'Nasty News - Traversing Time & Space' Vol: 26

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Roger (Flushing, Mich.): What about starting Walter Herrmann at the four, a la Kurt Rambis? He can flat-out shoot the 3-pointer, plays with energy and would allow Rasheed Wallace to be the quality post player he is capable of being.

Langlois: Aside from a vague physical resemblance, there isn’t much Walter Herrmann and Kurt Rambis would have in common. Rambis’ calling card was blue-collar dirty work – in an era where it was a lot easier to cross the line and get away with it. Rambis would have a tougher time carving out a niche in today’s NBA, but he was resourceful enough that he’d probably find a way. Herrmann’s value is much more on the offensive end. Defensively, he’s probably best suited to guarding more finesse-oriented power forwards (Dirk Nowitzki, Antawn Jamison, et al) than true power forwards or athletic small forwards. Surrounded by the right mix, I think Herrmann has a lot to offer.

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Dawn (Allendale, Mich.): While I know we lost to the Bulls, I really thought the game flowed well for us. Without AI, the guys seemed more comfortable. Unfortunately, without Chauncey calling the shots at the end of the game, we look uncomfortable.

Langlois: Billups was masterful at managing the tempo of a game and sensed when it was time to push it and when it was time to rein it in. The Pistons desperately needed a basket or two in the last five minutes to quell Chicago’s momentum. But there were a couple of great shots Rip Hamilton had – one short one in the lane, one mid-range jumper along the baseline that went in and out – that were the exact shots Billups would have manufactured for the Pistons. It’s unrealistic to expect Rodney Stuckey to be as good as Billups in end-of-game situations already, but the real blame for the Chicago loss goes to the defense and the inability to limit the Bulls to one shot down the stretch.

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Alvin (Manila, Philippines): Rip, Rasheed and Iverson are playing hard-nosed basketball. The only thing that’s missing is Tayshaun not playing with his usual level of intensity. Can you honestly say the Pistons can become serious playoff contenders this year? If not, is it the lack of intensity that’s causing this slide or a coaching problem?

Langlois: Prince isn’t a demonstrative player, Alvin. Don’t confuse that with lack of intensity. The guy has missed one practice in his six-plus seasons in the NBA and never a game. Is he visibly frustrated at times? You bet. I’ve long maintained that what can appear a lack of intensity is really an uncertainty born of a lack of confidence. The Pistons are a different cast playing a different system this year and the holdovers are struggling with the change and the newcomers aren’t yet ready to take over. Can I see them becoming a serious playoff threat? The way they’re playing right now, no. Check back in another month or so.

[nasty daddy]

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Bryan (Berkley, Mich.): Do you think the recent string of sellouts at The Palace coming to an end will influence Joe D’s decision on a trade? With the economy like it is, fans just don’t want to come out and see an underperforming team.

Langlois: Trades like the one you’re suggesting – something splashy to temporarily spike interest and ticket sales – are almost always forced by ownership. Joe Dumars is blessed with an owner who refrains from that sort of meddling. Besides, ultimately, the surest way to sell tickets is to field a winner. Any trade Joe D makes will be led by that motivation.

[nasty daddy]

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Ken (Dharamsala, India): The Pistons need two quality big men before next season starts. Ben is gone, Rasheed will be gone and probably McDyess, too. Can they get them?

Langlois: I’d be surprised if at least one of Wallace and McDyess isn’t in a Pistons uniform next season, Ken, but your point is well-taken. With Stuckey, Hamilton, Prince and Afflalo (and Iverson still a possibility), the Pistons are well-positioned along the perimeter. Their first priority with off-season resources – or, perhaps, at the trade deadline, coming up in one week – will be in the frontcourt. I’d say adding two quality big men in one season is awfully ambitious. If they can land one All-Star caliber big man – and that’s a possibility, given the assets under their control – in addition to bringing back one from the pair of Wallace and McDyess, keep developing Amir Johnson and Jason Maxiell, have Kwame Brown in reserve and use one or two of their four draft choices on a project big man, they’ll be in better shape than most.

