'Nasty News - Traversing Time & Space' Vol: 54

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THE PLAYOFFS
West finals: San Antonio over L.A. Lakers.
East finals: Boston over Cleveland.
NBA Finals: San Antonio over Boston.

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Drew Sharp
WILL THE PISTONS MAKE THE PLAYOFFS?
Yes -- There’s a seventh or eighth conference playoff seed with their name on it and the subsequent quick first-round elimination. The Pistons’ more energized up-tempo offensive pace will squeak out enough victories to get them to .500 this season.

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THE BIGGEST CONCERN?
Point guard
They’ve got enough size with Kwame Brown, Chris Wilcox and Ben Wallace in increments. But controlling tempo will be an even higher priority now because they can’t count on stopping opponents.

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THE MVP?
Rodney Stuckey
He remains the key to the Pistons’ transition because he must become the leader of this team.

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THE PLAYOFFS?
West finals: L.A. Lakers over Denver.
East finals: Boston over Cleveland.
NBA Finals: L.A. over Boston.

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Fresh faces, emphasis on defense could fire up team
Pistons fans probably sit around pining for the good ol' days of 2004. For a working-class city that makes heroes out of rebounding phenoms such as Dennis Rodman and Ben Wallace, that beloved Pistons edition rolled to an NBA title featuring a withering defense. They held opponents under 80 points 30 times -- including seven times in the postseason.

But that type of game was a hard sell, so the league instituted rules that have made it pretty much impossible to stop top-line scorers. "You ain't holding teams to 70 points now," Pistons veteran Tayshaun Prince said recently. "The game is a lot different." After the team finished 39-43 with a first-round exit in the playoffs last season, president of basketball operations Joe Dumars revamped the roster with an eye toward becoming quicker, faster and more versatile offensively. Out with aging frontcourt stalwarts Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess and on to young, offensively gifted budding stars Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva.

Throw in new coach John Kuester, who ran the offense for the Cavs last season, and it's time for Showtime at the Palace. "We got a number of guys that are very good individually one-on-one," Kuester said. "You talk about Rip Hamilton coming off screens, you have Ben Gordon -- a prolific scorer at times, Tayshaun Prince has a great feel for the game offensively, Rodney Stuckey has scored 40 points in a game already, and Will Bynum is just explosive. "We have a number of players that have the capability of putting the numbers up."

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Pistons first-year coach John Kuester sits in his Palace office before Thursday night's exhibition game against the Timberwolves and muses about the offensive potential of his team. He says matter-of-factly that this team is capable of averaging 100 points per game.

That's pretty common nowadays in the NBA, as 13 teams reached that plateau last season. But the last time the Pistons averaged that much was when the Suns' Grant Hill was a budding Pistons star during the 1999-2000 season.

So we get it -- this team should be able to score. But here are three talking points -- and one potential pitfall -- to keep in mind when the Pistons open the season Wednesday night at Memphis.

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Enter BG and CV
Pistons president of basketball operations Joe Dumars identified two targets in free agency and obtained commitments on the first day possible from young stars Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva.Gordon, who spent five seasons with the Chicago Bulls and brings a career 18.5-point scoring average to the Pistons, is one of the best shooters in the NBA as evidenced by his 41.5% three-point average. Villanueva, a four-year veteran, is coming off a career-best season with the Milwaukee Bucks, with averages of 16.2 points and 6.7 rebounds.

Both are young, ascending players (Gordon is 26, Villanueva 25) who figure to have at least one more big pay day when their five-year deals are up. Both are multitalented scorers. Gordon is adept at slashing to the basket and creating his own space to knock down long-range jumpers. Villanueva is what Kuester calls a "stretch four" -- a power forward who is a threat from the three-point line. Villanueva can get to the basket and has an improving post game where he can score with both hands.

And their presence should help free up the versatile games of Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince, and create penetrating room for point guards Rodney Stuckey and Will Bynum."The main thing was to get versatile players," Dumars said last week. "We certainly wanted to add people who had multiple talents. Run the floor, shoot it, score ... ability to defend. We were certainly targeting those traits in guys." Drafting forwards Austin Daye, DaJuan Summers and Jonas Jerebko this summer followed that plan -- all have multiple talents and can play multiple positions.

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Say hello ...
In addition to big names Ben Gordon, Charlie Villanueva and Ben Wallace, the Pistons added the following players to their roster in the off-season.

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Austin Daye
Forward
Selected with the 15th overall pick in this year's draft, Daye's size and style of play resemble Tayshaun Prince's.

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Jonas Jerebko
Forward
Jerebko has shown he's not afraid to set screens, rebound and throw around his weight defensively.

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DaJuan Summers
Forward
The former Georgetown star struggled in the exhibition season with his shooting, but his size and athleticism should help.

