Any chance that those rumors were started by his agent? I love the kid but I don't see that happening. I've read that he's looking for Marcus Thorton money - 8 mil per. Every article that comes out here in Denver has quotes from George Karl talking about how he doesn't want to even think about starting the season without Spellcheck.
I still think that the Pistons would be better served by signing "Spellcheck/Paycheck" than by signing "Bodycheck".
Quite possibly agent's rumors. That's why they are just that - rumors as there isn't any concrete information out there. I would agree that his market price would be along the Thorton's contract lines
If Spellcheck gets 8m, I'll honestly feel better about the Stuckey deal. Stuckey is a more capable offensive player, and can be a great defender when he wants to be, and can play point guard.
I summarized the Pistons salary situation with the info I found at hoopshype.com and storytellerscontracts.com. I've seen some sources claim Hamilton will have a cap hit of 5.5M x 2 years but I went with the numbers from storytellerscontracts.com. It's a pretty sad sight up until 14/15.
I'm a consultant in operations and pricing, not art and design. It was also pretty brilliant thinking by me to include the source urls in the picture instead of adding them as links in the post. I saved the document as a pdf first but didn't know how to post it so I had to make a screenshot and forgot about the links.
So we basically need to "showcase" Gordon and Villanueva in hopes of dumping trading them for some future cap space that will then be filled up with Monroe and Daye's extensions.
Unless the Pistons acquire a very strong defensive big man, I expect that we'll struggle all season with D - although we have some very nice component parts for what someday could become a very strong defensive team. Knight is eventually going to be a great defensive point guard (excellent length, wing span, super fast, super quick, and he's supposedly very intelligent and an extremely hard worker) - but right now he's a rookie, and he's nowhere near as strong physically as he will be. Stuckey should be one of the better defensive swing guards in the game. Prince is long and so damn smart. Jerebko has incredibly great feet - he can stay in front of anyone - and he's a great athlete and incredibly hard worker. Monroe has great smarts for a big man and has super hands - lots of hands on the ball, steals, etc. Heck, even Daye has great length for the positions he plays. And all of these guys, except Tay, are very strong rebounders for their positions. (Daye is very good on the boards - very willing rebounder). But we've got guys like Gordon and CV who are incredibly awful defenders, and we're extremely young and prone to a lot of mistakes and failures to react quickly and we aren't a seasoned team. So, without the big eraser types, expect us to struggle a lot on D. Also, our D will be adversely affected by our inconsistent offense. Still, the building blocks for a great defensive team in the next few seasons is pretty strong if we can draft a big time big man, and acquire a couple more tough big men to fill out our roster.
It's not like our other guys are that great on defense either. Knight, Daye, and Prince all have length, but are skinny and need shot blockers behind them. Jerebko hustles, but doesn't match up against true PF's or the athletic SF's. Maxiell is too short. yada yada. Guys like Stuckey should be good, but it's not clear that they have the grit on that side of the ball. Ben Wallace is just too old. If there are 2 weak links on defense there may as well be 5 since this is a sport that allows isolations. The '04 team was great in that the only weak links still had length and became strong links with Wallace x 2 behind them.
Has any team ever successfully "showcased" an underachieving/unpopular player and parlayed it into a trade? Every freakin year we have one or multiple players that we are showcasing for upcoming blockbuster trades.
The best way to showcase those guys is to keep them as far as possible from the court when GM:s are watching.
Showcasing... we talk about it a lot, but it never happens. And you may be right that nobody ever really pulls it off. BUT, it should be doable in theory. It's pretty easy to pump up a player's stats if everyone is in cahoots. Think Jerry Stackhouse before we sent him to Washington. That wasn't showcasing, but that is what showcasing would look like.
