***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

[pietasterp]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

I give up on this team. This is why we don't get put on national television....

Everyone on the team flat-out stole a paycheck last night. That should never happen.

[l3ulvl]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

I give up on this team. This is why we don't get put on national television....

Everyone on the team flat-out stole a paycheck last night. That should never happen.

That was pathetic, I'm betting SVG ripped 'em apart

With that said, watch them beat Atlanta tomorrow

[pietasterp]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

Playoffs, baby! Probably made it harder than it should have been, but I'll take it. I wouldn't write them off in round 1, either, since we seem to be able to play up to our competition. I like our chances to give Cleveland a series. If it's Toronto, though, for whatever reason they're just a bad matchup for us. Either way, nice to see them trending back in the right direction.

[pietasterp]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

So, post-mortem thoughts, Pistons fans?

Good season, ending in a bit of a downer, but definitely a team headed in the right direction. It's funny because had we gotten to a game 6 or even a game 5, the entire discussion of the team might be totally different in the off-season, but getting swept just sort of leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Especially since we were so competitive in just about every game. I feel like the effort and skill they played with deserved to see them through to at least a game 5 or 6, but as Clint said in "Unforgiven", deserve's got nothing to do with it...

Anyway, I still have big question marks around Reggie Jackson as a long-term solution - way too much hero-ball and by the end, he was hurting more than helping. Drummond is a centerpiece no question, and assuming they either change the rules or he puts in the damn time to get semi-competent from the FT line, he can be a long-term staple in Detroit. KCP came a long way and hopefully continues to get better. I'm wondering if, given the opportunity, we can raise Jackson's stock enough to flip him for a better fitting piece, a-la Stackhouse-for-Rip back when we were building the last title team. I just don't have any confidence he can learn to play the right way.

Gotta have a better backup PG than Steve Blake as well. He is just dead weight out there when the subs come in. Will be interesting to see who is available at draft time, since for the first time in forever, we aren't in the top 10. But this could be a key off-season, and hopefully, we start to ascend and not just end up an aborted flash-in-the-pan like so many teams before that seemed to be headed toward bigger and better things but flamed out prematurely.

I'm cautiously optimistic, but for the first time in forever, I can't wait to see what happens next season.

[l3ulvl]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

So, post-mortem thoughts, Pistons fans?

Good season, ending in a bit of a downer, but definitely a team headed in the right direction. It's funny because had we gotten to a game 6 or even a game 5, the entire discussion of the team might be totally different in the off-season, but getting swept just sort of leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Especially since we were so competitive in just about every game. I feel like the effort and skill they played with deserved to see them through to at least a game 5 or 6, but as Clint said in "Unforgiven", deserve's got nothing to do with it...

Anyway, I still have big question marks around Reggie Jackson as a long-term solution - way too much hero-ball and by the end, he was hurting more than helping. Drummond is a centerpiece no question, and assuming they either change the rules or he puts in the damn time to get semi-competent from the FT line, he can be a long-term staple in Detroit. KCP came a long way and hopefully continues to get better. I'm wondering if, given the opportunity, we can raise Jackson's stock enough to flip him for a better fitting piece, a-la Stackhouse-for-Rip back when we were building the last title team. I just don't have any confidence he can learn to play the right way.

Gotta have a better backup PG than Steve Blake as well. He is just dead weight out there when the subs come in. Will be interesting to see who is available at draft time, since for the first time in forever, we aren't in the top 10. But this could be a key off-season, and hopefully, we start to ascend and not just end up an aborted flash-in-the-pan like so many teams before that seemed to be headed toward bigger and better things but flamed out prematurely.

I'm cautiously optimistic, but for the first time in forever, I can't wait to see what happens next season.

The hero ball stuff was annoying, that's really not our style, the ball movement this whole series was great until... it wasn't, which coincidentally would come at the same time as the score slipping away.

The really frustrating part was getting the switch we wanted, usually Love guarding Reggie, and then we couldn't do anything with it. Seriously, Reggie HAS to be able to get around Love. Part of that issue was with Baynes being the closing center, he and Jackson aren't on the same level as Drummond and Jackson with the PnR, without that threat we're much easier to defend and then we defaulted into the switch game where Reg kept coming up short. Extra passes weren't an option anymore, movement ceased. Bleh.

