'Nasty News - Traversing Time & Space' Vol: 38

[nasty daddy]

http://blog.mlive.com/fullcourtpress/20 ... pdate.html

Those rumors have made their way to ESPN's Chad Ford(Insider Subscription), who reports that both James Johnson and Terrence Williams had had 'red flags' raised in their background checks. Ford emphasizes that there is no criminal element in the rumors, but concern personality traits(chemistry problems and claims of high maintenance).

[nasty daddy]

http://blog.mlive.com/fullcourtpress/20 ... pdate.html

Also noted is that Tyreke Evans has signed with Arn Tellem of the Wasserman Media Group and is now refusing to partake in the competitive aspects of the draft combine. NBADraft.net has Evans slipping to the Detroit Pistons at pick #15, which one would think was something that would surprise draft prognosticators and leave Joe Dumars with a pretty good option with his first-round draft pick.

[nasty daddy]

http://blog.mlive.com/fullcourtpress/20 ... pdate.html

NBADraft.net also has a combine update, with several Detroit Piston potential picks attending and evaluated.

Eric Maynor VCU -- Shot the ball well, but doesn't have a fluid release. He's a very complete point guard but lacks huge upside and his shot is the one drawback to his game. It's effective but his slow release makes getting shots off more difficult.
Terrence Williams Louisville -- Lack of shooting ability was apparent. This obviously isn't a setting that he thrives in aside from the full court drills.

BJ Mullens Ohio State -- Looked very fluid and athletic running the floor. His shooting looked solid. Didn't hit many of his outside shots but his form was good and didn't miss by much.

[nasty daddy]

http://blog.mlive.com/fullcourtpress/20 ... pdate.html

There are a lot of Piston fans who dread the selection of Mullens, but if he continues to impress during the combine and individual workouts, he's a definite possibility for Dumars at #15. Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press has an article about Eric Maynor and how he is an admirer of the Detroit Pistons.

"I saw (Pistons coach) Mike Curry (Wednesday) and he asked was I coming up there," said Maynor, who is projected to go in the first round. "I know I'm going up there, but I don't know the exact date, though."... "Honestly, it'll all boil down to what trades are going to happen," Maynor said. "I think there's going to be a lot of change in there. "Mike Curry is a great guy, a great coach, but he just needs guys that are going to be committed to winning."

The draft combine will end Sunday, so there are sure to be more updates the next few days. When the official measurements come out, they should be interesting. Stay tuned...

[nasty daddy]

http://blog.mlive.com/fullcourtpress/20 ... ft_me.html

Draft Express: 2009 pre-draft measurements
The official measurements are up at Draft Express, readers should head over there and check them out. Not all the categories are complete, but the height, weight, wingspan and standing reach statistics are up. Here is a preview of some of the possible draft picks the Detroit Pistons have worked out or may be considering.

[nasty daddy]

http://blog.mlive.com/fullcourtpress/20 ... ft_me.html

Chase Budinger
Those are pretty good statistics for a player like Budinger who is sort of a tweener that will play the small forward position in the NBA with the ability to play the shooting guard position.

Measurements in the link above^.

[nasty daddy]

http://blog.mlive.com/fullcourtpress/20 ... ft_me.html

Dejuan Blair is a player that has been projected to be the Pistons first round selection by multiple mock drafts, here are his measurements.

Blair's height seems like it could be a major concern. He's almost the same height as Jason Maxiell and it looked as if last seasons stagnation in Jason's game was at least partially due to his lack of height playing the power forward position. Which is the same projected position for Blair. Of course Blair's wingspan is larger than 7' prospect B.J. Mullens, so that's a positive attribute for him.

Measurements in the link above^.

[nasty daddy]

http://blog.mlive.com/fullcourtpress/20 ... ft_me.html

Finally, let's look at B.J. Mullens measurements.

With those measurements, a good combine and good individual workouts, Mullens may find himself moving up into the lottery of the draft. Some team is going to find the potential of Mullens just too much to pass on.

