I just don't think that there is another team out there that is dumb enough to pay Rodney $9 million bucks per year. We're stuck with Stuck.

Using Stuckey as a "super-sub" for both guard positions would be a resonable option. He might not get a full 30 minutes every night but he'd get plenty of run when you combine all the backup minutes of both guard spots. I just don't ever see the Pistons getting over the hump with Stuck as a starter. It's the easiest positon to fill and I have a hard time believing that we can't do better.

Rod Stuckey will never be an all-star.
We might as well try and make him a 6th man of the year candidate.

You don't need to have an all-star at every position. You just need all the guys to be better than average with a few all-stars sprinkled in.

2004 Pistons starting lineup:
Billups: 16.9 ppg/ 5.7 ast
Hamilton: 17.6 ppg/ 4.0 ast
Prince: 10.3 pts/ 2.3 ast/ 4.8 reb
Sheed: 13.7 pts/ 7.0 reb
Big Ben: 9.5 pts/ 12.4 reb/ 3.0 blk

2012 Pistons starting lineup:
Knight: 12.8 pts/ 3.8 ast (significant drop off)
Stuckey: 14.8 ppg/ 3.8 ast (he gets 2.8 less points per game on 4.0 fewer FG attempts. So, if he took 4 more shots and averaged better than 35% shooting, he'd exceed Rip's output)
Prince: 12.7 pts/ 2.4 ast/ 4.5 reb (basically the same player, he just gets utilized a little more on offense and doesn't have shot blockers behind him on D)
Monroe: 15.4 pts/ 9.7 reb (better stats than Sheed, but Sheed was supposed to spread the floor and was sharing boards with a monster, so it's misleading)
Maxiell: 6.5 pts/ 5.1 reb/ 0.8 blk (aha, I found the problem!)


You could plug this version of Stuckey on the 2004 team and they would still have a chance. Especially if he was allowed to be physical on defense and had Wallace x 2 behind him. You could plug current Tay in for '04 Tay and be fine. You could probably plug Monroe in for Sheed and be OK... although probably a little worse. There is 0% chance that you could trade out either Knight for Billups or Maxiell for '04 Wallace and have any hope of winning it all.

But the real question is, can you plug in the 2014 version of Knight in for '04 Billups and can you plug 2014 Drummond in for '04 Big Ben.

IMO:
These young guys have to be expected to perform like the '04 versions of Chauncy and Ben.
It's a delecate situation where the coaches need these guys to know that it's ok to make some rookie mistakes while at the same time treating them like the franchise players that we hope they'll become.

Start Drummond over JMax right away and make sure he believes that he's expected to do great things.

Center: Pistons by Position: Center | THE OFFICIAL SITE OF THE DETROIT PISTONS
Some good stuff about Monroe there that fires me up for the season. But this, I have no idea how anyone can write this with a straight face:

Yeah, I'd take my chances with 2 mystery 7 footers. What are we trying to do, squeeze out an extra 2-3 wins? Gotta take actions that will increase our odds of another championship. That likely includes developing the guys that will be a part of a future Championship team.

On the other hand, showcasing is a strategy that I can fully get down with. Everybody knows what Maxiell is at this point. Jerebko is a keeper, even if he's a bench player. Villanueva has been overexposed and no amount of showcasing will ever help. Daye could be showcased. Maggette could be too I suppose. Bynum potentially if we can make him look like a dangerously consistent backup.

But the showcased player needs a solid stretch of consistent playing time with heaps of praise in the media by the coach and teammates.

LF: "although we lost the game by 25 points, I'd like to point out how great Daye's contribution was in the 4th quarter as he hit back to back threes to make Charlotte nervous. He's been one of our hardest workers in practice and the World is finally starting to see what we see every day. This kid is going to be a star in the league after he adds 50 lbs of muscle and gets a psychologist."

I kinda want Daye to remain a Piston after reading that tribute.