I like the direction of the team but I'm not all that fond of Jackson being the featured "clutch" scorer, he's definitely not Chauncey.

But anyway, don't wanna be too negative haha, we did have the "never give up" attitude all series so they haven't turned on SVG yet apparently :P

As far as the draft, there's a few ways I've been looking at it. We might actually be in position to try our luck at another home run pick, and between Thon Maker, Skal Labissiere, and the dude from Washington who's name just escaped me, there should be one of them available of we go that route. Or, play it safe and go PG, Ulis from Kentucky could be there, or Trimble from Maryland (who is great in the PnR... hint hint )

Just an aside, and I'm probably just getting carried away at this point, but I've been wondering if SVG has been gathering certain players to package together for a supertrade. Morris/Harris/KCP are the types of guys that if shipped together with draft picks might fetch something

[pietasterp]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

The hero ball stuff was annoying, that's really not our style, the ball movement this whole series was great until... it wasn't, which coincidentally would come at the same time as the score slipping away.

Yeah, that was really frustrating. It's so bad because as a fan, you can see it happening in real time, yet, I'm sure on the court the players aren't aware of just how starkly different they look when the ball is moving vs. when it's not. I realize Cleveland's defense had something to do with that, but not 100%. The 'Stones just have a lot of growing up to do.

The really frustrating part was getting the switch we wanted, usually Love guarding Reggie, and then we couldn't do anything with it. Seriously, Reggie HAS to be able to get around Love. Part of that issue was with Baynes being the closing center, he and Jackson aren't on the same level as Drummond and Jackson with the PnR, without that threat we're much easier to defend and then we defaulted into the switch game where Reg kept coming up short. Extra passes weren't an option anymore, movement ceased. Bleh.

Agree 100%, I think that's right on. Also, looking back on it now, I'm wondering if Cleveland didn't even get a bit lucky against us in that series. I mean, obviously they were decisively better since they won 4-0, but other than game 2, any one of those games could have gone the other way with 1-2 plays. Now, of course those 1-2 plays are the difference between winning and losing in the playoffs, but we weren't Memphis or Houston, just getting run out of the gym every night. And it seemed like every single time the Cavs absolutely needed a clutch shot, they got it. I mean, Mr. Inefficiency JR Smith was like 5/5 from 3-point land in that last game, including that total f'n lucky shot dagger....I mean, how often is Cleveland going to get that out of him? And Kyrie making that half-courter at the buzzer (which ended up being the difference in the game of course)...I mean, these are just total aberrations that all seemed to go against us every single time. We never had 1 thing go our way the entire series, and we still could have won 3 of the 4 games.

I'm not-so-secretly hoping that Cleveland used up their entire hot streak in this series with us, and goes flat cold for the rest of the playoffs...which hopefully is only 1 more series for them. Because the alternative - if they've figured out how to effectively use all their pieces to 100% efficiency - is too irritating for me to entertain.

I like the direction of the team but I'm not all that fond of Jackson being the featured "clutch" scorer, he's definitely not Chauncey.

But anyway, don't wanna be too negative haha, we did have the "never give up" attitude all series so they haven't turned on SVG yet apparently :P

As far as the draft, there's a few ways I've been looking at it. We might actually be in position to try our luck at another home run pick, and between Thon Maker, Skal Labissiere, and the dude from Washington who's name just escaped me, there should be one of them available of we go that route. Or, play it safe and go PG, Ulis from Kentucky could be there, or Trimble from Maryland (who is great in the PnR... hint hint )

It's hard to imagine Reggie being a long-term answer in Motown, and he basically just proved that on the biggest stage, at the most crucial moments, he's unreliable. He's a great 2nd option, but you absolutely cannot have him as your featured guy and expect to be any kind of decent team. I kinda like Ulis out of UK to fit in to our team. Trimble can get hot, but he's sort of a streaky volume scorer and I'm not sure we need another one of those on our team right now. It may be worthwhile to just package up our picks for some relatively proven (but hopefully undervalued) commodities from another team....

Just an aside, and I'm probably just getting carried away at this point, but I've been wondering if SVG has been gathering certain players to package together for a supertrade. Morris/Harris/KCP are the types of guys that if shipped together with draft picks might fetch something

Maybe, but who could we even get? I mean, Durant is not coming to Detroit, and even if by some insane turn of events he wanted to, what the hell do we do with Reggie? I'd just as soon keep KCP, and ship Jackson to a team needing 1 guy to contend for picks or younger value guys.