Measurements in the link above^.

[nasty daddy]

http://blog.mlive.com/fullcourtpress/20 ... ft_me.html

Chad Ford also has some information up over at ESPN's Insider. Subscription necessary.

[nasty daddy]

http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/truebluepistons.html

Bulls’ plans for Rose similar to Pistons’ for Stuckey
If form holds in Chicago, today Bulls fans will be bombarding talk radio and bloggers will be all over the Internet suggesting that Derrick Rose isn’t really a point guard, after all. That’s what happened in Detroit after Joe Dumars, in his end-of-season State of the Pistons address a month ago, suggested the Pistons would be best served if they could play Rodney Stuckey off of the ball some of the time to better take advantage of his ability to attack the rim. Here’s the full quote: “If you go back and look at Dwyane Wade early, his first couple of years, they had him on the ball a lot. And then, eventually, he kind of went back and forth. I don’t think Stuckey is a 48-minute-a-game point guard. I think it’s good for him when a guy like Will Bynum comes in and Stuckey can play off the ball some, too. “But I think, absolutely, he can start, he can match up with all the point guards, but I think it’s imperative to always have someone else who’s a good ballhandler with him, because the kid can score, too. And playing the point guard, it takes your aggression away because you’re worried about the other four guys and what you have to do. “We look at him and say, yeah, he’ll be a point guard. I think more so, this year, what it did was confirm that he’s a combo guard. We have to play him on the ball and off the ball going forward.”

And a lot of people took that as an indictment of Stuckey’s ability to play the point, when it wasn’t that at all. It was Dumars saying if we limit Stuckey to point guard only, we’re cheating ourselves of other things he can do. Here’s what Dumars said the next day when I told him I already was getting public feedback indicating fans thought he was questioning Stuckey’s capacity to play the point. “When I make a statement like that … we live in a cynical world. By and large, people will take whatever they can pull out of it, which is as opposite of what I meant as can possibly be. “The point of the matter is when you can put two guys on the court like Stuckey and Bynum and have two ballhandlers and have two guys who can break you down and two guys who can create shots for others, it makes you better. It’s really more about putting Bynum out there with him and having two guys break you down off the dribble, which so many teams have now. That’s what it was about. Stuckey is the point guard here. He’s the point guard and he’s going to go forward as the point guard. It definitely wasn’t meant to be that.”

Which brings us to Derrick Rose. A story in Friday’s edition of the Chicago Tribune reveals that the Chicago Bulls, picking 16th and 26th in the first round, raised eyebrows by bringing in Syracuse sophomore point guard Jonny Flynn for a workout. Flynn is one of many point guards – perhaps as many as eight (nine if you classify Tyreke Evans a point) – expected to go within the first 20 picks. Flynn’s agent is Leon Rose, and they were tailoring a workout schedule to fit teams that needed point guards. So they were surprised when the Bulls called to schedule Flynn. “I couldn’t understand why they would bring me in, either,” Flynn told the Trib. “But they said there are times they wish to move Derrick off the ball. When they said that to me, it fell into place.” Aside from Stuckey and Bynum, the Pistons really have no one on the roster who can consistently make plays off of the dribble. Along with 3-point shooting, it’s an area Dumars hopes to address over the summer, via the draft, trade or free agency. It’s why names like Chicago’s Ben Gordon and Orlando’s Hedo Turkoglu are intriguing free-agent possibilities – they would address both needs simultaneously.It’s also why I’ve maintained that despite the presence of Stuckey and Bynum on the roster, it would not be out of the question for the Pistons to select a point guard with the 15th pick. Not only would it fit the strength of the draft, it would give the Pistons the depth at the position they would need to allow them to play Stuckey and Bynum in tandem more frequently.

[nasty daddy]

http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/truebluepistons.html

Worth noting: It’s been mentioned here and elsewhere that the Pistons will pick 36th, 39th and 44th in the draft, but it’s really 35th, not 36th. It changed on May 19 when the lottery was held.