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Deron Washington
Forward- guard
A 2008 second-round pick, Washington spent last season in Europe and has improved his skills.

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Chris Wilcox
center
Wilcox is coming off a disappointing season that was split between the Thunder and the Knicks. He likely will be the first big man off the bench.

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And welcome back ...
Wallace isn't the only former Piston back on the roster:

Chucky Atkins
Guard
Atkins returns after spending the past 5 1/2 seasons with seven teams.

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A tough act to follow?
Here's how the past four new Pistons coaches have fared in their first seasons:
2001-02
Rick Carlisle
50-32
Overall record: 100-64
2003-04
Larry Brown
54-28
Overall record: 108-56
2005-06
Flip Saunders
64-18
Overall record: 176-70
2008-09
Michael Curry
39-43
Overall record: 39-43

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The Pistons haven't had an offense that finished among the NBA's top 10 since the 1999-2000 season. Here's how their offense and defense compare with the league over the past decade:

YEAR W-L PPG RK OPP PPG RK
2008-09 39-43 94.2 28 94.7 8
2007-08 59-23 97.5 17 90.1 1
2006-07 53-29 96.0 21 91.8 2
2005-06 64-18 96.8 19 90.2 3
2004-05 54-28 93.3 24 89.5 2
2003-04 54-28 90.1 24 84.3 2
2002-03 50-32 91.4 26 87.7 1
2001-02 50-32 94.3 18 92.2 6
2000-01 32-50 95.6 13 97.3 25

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Q Factor
When Dumars went looking for a coach after first-year coach Michael Curry was fired this summer, Kuster's name surfaced as a candidate after dalliances with former coaches Doug Collins and Avery Johnson ran their course. Dumars moved to hire Kuester, called "Coach Q" by players, off the Cleveland Cavaliers' bench. Dumars was familiar with Kuester because Kuester coached under Larry Brown in the Pistons' 2004 title run. Kuester also made a name for himself when Cavs head coach Mike Brown turned over the offense to him last season.

Sure, it's pretty easy to have a successful offense when you are coaching LeBron James, but Kuester's influence was pronounced. "We felt like at the end of the year we kind of just put the ball in 'Bron's hands and everybody stood around and waited," Cavs assistant Chris Jent said about the year before Kuester took over the offense. "We knew that if we wanted to be more successful, we had to get away from that a bit."

Kuester emphasizes early offense -- not necessarily fast breaks -- where the team flows from defense to offense quickly. There's more action and less standing around. So far the results have been promising as the Pistons appear to have bought into Kuester's system. There has been a positive vibe to camp, and veterans say it's partly because of the more up-tempo offense.

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On the point
Kuester was once an All-America point guard at North Carolina under legendary coach Dean Smith, so it's not surprising he has taken a keen interest in young point guards Stuckey and Bynum. The hope is that Kuester can get them to reach their full potential. The Pistons' organization thinks Stuckey has star power.

Kuester is constantly urging Stuckey, who is entering his third season, and Bynum to attack and attack some more -- probing the defense for weaknesses.

Bynum has had a strong exhibition season, and Stuckey has been solid, but both admit that getting to know a roster with eight new faces has been taxing. "It's definitely a work in progress, because when you're playing with different players and even with different coaches and different terminology ... it's going take some time for us to click, to jell," Bynum said. "But we'll get there. "Defensively, we just got to get a whole lot better."

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The defense rests
And that's the rub with all this talk of straining the Palace scoreboard offensively: To win consistently, the team has to play defense. It might not be the lock-down, strangling defense of the 2004 champions, but schemes must be devised and players must be willing to make stops.

For all of their offensive prowess, Gordon and Villanueva have never been candidates for the all-defensive team. "It's certainly become tougher to hold teams in the 70s, but that doesn't diminish the fact that you have to defend if you want to defend in this league," Dumars said. "What we're trying to do now is really have a good balance on both ends of the court. "You have a team that can score when it's inevitable that you're going to have a high-scoring game and still have enough defenders where you can get stops when it's absolutely necessary to get a stop to win a game."

But the results on defense have not been encouraging. The Pistons allowed four teams in row to shoot over 50% (all losses) entering Friday night's exhibition finale at Milwaukee. The team has suffered on transition defense, allowing lots of fast-break baskets by opponents. The Pistons are preaching patience, and think it's easier to teach a good offensive player defense than the other way around. "We're not going to be a finished product when we open at Memphis or when we open at home against Oklahoma City" on Friday, Dumars said. "But a month into the season, we should be better than we are now and two months better than that, so that's the main objective right now. "To put a number on wins and losses for us right now is not the thing to do. The thing to do is make sure we're heading in the right direction."