[nasty daddy]

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Keenan (Detroit): It has been troubling with all the injuries in the NBA this season – Arenas, Brand, Bynum, Redd, Jefferson, Kaman, Boozer, Wallace, Terry, Nelson – and I believe the culprit is the NBA gods who have blessed the Pistons with unnatural good health in the past six years and are now furious with their supposed fall from contention so are spreading their vengeance around the league. OK, maybe not. But it has reminded me how lucky Pistons fans have been over the years.

Langlois: Arnie Kander said in early January that it was the worst stretch he’d seen in his more than 15 seasons with the team when injuries had hit Rip Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess most notably and others to a lesser degree. But still the Pistons have been more fortunate than most teams. A lot of that is due to Kander and his methods and longtime trainer Mike Abdenour.

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Jacob (Brownwood, Texas): There are rumors of the Pistons trading for Amare Stoudemire. While that sounds good, what would that do to the Pistons’ salary cap come the summer?

Langlois: Hard to say without knowing what the Pistons would have to send to Phoenix to get Stoudemire. For a lot of reasons, logic would point to Phoenix wanting Rasheed Wallace back in any deal for Stoudemire. Let’s start from that premise. So with Stoudemire’s projected $16 million added to next year’s payroll, if the Pistons were to renounce their rights to Allen Iverson, and factoring in the $1 million or $1.5 million that would be slotted for their first-round draft pick (the actual number will depend on where they pick), my estimate is that they would have roughly $4 million or $5 million to spend under the cap. But, in essence, they would be treated as if they are over the cap, because teams that are under the cap must add any exceptions available to them. In simple terms, the Pistons would essentially be allowed to use their mid-level exception to sign another free agent. But they would be out of the running for the premier free agents about to come on the market, guys like Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur, Hedo Turkoglu, Shawn Marion and Ben Gordon – unless the cratering economy so drives down the market that one or more of them are willing to take the MLE.

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Benjamin (Salt Lake City): Who do you think is the best player the Pistons can come away with in the draft? With four picks, do you think they could do something to move up instead of picking four players in a draft that shouldn’t be really deep?

Langlois: There’s a general consensus that the draft isn’t loaded with future All-Stars at the top, Benjamin, but I don’t think there’s any real feel yet for the depth of this draft. I think you’re probably as likely to find a decent player in the late first or mid-second round as you were a year ago. If the Pistons are picking around 20th, I would expect the odds to be pretty good that they could come away with a player good enough to challenge for minutes next season – though it’s just as likely that they would choose to roll the dice on a player with a higher ceiling but a lower floor at that point. Moving up sounds good but doesn’t happen very often unless there is a financial incentive in moving back for the trade partner.

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Yasir (Farmington Hills, Mich.): It really annoys me how everyone is saying the Pistons aren’t competitors right now. Well, why did Joe D make the trade? For the playoffs. I believe if the Pistons can establish some chemistry they can fly under the radar in the playoffs and win a championship, just like 2004.

Langlois: As Rip Hamilton might say, yessir, Yasir. You raise a point that bears repeating: Joe Dumars has said it’s fair to judge the Pistons the same way they’ve been judged for the past six years – by what they do in the postseason. Their great regular seasons have been diminished in the eyes of critics because they haven’t been back to the NBA Finals in three years, so castigating them now for uneven play reveals a double standard. That said, it would be nice to start establishing consistency and a real identity with just more than two months to go until the playoffs open. I think that’s the thing that has Pistons fans legitimately concerned. It’s tough to say exactly what this team’s strengths are at this point. There aren’t any overwhelming weaknesses other than the fact that there aren’t any real defined strengths.

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James (Bloomfield Twp, Mich.): Why doesn’t Amir Johnson get more playing time? The Bulls’ game is just another example of how bad Detroit’s pick-and-roll defense is without Amir on the court because Rasheed and Dice are too slow to effectively cover it.

