I'm looking forward to watching the Cousins-Monroe showdown in the 2017 NBA finals when Pistons play Sonics. Linwood, do you want to carpool to game 5?
Is that the alternate Earth where the Cro-mags took over or the one where the really smart people were the star athletes?
Just noticed that in his last 10 games, Stuckey is minus 154 points in 258 minutes... That is 72 points worse than the next guy on the team over the same stretch. The rest of the players are basically bunched in a big pack that varies based on their playing time (i.e. the more they play, the more negative they are). It seems like he has found his game recently, so not sure what the problem is. On the season, only Jerebko, Kratsov, and English have a worse per minute negative than him. Here is his net PER per position (his PER minus his counterpart's PER): PG: +4.0 (7% of available minutes) SG: -2.9 (40% of available minutes) SF: -7.3 (5% of available minutes) Small samples for PG and SF, but it would make sense that he would get crushed by a real small forward due to the bad physical match-up.
If Dumars really wanted to earn his keep, he would trade Stuckey this summer. Perhaps you have to take on or give something up in the exchange (ala Gordon), but for the franchise to move, Stuckey needs to go. There have been different eras in the history of the Pistons' franchise. We all try to forget the Teal Era. We are currently at the end of the Buffoonery Era. Saying goodbye to the Collider closes the door on that era. Knight, and perhaps Calderon, can move forward. Maybe English is a part of that. Perhaps there is a draft pick (Burke?) or a free agent that comes in to run the Pistons show. Another year of Stuckey is another year of agony, in my book.
Trading Stuckey should be one of the easiest decisions Dumars could make. He could still be a decent bench player, plus he has value because he's got like a "super expiring contract," where a team can trade away $8 million in contracts effectively for $4 million. It was a brilliant move on Joe's part, and if he doesn't take advantage of it, it would be akin to washing your windows before you burn your house down.
The Buffoonery Era. That works well and is much easier than calling it the "Post EC finals" era or the "Flablekuestank" (Flip+Tablecloth+Kuester+Frank) era. Well done sir!
Well, Joe clearly doesn't listen to the fans....maybe if the rest of the world starts to notice how ridiculous it is, he'll see the light. When he built the championship team he wasn't doing things that people were questioning as though he was a mad genius and we couldn't see the light. He was making moves that people were pretty sure would make us better. I think he gets into trouble when he tries to do things that he figures no one else would have seen coming.
The problem with you Low is you're focusing too much on the present with Joe's moves. When the other shoe finally drops and we find out all these Buffoonery Era moves were just the lead in to a Y-U-G-E deal he has been planning for years you will feel silly.
I wouldn't say that. The Grant Hill for Ben Wallace and Chucky Atkins trade was considered a lopsided trade at the time that he had to make because Hill wanted out. It turned out to be one of the most lopsided trades in history in the other direction, though. The Jerry Stackhouse for Rip Hamilton trade was a big risk at the time - trading a big-time scorer only a year removed from 29.8 ppg for a young guy that had just averaged 20 ppg. Dumars gave Billups more than anyone else was willing to, because it wasn't a sure thing at the time - he had only averaged 11.3/4.2 over his first few seasons. Billups' career took off here in a way nobody saw happening. Trading for Sheed was considered risky because everyone was convinced that Sheed was a huge emotional risk. That team was built with risky moves paying off extraordinarily well. Joe developed a reputation as a shrewd GM for a good reason.
Correlation is not causation my friend. Let's think about other risky moves. Letting Michael Curry coach. Trading for AI. Signing Ben Gordon. Some risks pay off. Some do not. Joe has been both lucky and unlucky. Some of his failures had big downside, and limited upside.
I didn't say it was. I was simply responding to The Low's statement that "He was making moves that people were pretty sure would make us better." They were risky moves, which I pointed out, and they worked out well. He developed his reputation by his risks gambles paying off in the same way that all other "mad geniuses" make their reputation.
It's not like Joe hasn't swung for the fences. He has. But for some reason or other, the deals were nixed. Stuckey can factor in in just about every transaction in the B.E. Gordon + CV? That was to open the floor for Stuckey to get to the rim. Daye? same idea. There was always a reason why he never turned the corner. Dumars finally created a situation where he thought Stuckey would thrive and the results were dismal. Its so bad that the team plays better without him.
I actually was on board with Ben Gordon move at the time. That was also assuming that we were going to move Rip, and not planning on thinking that a Maxiell and Kwame starting front court would be kosher for our future. Joe's INCREDIBLE impatience caused the AI trade to ultimately fail. 25 out of 30 GMs would have been fired for such insolence.
I would be fine with have BG on the team. Just not at 12 million a year. He is a fantastic shooter. Period. Remember than game where he scored 45 including 9-93 pointers. Probably not. I'd take him over Charlie V every day of the week, with the caveat that we pay him JR Smith money, not Steph Curry money.
BG needed a PG which Stuckey was not. But watching BG dribble off his foot was beyond frustrating for me.
