Stuckey: Pistons' Decline Started By Trading Away Billups

RSCD3_ · Post #41 » by **RSCD3_** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 2:32 pm

Also I'm still ticked off we threw away afflalo when he was on his rookie contract. He showed more potential because he had two translate able skills 3's and defense.

We could have traded him in 2011 to a contender who needed one more piece and asked for a first and a future first and one project.

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Post #42 » by **Snakebites** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 6:54 pm

Warspite wrote:Or maybe the decline started when Stuckey couldnt replace Billups? Billups was traded in large part because Stuckey was supposed to take over as the Franchise player. Its his ineptitude that led to the Pistons decline.

He was an appropriately drafted 15th pick in the draft. He was a non lottery pick, and had all of the labelings that implied. He was a tweener on both ends of the floor, and lacked the shooting to be a 2 and the passing skills to be a 1. He was no great shakes defensively either, and didn't have the quickness to be an elite slasher/dasher either. He was never going to be more than a decent rotation player. Its Dumars' fault he decided in his ultimate wisdom to declare a player with no jumpshot and limited abilities as a distributor (and limited is putting it politely) our franchise point guard.

If I appoint a high school physics student the head of NASA and he subsequently fails in his duties due to total incompetence, its my fault for hiring him, not the kids fault for not magically becoming much, much more capable than he otherwise would be to rise to the position he'd been foolishly appointed to.

DCintheD · Post #43 » by **DCintheD** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 7:51 pm

Stuckey is simply another bad judgement by Dumars

Post #44 » by **Cowology** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 10:17 pm

Stuckey is one of the few picks I actually won't take issue with. He's an ok rotation player drafted mid 1st round. Billing him as the future if the franchise and expecting him to be Wade-lite was a stretch.

Post #45 » by **Snakebites** » Sun Oct 12, 2014 10:39 pm

Unfortunately there is a lot of spilled milk when looking at the last several years of this franchise's history.

That's the bottom line here. Hopefully now the spilling will stop. That's about all we can hope for. It will be a couple years before we start seeing real improvement, if indeed it happens at all. If we can garner a few more wins than we did last year I'll frankly consider it a victory.

Lucidity · Post #46 » by **Lucidity** » Mon Oct 13, 2014 6:55 pm

Replaying history is silly, of course Chauncey was the huge downward spiral.

but if we didnt follow this trajectory we wouldnt ended with Monroe & Drummond.

& i'm plenty excited about these two under SVG.

hoophabit · Post #47 » by **hoophabit** » Mon Oct 13, 2014 9:06 pm

Yes, the question to follow that observation is; so what? Really, did they start to break that team up too soon or too late? Certainly, nothing CB did after leaving the Pistons proves that this was the key error. I'm sure it didn't help Stuckey's progression as a Piston. However, I'm also sure that his failure to develop a reliable jump shot did more harm than anything. This is all academic at this point.

joseph mamah · Post #48 » by **joseph mamah** » Mon Oct 13, 2014 9:26 pm

Moving Chauncey when we did wasnt really the problem, that team was pretty much done. Trading Chauncey for nothing but cap space and a locker room cancer, then using that cap space on two mediocre players who were also a little cancerous, was the problem. Keeping Chauncey would have just delayed the inevitable. I dont mind that we moved him, I just wish we would have gotten a better return for him.

tmorgan · Post #49 » by **tmorgan** » Mon Oct 13, 2014 10:41 pm

What's interesting to me:

The current consensus seems to be that Dumars broke his team down too soon, losing Big Ben over money and trading Chauncey when he was still good, leading to Rip turning into a little bitch and Tayshaun exposed as the complementary part that has was.

The consensus at the time was that Dumars waited way too long to start rebuilding, as the team's window was closed after the 2005-6 season when we didn't make the Finals and everyone was looking to get paid.

I believed the latter at the time, and I still do. We had our three year window -- came up short, won it, and almost won it. That was it.

epheisey · Post #50 » by **epheisey** » Mon Oct 13, 2014 10:54 pm

I'll be honest, I was fine with riding into the twilight with the 2004 squad. Losing Ben and then Chauncey was terribly disappointing at the time. I guess I kind of knew we were due to start all over soon, so I would have been happy to watch my favorite team end their run together, even if it wasn't completely graceful.

Watching the team fall apart the way it did was painful.

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Post #51 » by **Snakebites** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 10:42 pm

epheisey wrote:I'll be honest, I was fine with riding into the twilight with the 2004 squad. Losing Ben and then Chauncey was terribly disappointing at the time. I guess I kind of knew we were due to start all over soon, so I would have been happy to watch my favorite team end their run together, even if it wasn't completely graceful.

Watching the team fall apart the way it did was painful.

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I dunno about that. Rip and Tay riding into the sunset with us wasn't exactly pleasant.

epheisey · Post #52 » by **epheisey** » Wed Oct 15, 2014 1:35 am

Snakebites wrote:
epheisey wrote:I'll be honest, I was fine with riding into the twilight with the 2004 squad. Losing Ben and then Chauncey was terribly disappointing at the time. I guess I kind of knew we were due to start all over soon, so I would have been happy to watch my favorite team end their run together, even if it wasn't completely graceful.

Watching the team fall apart the way it did was painful.

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I dunno about that. Rip and Tay riding into the sunset with us wasn't exactly pleasant.

Yea but that's an entirely different scenario because Chauncey and Ben were gone. You put all four of them together and there are completely different results. It's one thing for the team to ride the sinking ship together. But they tried to rebuild without rebuilding, which put Rip especially, in a terrible situation. Instead of forcing him to the bench, allow him to go out on top, I bet they all would have retired within a couple years of each other, aside from tayshaun.

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epheisey · Post #53 » by **epheisey** » Wed Oct 15, 2014 1:36 am

double post

Redeemed · Post #54 » by **Redeemed** » Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:51 am

Ben was already in a steady state of decline. While it can be argued letting him walk made good basketball sense, I would have preferred to see him retire with the team instead of bouncing around with stops in various places before returning to us with another jersey number.

Chauncey was breaking down, but he had a good two seasons of health in him. He's another guy we should have kept, but dude was vocal in saying he wasn't interested in rebuilding or grooming anyone to take his spot. Revisionist history suggests he was onboard with working with Stuckey and making him the future, but I remember reading and hearing Billups say otherwise. I wish he would have retired and never been traded.

Sheed, Rip, and Tay should have been shipped out.

Anywho...the door is closed on that era. I looking forward to what can be built with what we have. What do we have? SVG & Drummond. Along with those two we have possible moving pieces. It will be interesting to see what the identity of the team shapes into.