I'd say the biggest need areas for Detroit to shore up this off-season are:

1) True starting PG
2) Backup PG
3) Additional wing scorer

We're not that far away. And it's weird to even say that, but as long as we can maintain this thing going in the right direction, the East will be there for the taking as soon as next year or the year after. Cleveland's window is closing fast, and after they're done, it's up for grabs.

[l3ulvl]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

To add to the well timed luckets Cleveland kept knocking in, throw Shumpert in there. After we made the call to put Baynes or Andre on him but backed off to help on everyone else, immediately Shumpert hits back to back threes lol

The thing with Reggie is I'm not giving up on him as the PG for the foreseeable future, he and Andre run the offense really well (minus the hero ball stuff haha). I think he's still learning, and being in his first series as a focal point instead of his OKC roles I wanna say he'll figure it out. I'm not 100% on that position though lol, the system could run even better if he was a better outside shooter (although he did get it up to 35% this year).

I don't know if you heard this stat or not but it blew my mind to find out he led the NBA in 4th quarter scoring. I know the GSW guys won't be on that list because of all the 4th Q resting they do, but still, RJ was #1 over guys like Durant, Harden, and LeBron. Might be one of those flawed ESPN stats, I tried to google it and couldn't figure how, would've liked to look up the efficiency numbers on that. Would've been nice to have that supposed scoring prowess in the playoffs

*update* found the stat, it wasn't 4th Q scoring overall, it was "ahead or behind by 5 with 5 minutes left in 4Q or OT" http://stats.nba.com/league/player/?...sort=PTS&dir=1

[pietasterp]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

Huh...interesting stat nonetheless. He did hit some pretty big shots during the regular season, so I guess I shouldn't let the playoffs cloud my vision on him entirely.

I do think Reggie can be an important piece of the puzzle in Detroit, but I just don't like his long-term prospects as a true PG. He seems like much more of a 2-guard to me, the way he plays. Not saying he can't turn himself into a true PG, but it's going to take some Larry Brown-level wizardry to get that done.

The single best move Gores has made, though, is handing the reigns of the team over to SVG. He's the most important personnel decision (other than shipping Josh Smith out of town for a ham sandwich) the franchise has made in a decade.

[pietasterp]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

I was thinking about this more last night while trying to get some shut-eye (because apparently that's what pops into my head when I can't sleep....weird), and it occurred to me: wouldn't we have been better off with Brandon Jennings and Ersan Ilyasova on our roster during that Cleveland series than Tobias Harris? Don't get me wrong, I think Harris is a better long-term answer if he continues to grow and get better on both ends of the floor, but having Jennings and Ilyasova would have addressed 2 things that absolutely cost us that series: having an extra scorer from the outside (in Ilyasova) and having a legitimate scoring option off the bench (Jennings).

I still trust SVG, but we might be thinking about a game 6 and 7 right now if we had 1-2 more 3-pointers per game and 8-9 more points off the bench per contest. In fact, we'd likely be up 3-1 right now...

[l3ulvl]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

I was thinking about this more last night while trying to get some shut-eye (because apparently that's what pops into my head when I can't sleep....weird), and it occurred to me: wouldn't we have been better off with Brandon Jennings and Ersan Ilyasova on our roster during that Cleveland series than Tobias Harris? Don't get me wrong, I think Harris is a better long-term answer if he continues to grow and get better on both ends of the floor, but having Jennings and Ilyasova would have addressed 2 things that absolutely cost us that series: having an extra scorer from the outside (in Ilyasova) and having a legitimate scoring option off the bench (Jennings).

I still trust SVG, but we might be thinking about a game 6 and 7 right now if we had 1-2 more 3-pointers per game and 8-9 more points off the bench per contest. In fact, we'd likely be up 3-1 right now...

Yeah for that series I agree, Jennings over Blake would've made a huge difference, and Ersan doing the only two things he can do (flopping and shooting deep) would've been better than what we got out of Tobias. But yeah I understand making the trade since Jennings was basically gone for nothing after the year and we came away with a promising young locked up player for Ilyasova basically. With those two in this series though I could see it being 2-2 after 4 games, but who knows

[pietasterp]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

Thoughts on the 'Stones off-season (draft/FA) thus far?

