Fantastic article on the Pistons

[Brapman]

One thing that was never mentioned - the "Sheed" factor. Certainly our frontcourt D will improve under his guidence.

Agreed.

Look part of a young player's development is how functional and able the rest of the team surrounding him is. If the guys on the court with Knight are better, his play will improve too. We've had a team for two years that couldn't spread the floor and who had no low post threats. Knight's "good pg" plays often were turned into non-stats, because the guys couldn't knock down shots off his passes, and his play was hampered because defenders could collapse on him all over the court and in the paint, since nobody else was even a threat.

Monroe would have had gaudier stats with guys who were further along in their development, who could stretch the floor, etc.

As players learn the system and their roles and assignments on the court, learn how and where to help, etc. they make better decisions faster. Having Sheed coaching the big men on defense, and the team playing with high quality veteran players like Smith and Billups will be a major help for all the young guys.

[Blkbrd671]

i honestly thought it was a horrible right up, he touched on some good points but i don't think addressed the problem accurately. He also sounds exactly like on of the posters on RealGM.

[Minas]

Zach Lowe is my favourite NBA writer. It's sad as a Pistons fan but I agree with everything he said, hopefully our young guys can prove him wrong.

[HotelVitale]

He doesn't talk about Monroe's play making at all and paints Drummond's ceiling as a Chandler clone which I think is worst case scenario at this point. I also agree Monroe is an atrocious help D guy but his man defense has improved and that's what he's going to be asked to do. In addition, he alluded to our offense won't be much better than it was with Max. This article hinges on the fact that all our guys plateau and that's a fatal flaw to all the reasoning presented imo.

A) a few years ago, Tyson Chandler was the defensive player of the year AND led the league in offensive rating (largely because he had a ts% of 70% and didn't turn the ball over). You're both underrating Chandler if you don't think he's had a huge impact the last couple of years on both sides of the floor. You're also maybe missing that drummond's lack of offensive skills mean he'll be totally reliant on his athleticism to score. He'll score on putbacks or when someone sets him up. He should score a few more points per game than Chandler in his prime-- his size should help him to do that--but I think the Chandler comparison was useful and fair.

B) it's not useful or fair to assume that young guys will improve or how much. Is there any point in writing an article with the premise that all of our young guys will be much better, so ignore their current faults/skills while writing about them and assume they took care of all their deficiencies and continued to improve their strengths? (He also says a couple times that Drummond should be better at x/y or Knight's not good at x "yet.")

[Spider156]

I think the article was fantastic in pinpointing what the players' struggles are. It's not out there to say they will stay the way the played last season. I mean we're talking about having a different coach, a different point guard, and Sheed. Having Chauncey makes an impact. Also, there's still a trade that has to be made before we start the season. I can see it happening soon. Granger looks tempting.