Billups never wanted to leave the Pistons

[Manocad]

Moving Chauncey was the right thing to do at the time, regardless of what all the Monday morning quarterbacks want to think. Signing BG and CV with the capspace made available was an absolute travesty. Most of the oldtimers on this board hated those signings at the time, for good reason.

And no, Chauncey is not coming back to Detroit.

[mercury]

Moving Chauncey was the right thing to do at the time, regardless of what all the Monday morning quarterbacks want to think. Signing BG and CV with the capspace made available was an absolute travesty. Most of the oldtimers on this board hated those signings at the time, for good reason.

And no, Chauncey is not coming back to Detroit.

Yep... no need cryin' over old sh##... he had one decent year followed by old player injuries.... good timing regardless of the poor decisions.

[ropjhk]

Biggest mistake Joe made in his career was trading Chauncey (hiring Flip Saunders is second). Everything spiraled out of control from there.

What troubles me is that Joe Dumars, who is closer than anyone to this team aside from the staff and players, had no idea what he had in Billups. To think that Billups could be replaced by Iverson was ludicrous. To think that if it didn't work out with Iverson, Stuckey would fill the void was insane. And to think that a team that just won 59 games and reached the ECF the year before needed a MAJOR shake-up was flat out dumb.

Chauncey was the leader. The coach on the floor. He was the team's brain. Chauncey recognized mismatches and exploited them. Iverson tried to score on his man. Chauncey knew where everybody on his team wanted/needed the ball. Iverson knew how to get his shot off. Chauncey would post up smaller point guards, getting them in foul trouble and/or wear them down. Iverson was the smaller guard who got posted up.

If Joe wanted to win, he should've convinced Bill Davidson to spend some money and improve the bench and possibly tried to upgrade the small forward position (Tayshaun was always the weak link to me). But trading Billups should have NEVER been an option.

I agree completely. The 2008-2009 team could have been good enough to make the another run at things. Even with Iverson, that team did well at first, but it would soon fall apart as Iverson never did fit in with the team and his toxicity would eventually poison the franchise.

I can't help but feel that the careers of almost everyone on that Detroit team (especially Hamilton, Prince, Iverson, Stuckey and Maxiel) would be vastly different if that trade never happened. That trade ended up ruining a franchise and a HOFer. The Billups/Iverson trade is underrated on the list of worst trades of all time.

Aaron Afflalo was the only person to really benefit from that trade.