Personally, I think it's really hard to evaluate, but I think we learned that a) Detroit is still not (and never will be) a 'hot' free agency destination, and b) Stan has a plan and he's sticking to it. In a league that is increasingly about the haves and have-nots, our strategy seems to be as good as any. I mean, until LeBron starts to decline precipitously, the East isn't really up for grabs. But that day is coming...and maybe soon.

[pietasterp]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

No one has posted here in 6 months. And I know there are a handful of solid Pistons fans on this forum.

I point this out purely as a criticism of the NBA. It's clearly a 2-3 team league, and everyone else is basically wasting their time. I mean, I know we're all Pistons fans here and I don't question anyone's fan credentials, but logically, realistically - why waste your time? It's unreasonable - especially in this day and age of virtually limitless entertainment options - to expect people to bother following a team that has 0% chance of being competitive in the league in a meaningful way. And frankly, even if they were competitive, how many December-January-Feb-March games do you even care to watch? Other than Cavs-Warriors, there are essentially no rivalries in the league any more. The players are all essentially interchangeable (with notable exceptions on a mere handful of teams), and no one really hates each other that much. And even if they did, they'd probably be on the same team in the near future anyway, so why hold a grudge?

Basically, if you're not a Cavs, Warriors, or maybe Spurs or Clips fan, why even bother with the NBA? Not only is it the least competitive league, it's the least compelling by a wide margin. It's also the least credible by a wide margin, but that's a different rant....

So, now that I got that off my chest....the 'Stones. I like SVG (as a coach), but to me it seems the league may have passed him by. He's always been a winner, but his philosophy of outside-in play and rangy and free 3-point shooting, while novel 7-8 years ago, has been adopted and subsequently lapped many times over by the rest of the league. I don't get the feeling we're improving this year, and I get the distinct feeling we've plateau'd at this point (or are rapidly approaching it). Tying up a ton of money in Drummond and Jackson seems to look increasingly like a big mistake, and I'm not even sure where we go from here. We're good enough to basically finish around 0.500 and get swept out of the first round of the playoffs. But that looks to me to be the ceiling for the team.

I'm not in any way advocating firing SVG at this point, but if our progress looks flat at the end of this season, I wonder if it might not be time to re-evaluate the overall direction of the team?

[l3ulvl]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

I still feel like the current roster construction is designed to pull a quantity for quality trade eventually.

Also I disagree with the outside-inside philosophy, we're high PnR over and over, or weave or whatever. If we had better bombers the drive n kick game would work better, but our shooters are so unreliable, we're stuck until some team bites on a crop of KCP/Harris/picks/picks/picks deal, which will probably never happen

I don't think coaching has passed him by, but player acquisitions may be an issue, we have some good value guys, but they don't really fit what Stan seemingly wants to do, so unless we get that awesome/unlikely trade, we're kinda ****ed

[pietasterp]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

I still feel like the current roster construction is designed to pull a quantity for quality trade eventually.

Also I disagree with the outside-inside philosophy, we're high PnR over and over, or weave or whatever. If we had better bombers the drive n kick game would work better, but our shooters are so unreliable, we're stuck until some team bites on a crop of KCP/Harris/picks/picks/picks deal, which will probably never happen

I don't think coaching has passed him by, but player acquisitions may be an issue, we have some good value guys, but they don't really fit what Stan seemingly wants to do, so unless we get that awesome/unlikely trade, we're kinda ****ed

Yeah, that's the other issue with the team. Being a GM is a full-time job, and being a head coach is a full-time job, and SVG having so much player personnel input just never seemed like a good idea to me. I can't think of too many examples where that's worked well, and probably for good reason.

And as you point out (correctly), we're sorta stuck with our current roster which is going nowhere. Detroit is just not a free agent destination, we all know that. Pulling a trade will be tough, especially with the salary structures of our guys. The endgame at this point just seems....murky. And not particularly bright.

Best case scenario is 8-seed in the East and swept out of the 1st round of the playoffs again. Worst place to be in the NBA: mediocre.

[pietasterp]

Re: ***Official Detroit Pistons Thread***

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/18521099/minnesota-timberwolves-detroit-pistons-discussing-ricky-rubio-reggie-jackson-swap

Reggie Jackson was a mistake from day 1 that they compounded with that ridiculous contract. Stan Van is on thin ice, in my opinion.