[nasty daddy]

http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/truebluepistons.html

Minnesota and Memphis finished the season with identical records. For purposes of assigning lottery number combinations, a tiebreaker procedure gave Minnesota the No. 5 slot in the first round. Had form held in the lottery, the order in the second round then would have been reversed, meaning Minnesota’s pick – the one owed to the Pistons for the 2005 Ronald Dupree trade – would have been 36th.

But when Memphis leapfrogged Minnesota to get the No. 2 pick, bumping the Timberwolves down to No. 6, then Minnesota’s second-round pick became No. 35, bumping Memphis to 36.

It continues Minnesota’s rotten lottery luck. The Timberwolves have never moved up but have frequently been bumped down – never more damagingly than when Orlando won the lottery rights to Shaquille O’Neal. The T-wolves got bumped to No. 3 and took Christian Laettner after Shaq and Alonzo Mourning were off the board. Adding insult to injury, after one season in Minnesota, Dupree returned to the Pistons as a free agent.

[nasty daddy]

http://www.nba.com/pistons/index_main.html

FLIGHT CREW TRYOUTS
The Pistons are looking for athletic, enthusiastic high-flyers to join their trampoline dunk team, "Hooper & the Flight Crew." Reserve your spot in one of three training sessions before the final tryouts on Wednesday, June 24th at 6 p.m. at The Palace.

[nasty daddy]

http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/draft_090529.html

Bombs Away
EDITOR’S NOTE: Pistons.com continues its draft series with the fifth of a dozen profiles of players who figure to be under consideration by the Pistons for their pick at No. 15 in the first round of the June 25 draft. Today’s installment looks at Davidson guard Stephen Curry. The Pistons have never been one of the NBA’s most prolific 3-point shooting teams, but at the height of their six-year stretch of conference finals runs they made great use of the arc. Chauncey Billups became Mr. Big Shot mostly for his deadly delivery of critical 3-pointers. Rasheed Wallace always seemed to launch a few poison darts from the other side of the arc in key Pistons wins. But Billups is gone and Wallace, by most appearances, will be out the door in July when he hits free agency. Even with him around for 66 games last season, the Pistons were one of the league’s least potent 3-point teams. Only Philadelphia and Oklahoma City averaged fewer triples per game than the Pistons’ 13.16 attempts – the league average was 18.12 – and their .349 percentage from the arc ranked 26th and below the league average of .367. The 3-point shot has become a tremendous weapon. Teams that don’t have at least a few consistent threats have an arsenal deficiency every bit as glaring as rebounding or defensive weaknesses.

So you can bet that if Davidson’s Stephen Curry somehow falls past Golden State at No. 7, New York at No. 8 and everybody else who picks ahead of the Pistons at No. 15, he would get serious consideration from Joe Dumars on draft night. While it’s almost universally true that rookies entering the NBA need a year or two, at least, to adjust to the greater 3-point distance and the speed of the game in order to become real assets from the arc, Curry is, by acclamation, fully expected to be an exception. Everybody expects the son of longtime NBA shooting guard Dell Curry to come in and immediately provide a scoring threat.The questions on Curry are anything and everything else. Can his frail frame hold up against NBA defenses? Can he make enough plays for others to be considered a point guard? If he’s not really a point guard, can he defend shooting guards? One thing’s for sure: Curry showed scouts plenty over his three seasons at Davidson in regard to fearlessness. Playing against Goliaths, he led the small-school Wildcats to within a whisker of the 2008 NCAA Final Four, losing in the Midwest regional finals at Ford Field to eventual champion Kansas in the final minute.

