http://www.mlive.com/pistons/index.ssf/ ... on_an.htmlPistons' experiment with Ben Gordon and Richard Hamilton appears to be going well
When Richard Hamilton arrived in Detroit seven years ago, it wasn’t unusual for his college coach, Jim Calhoun, to call him on his cell phone. Eventually, their conversations would turn to Ben Gordon, who at the time was among the nation’s premier players under Calhoun at the University of Connecticut. Then, Calhoun would ask Hamilton to do him a favor. “Calhoun used to call me all the time to call him (Gordon) and tell him to shoot the ball,” Hamilton recalled. “Ain’t that funny? Tell him to shoot the ball.” Gordon needs no prodding these days. It was his long-range shooting ability, especially in late-game situations, that made him such an attractive offseason target for the Pistons. Although he will begin the season coming off the Pistons’ bench, Gordon got starter-like money this summer when Detroit signed him to a five-year, $55 million contract.
The fact Detroit acquired Gordon, 26, was viewed by many as the end of Hamilton’s run as the Pistons’ top scorer. While a trade involving Hamilton remains a possibility, it appears Detroit will try to see if the two can play together. So far, Pistons first-year coach John Kuester said he has been pleased with their collective play. “And I think they’ll get better,” Kuester said. “That’s one of the things that’s going to be important; they continue to get a sense of how to play together.” Although he is known primarily as a scorer, Gordon wants to prove he can contribute to a team’s success in other ways. “In Chicago, I played that role because that’s what the team needed from me,” Gordon said. “But here, there are going to be opportunities to show that I can do more things, like handle the ball, set up teammates and things like that.”
Hamilton repeatedly has said the issues he had playing with Allen Iverson last season will not become a problem with Gordon, who, like Iverson, is a high-scoring guard. Unlike Iverson (who now plays with Memphis), Gordon has proved to be an effective scorer as a starter and coming off the bench. In addition to being named to the NBA’s all-rookie team in 2005, Gordon was named the league’s Sixth Man of the Year, the first rookie to win the award. He averaged 20.7 points per game and started 76 games last season for the Bulls. Hamilton said he understands Gordon’s arrival might cut into his minutes. But a few lost minutes of court time to benefit the team is a fair trade-off, he said. “When you look back at the team we had when we won a championship (in 2004), we had multiple guys who could score the ball off the bench,” Hamilton said. “We had Corliss (Williamson), who was a guy that could score coming off the bench. Memo (Mehmet Okur) was a threat off the bench. "This is the first time since then we had a guy who could come off the bench and put up 30 points. Having Ben here, that’s a big plus for us.
