People have been saying that Ben Wallace is over the hill for 5 years now. I'm finally starting to agree. However, Ben was one of the better players on the Pistons last season. Hopefully, he still has a little gas left in the tank while Greggy M gets his feet wet.
Rip and Tay are still in their prime, albeit LATE prime years - later for Rip than for Tay. I believe that other teams in the league know this as well. Maybe a great deal will never present itself, but I think it would be unwise not to trade them for value. However, what value is isn't always that clear. Cap space at a good time can be great value. I've read that this year, expriing contracts aren't worth that much, because a lot of teams have cap space already. We'll see. But that could make Rip more attractive right now than Tay, since Rip expires after NEXT season (since his 3rd year isn't guaranteed). Draft picks or a good young big man could be really good value for us. A veteran big man who can control the paint, and who is about the same age as Tay or Rip,could be very important for our team's development. Regardless - Joe is right to be patient and let the trades come to him, instead of just making a trade of one of them to satisfy the ravenous horde. FYI, WE'RE the ravenous horde.
I would not have gotten rid of Sheed - but instead used him exactly as Boston did - off the bench with lighter minutes. Heck, I would have tried to get Cliffy back for a small role. I have nothing against vets - I would just rather they do two things: play only the minutes that leave them fresh for the playoffs - and play just a bit less than that even, willingly, so that the young guys behind them can get developed. Development of youth can help in the playoffs, providing depth, and a guy who can spell that vet effectively allowing the vet to perform better in the minutes he does play. And if that young guy ends up not being needed - trade him. If we had kept Afflalo, and played him a ton of minutes - I bet a lot of teams would be asking us for him right now - provided we did not let on that the guy was slated for trade. (Yes, and this point really points out that maybe we should not have signed Gordon) Same thing really in regards to keeping Amir vs. picking up CV. For all the money we spent on the two "stars", I bet we would have been a far far better team last season with Afflao and Amir around instead. Gee, and their is now a third reason, saving money.
Regarding Jonas, he has been playing with the Team Sweden this week. I just watched him play Belarus in the qualification stage to the European Championships and he showed signs of leadership and actually looked really good offensively with fade aways, a highlight dribble (a beauty, a JJ-steal, he passes a player with a behind the back dribble, continues towards the rim and passes another player with a behind the back dribble and slams it home. i'll provide links later if it gets posted on the web) and he even hit his hook shot. [strike]Jonas and a bunch of scraps[/strike] Sweden won the game with 9 points, Jonas got 22p and 11 rebs. He also played in two friendlies against Estonia earlier this week. I didn't watch them but the info I found about them was 20p, 8 reb, 4 ass, 6/10 fg and 1/2 3p in 29.07 minutes in game 1 and 18p in game 2. (the only stat mentioned in the article). Sweden won both games. R
Thanks for the update, Mogilny. There is no doubt that Jerebko is going to be a key piece in the Pistons rebuilding process.
Here is Jerebkos steal-and-dribble-behind-the-back-x2-and-dunk move as promised. Dunno if you can view the clip but if you can it is about 1 min into the interview. Expressen.tv - Sport - se TV på expressen.se
I don't know about that. I could see the case for Prince, given he played some of his best basketball towards the end of last season. Then again, Prince's production has been so even since his second year in the league, it's hard to even say he had a "prime". Hamilton's definitely past his prime IMO. Yeah, I know injuries played some role, but the guy did shoot 40% last year and his shooting % has been declining for a couple years. The biggest decline in his game has been his defense... he's just awful now, unable to stay in front of anyone and prone to making dumb fouls. He used to be serviceable on that end.
What if we had a coach with a clue? Which we don't. But lets just say we did. Lets say this coach understood that 1)not playing youth adds no value to the youth. 2) Overplaying older vets just wears them down, causing losses as the season goes on, and makes them ineffective if we do make it to the playoffs. 3) Yes, their is a balance between playing older vets, getting good use of their skills, while at the same time giving sufficient time for the youth to develop. Again though - what we have is a coach with no ability to follow a game plan. If you start the older vets, Kuester will over play them, no doubt. The season will be a disaster. Which is why I post some starting units with a lot of youth - to ensure they get some playing time. In other words, idiot proof the situation. But again, lets see what a good coach, who could actually follow a game plan, could do with our current unit. First, lets say we add TMAC for a minor role as a backup small forward to Tay. Starters: Stuckey, Rip, Tay, Ben Wallace, Monroe. Bench: Bynum, Gordon, TMAC, Villanueva, JMAX 10 minute per game players (65 games, total of 650 minutes for the season for each of these players): White, JJ, Summers. For the season, we have to work with 82 times 240 minutes per game = 19,680 minutes. Rip, 26 minutes times 70 games. (he sits out one game of 12 back to back sets.) = 1820 mintues. Tay, same, 1820 minutes Ben Wallace, same 1820 minutes. Stuckey 82 games times 28 minutes = 2296 mintues Monroe, same as Rip, 1820 minutes. Lets stop and subtract the starters minutes and the minutes for the three guys with development minutes from the total. 19,680 -(4 times 1820) - 2296 - (3 times 650) = 8154 Take the 8154 minutes and divide them up between our five guys on the 2nd unit. 1630 minutes each. So, Bynum, Gordon, TMAC, Villanueva and JMAX each get 1630 minutes. 1630 divided by 82 = 20 minutes per game. Now, to fudge that a bit. TMAC probably should only play 60 games on his recovering knee, so you can take 22 times 20 = 440 minutes and distribute that to the three guys with development minutes. Thats another 146 minutes - or 10 games times 14 minutes, for each of JJ, Summers, and White. We get to the playoffs this way with nobody tired, and everybody with enough minutes to be sharp enough. The only change I would make to this is giving the extra 146 minutes to Gordon if he is lighting it up and deserves the extra minutes. As he is already slated at 20 minutes per game - this could translate into about 15 games where he plays 30 minutes instead of 20. Perhaps with some of those coming toward the end of the season.
Picking up Rasheed Wallace, to round out our 15 player roster, would give us a pretty good team. Centers / PF's Sheed, Ben Wallace, Monroe, JMAX, Summers, JJ, Villanueva. Small forwards Daye, Tay, TMAC Point guards Stuckey, Bynum Shooting guards: Rip, White, Gordon We got to waive Wilcox. Starters: Stuckey, Gordon, Daye, JMAX, Monroe 2nd unit: Bynum, Rip, Tay, Ben Wallace, Rasheed Wallace. Guys needing to find time: White, Villanueva, TMAC, Summers, JJ
Don't really know why I keep posting this stuff in this thread but since I started here, I'll continue. JJ once again played for Team Sweden and according to the newspapers he had another good game in the european qualifier against mighty Romania with 19p and 14 rebs. Unfortunatly for him, no one else in Sweden plays basketball on a regular basis so he had to pick 4 other guys from the crowd which ended in a 70-54 loss.