Curry’s numbers were gaudy, averaging 28.6 points as a junior. After playing off the ball his first two seasons, Davidson needed him to play the point last season and he proved adept as a ballhandler and setup man, averaging 5.6 assists and showing instincts – no-look passes, one-handed touch bounce passes through traffic – at times that called to mind Steve Nash. He didn’t back down from stiff competition, either, as Davidson coach Bob McKillop scheduled up in an attempt to pad his team’s NCAA tournament resume. In a four-point loss at Oklahoma last season, Curry tossed in 44 points. He had 44 more against North Carolina State and 29, eight boards and six assists against Duke. Curry shot more than 45 percent all three seasons at Davidson even though a staggering 47 percent of his career shot attempts came from beyond the 3-point line. Only in his final season, when he was a .387 3-point shooter, was he under 40 percent from the arc. And because Curry was the focal point of every defense, many of his 3-point shots were taken from well beyond the college line. Of the 12 players Pistons.com chose in mid-May to profile for the June 25 draft, Curry seems the unlikeliest to be available at No. 15. From his ability to carry a lesser team to the way he handled the transition to point guard as a junior, he has fewer question marks than anyone in the draft outside of presumptive No. 1 pick Blake Griffin. Others might have greater potential, but Curry seems too safe a pick – and too alluring a prospect – to slide out of the lottery and into the Pistons’ hands. But if he’s there, a team starved for 3-point shooting might have a hard time looking past him.

[nasty daddy]

http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/draft_090529.html

Selling Points – Like his dad, a shooter with great range and a short memory who has greater ability than Dell to create his own shot. … Also possesses a very quick release. … Though lean, Curry is lanky and still young at 21 and should be able to gain enough strength to eliminate it as a concern. … Despite some questions about his ability to play point guard, he has displayed great vision and creativity as a passer.

[nasty daddy]

http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/draft_090529.html

Buyer Beware – Until he proves it against NBA athletes, some are going to question Curry’s ability to hold up over 82 games and produce with what appears to be marginal quickness and explosion. … If he proves unable to play the point in the NBA, can he defend well enough to log starter’s minutes at shooting guard? … Averaged nearly four turnovers a game as a junior when he had the ball in his hands on every possession.

[nasty daddy]

http://www.nba.com/pistons/index_main.html

YOUTH CAMP DATES SET
This summer, the Pistons and Shock are giving young basketball players an opportunity to get a leg up on the competition by hosting the Detroit Pistons Youth Training Camps throughout Michigan and northern Ohio. Early registration has been extended until June 15.

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http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=26663

Mike (Detroit, MI): John we here in Detroit keep hearing Chris Paul rumors to the pistons. Is there any truth to this.

John Hollinger: You keep hearing wishful thinking on the radio, is what I think you meant to say. If the Hornets get into a tight enough financial spot it's possible they might trade West; it's inconceivable they would trade Paul.

[nasty daddy]

http://myespn.go.com/nba/truehoop

•Ross Siler of the Salt Lake Tribune: "Do the Jazz make the playoffs next season if Carlos Boozer leaves without them acquiring anything in return? What happens to an offense predicated on the pick-and-roll without Boozer? Can you write off the last two seasons with Boozer to injuries and personal issues? Do you worry about losing a two-time All-Star, who regularly posts 20-point, 10-rebound games, in the prime of his career at age 27?"

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http://myespn.go.com/nba/truehoop

•Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press: "'College basketball is college basketball whether you're in the ACC or wherever,' Eric Maynor said Thursday morning at the NBA draft combine workouts. 'But like I always tell people, when I got a chance to play against them big-time schools I was able to more than hold my own. As I'm in workouts, I'm going to do the same. I feel like I can play with anybody in the country whether it's ACC competition, Big Ten, Big 12, it don't matter. I feel like I can play with them.' That swagger comes from a four-year career where he became known for making big shots -- including the winner in the first round of the NCAA tournament against Duke his sophomore season. Pistons president of basketball operations Joe Dumars said after the team's first-round playoff exit that promising second-year player Rodney Stuckey would be more effective as a combo guard and not a pure point guard where he is the primary ball-handler at all times. The draft is loaded with point guards so if the Pistons want to go that route with the 15th pick of the first round of the June 25 NBA draft, Maynor, projected to go in the middle of the opening round, would appear to be a candidate."