Detroit Pistons Take One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
How quickly the mighty have fallen. Like the auto companies, Detroit Pistons basketball has gone from a model of efficiency to a barren wasteland. The exodus of aging stars will help their salary cap, but new additions Ben Gordon & Charlie Villanueva will not add wins.
Remember when you could write-in the Detroit Pistons to the Eastern Conference Finals? That was just a few short years back. The nucleus of Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace, and Antonio McDyees (and one-time All-Star Ben Wallace) made the rough-and-tough Pistons a force in the East. But now, the team has gone in a different direction.
Ben Wallace didn’t feel the love and left for Chicago in 2006. The Pistons held it together as guys like McDyees & Jason Maxiell stepped it up. But desperation (and the beginning of a rebuilding effort) was apparent when team president, Joe Dumars, traded Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson. The move was “supposed” to be for salary cap purposes. Iverson would hang for a year, then be released to free up cap-space for the 2010 bonanza. The unintended effect was that Chauncey was the glue that held the Piston’s ship together. Iverson was an unmitigated disaster and Chauncey spearheaded a revival in Denver.
The Pistons finally got active in the free agent market and made big headlines by signing to UConn guys to giant contracts: Ben Gordon & Charlie Villanueva. Both guys are very good NBA players, but neither is a lead guy. Both guys love to shoot but would rather run laps than get a rebound. They added a nice (if soft) player in Austin Daye through the draft, but could have leveraged more if it weren’t for a few trades. The Pistons took a great shooter, Chase Budinger, in a 2nd round swoop then sent him off quietly to Houston for a bag of peanuts. They traded the disappointing Amir Johnson to Milwaukee for the Argentine champion Francisco Oberto…then promptly released him.
So where are the Piston’s now? They have little front-court presence as McDyees left town for the San Antonio Spurs and Rasheed Wallace signed with the Boston Celtics (note: they are likely to meet each other in the Finals, while Detroit would need to buy tickets just to make the first round. Hold overs Kwame Brown and new-signing Chris Wilcox will do little to fill that void. Rip Hamilton & Tayshaun Prince are still manning the fort as are Jason Maxiell and Rodney Stuckey. But trying to slot in the high-priced Villanueva and Gordon will not prove that easy.
If you believe in playing your best 5 guys together, the starting lineup for Detroit would be:
- PG: Rodney Stuckey
- SG: Ben Gordon
- SG: Rip Hamilton
- SF: Tayshaun Prince
- PF: Charlie Villanueva
Notice there is no center! So slide everyone down a position and you have the small-ball express. Problem is, Stuckey might not be the guy to run this offense. And the Piston’s don’t have any guys who can take it to the rim…or defend (outside of Prince).
The Pistons, like it or not, are in rebuilding limbo. They have committed too much money to stars that aren’t really stars. And any cap space they have next year will likely not net any big name guys. I know they targeted Boozer and Bosh, both of whom would work well with this lineup. But do those guys really want to sign with Detroit?
Joe Dumars made a living in the first have of this decade by putting together great teams. Like other corporate execs, he has his work cut out for him…and the government won’t bail him out!
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Pistons will won more games than last year, that’s for sure. And the roster is pretty young outside of Wallace, Brown and Rip/Prince.
Gordon, Villanueva, Stuckey, Daye, Summers– those are some guys who you can build with.
Good comments. I agree (based on some summer league stats) that Daye looks pretty impressive.
The Pistons won 39 games last year. With a much improved East, I think it will be difficult to match that…especially when you consider the Pistons have new pieces and a new coach.
The Pistons needed to blow things up, for sure. They were too old and got passed by other Eastern Powers. And I never have a problem with a youth movement, if I like the youth. I am just not convinced that they have an “alpha dog” amongst all their players. You could argue that Ben Gordon can/will carry the scoring load, but:
Let’s compare the youth movements in OKC, Portland, with Detroit. Which starting 5 would you rather have for the next 5 years:
I think the clear winner today is Portland…but in 3 years it will be OKC. I think what the Pistons have assembled is a first-round playoff team. None of these guys have a ceiling like Durant. At the same time, Detroit has been a “victim” of success and never had a good draft position. That might change soon..