All-Star Game and Chauncey
Remember two years ago when Chauncey was washed up and we needed to move him while he still had value?
Man, with the current Pistons' situation, I almost cried seeing Chauncey out there in the All-Star game with the game on the line in the fourth quarter, hitting big shots and acting the consummate floor general. He didn't try hard all the time toward the end of his run with the Pistons, but man, you don't know what you got til it's gone.
He looks great with the beard, too.
Overall, a pretty entertaining All-Star game.
February 14th, 2010 at 11:49 PM ^
That run in the 3rd quarter with all the dunks and alley-oops with Wade and LeBron was really entertaining. It was also good to see the players buckle down and compete towards the end, but I didn't like that it ended with all those fouls.
February 14th, 2010 at 11:50 PM ^
lakers v. nuggets on natl tv a week ago, and chauncey hit something like 4-threes in a row and finished with a game high 30 some points. sigh....would love to see him still in a pistons uniform.
February 14th, 2010 at 11:55 PM ^
Who knows what the Pistons were thinking when they traded Chauncey for A.I.? Joe can Dumars has made a few great moves, but the Billups trade and Darko stick out like sore thumbs. Hopefully we can get it going again.
February 15th, 2010 at 1:00 AM ^
I think Joe D thinks too much. He tries so hard to make the big moves. He took a big risk w Billups and that backfired and set us back a few years at least I think. I still dont get the gordon villanueva contracts either. Thats the best he could do?
I was a huge pistons fan until a couple years after the title when all the guys were mailing performances in. I really have lost my interest in pro bball. Call me a fairweather fan, but pro bball is the most annoying of all the sports with all the egos.
February 15th, 2010 at 1:38 AM ^
I agree with you on Joe D. Overall, I like him as a GM, but I think he let the "Joe D is the best GM ever" talk go to his head and started trying too hard to make what people may consider brilliant strategic moves ("we can't let this team age like the Bad Boys did and be left with nothing" blah blah blah).
I was completely in love with the Pistons of the middle part of the decade, but like U-M football, they could bring out the worst emotions in me, too, especially in the years after the back-to-back finals. They didn't have enough humility. But despite all that, Chauncey led us to the ECF every year he was on the team. The parallels with U-M football make me my eyes well up a little bit. It's so much more fun to watch when your team is good.
February 15th, 2010 at 4:05 AM ^
Well, I agree and I disagree:
1.) The team wasn't getting any younger or better. It was also obvious once Lebron single-handedly destroyed us in the playoffs (year? I forget) that this team wasn't going to contend for another championship. That, along with Boston's moves to get the big three, meant we had two options: we could remain "pretty good for the east" for a few more years, or we could try to make a move when our players still had some value to inject some youth and/or dynamism into what was a very talented but (by the end) pretty inconsistent (in the playoffs) team.
2.) While #1 seems to have been JD's assessment of the situation, no one in the world could possibly agree with the way he handled it.
A.) The Chauncey trade made sense at the time: AI was a huge expiring contract that would either work in some crazy magical way, or we'd have a ton of cap space. Chauncey was obviously bored in Detroit and wasn't fulfilling his potential. We were also paying him a ton of money. He's great (again) now, but he wouldn't have been had he stayed. Either way, We all know how it worked out for us (massive flaming failure), so cap space it is:
B.) With $20 million in cap space, and very few free agents on the market, Joe over-payed for two players, a waaaay under-sized power forward, and a quick shooting guard to go along with our other quick shooting guard and our young point guard who is basically a slashing/driving guy, not really a passer or floor general. These were all bad ideas. So was letting Sheed walk, rather than attempting to trade his expiring contract for something, anything.
So what should he have done?
I don't know. I'm not the GM of an NBA team though. All I know is that the Pistons are abjectly awful, and very little in the foreseeable future suggests that they can get better any time soon.
February 15th, 2010 at 8:21 AM ^
agree with everything you said except a few points. I do think it was time to let Rash(w)eed go. He was not providing the team with a positive veteran influence, which is important this year due to our youth. I also think this team isn't that far away from being a contender. We are just sooooo young except for our old crew of Ben, Rip, and Tayshaun. I think we could get a good young big man for Tayshaun and Rip. Someone like Chris Kaman would make our team much more productive. Starting lineup of
Stuckey
Gordon
Jerebko
Charlie V.
Kaman
would be great with some depth in Daye, Big Ben, Bynum, maxiell. We would have to add backup shooting guard to the mix. The real problem this year has been injuries as much as talent.