Langlois: Amir gets minutes when he produces, but he has to grab some rebounds, keep his fouls to a minimum and be active defensively, James. I think there’s a lot more to the Pistons’ pick-and-roll deficiencies than Wallace and McDyess. Yeah, they’re 34, but they covered it pretty well when they were 33. Some slowing down is natural, but I don’t think they all of a sudden went from above-average defenders to below average in a year.

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Tim (Grand Rapids, Mich.): What do you think of trading Allen Iverson for Jermaine O’Neal? It would be a low-risk move because JO is also an expiring contract.

Langlois: Can’t see it happening, Tim. O’Neal doesn’t have an expiring contract. He has a player option that he absolutely will exercise. It calls for him to make about $23 million. Given his injury history over the last five seasons, plus the economic climate, it would probably take him four seasons or more to make that much back.

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Mike (Detroit): It was reported on ESPN that the Clippers offered Baron Davis and Chris Kaman for Jason Kidd’s expiring contract. With Iverson having the same expiring contract, it seems the Clippers would offer the same deal to the Pistons. Even though it would negate their cap space, I’m not sure they could get two players better than that for $22 million at the two most important positions.

Langlois: I’d be stunned if anyone would bite on a deal like that, Mike, and never mind the current economic climate. Davis and Kaman are due a combined $88 million after this season – Davis with four more years, Kaman with three more. Now, if they were perennial All-Stars and they fit your roster, maybe. But both are injury prone and neither has put together back-to-back big seasons in a while. Plus, the Pistons just shipped out a highly paid point guard for the opportunity to rebuild their team – it doesn’t make a lot of sense to rebuild it by bringing in another highly paid veteran point guard. That deal would make a lot more sense for Dallas, which would be creating a vacuum at point guard by dealing Kidd and his expiring contract, so if the Mavs wouldn’t bite, the Pistons would never be tempted.

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Mildred (Lapeer, Mich.): With all the trade rumors, I would like to know if players have any say in where they are traded to?

Langlois: The only ironclad say a player can ever have is to negotiate a no-trade clause in his contract or veto power over trades and, in the NBA, that is almost never done. To the best of my knowledge, the only no-trade clause any NBA player has negotiated among active players is Kobe Bryant. Chauncey Billups asked Joe Dumars, when it became apparent that a trade was likely at some point as Rodney Stuckey emerged, to trade him to his native Denver if at all possible. Dumars was under no obligation to do so, and, in fact, wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t found what he was looking for from the Nuggets, but he was able to accommodate that wish.

[nasty daddy]

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Jason (Chicago): You wrote a while back that having a consistent 3-point threat is important. Right now our best 3-point threat is Rasheed Wallace. If the rumors of him being traded are true, how would that affect the Pistons’ 3-point shooting?

Langlois: An area of weakness would become an even bigger cause for worry. Going into the Atlanta game, the Pistons were 28th in the league in 3-point attempts, ahead of only Philadelphia and Oklahoma City, and 23rd in 3-point percentage at .349; the league norm is .366. The Pistons take nearly five fewer 3-point attempts per game than average. Rasheed has hoisted 35 percent of Detroit’s 3-point attempts and shoots better than the team average. Take Rasheed’s .372 out of the mix and the Pistons are a .337 3-point shooting team, which would put them in 26th place overall. Take Rasheed out of the mix and the Pistons would almost surely be last in the league in attempts by a wide margin.

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Terrence (Greensboro, N.C.): Do you think Joe D regrets trading Billups?

Langlois: I don’t think he thinks like that, Terrence. He made the move for strong reasons and is focused on the present and the future, not the past. If there’s regret involved, it’s that the challenges of the transition have been as difficult to overcome as they’ve proven to be. But one of the two major reasons for executing the trade doesn’t come into play until the off-season, when he’ll have the chance to remake the roster. That’s why I can say with conviction that regret hasn’t begun to creep into the equation.

[nasty daddy]

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All-Star break gives Pistons time to rest, regroup
The All-Star break has finally arrived, and not a moment too soon for the Detroit Pistons. For most of the players, the four-day weekend will be a time to heal both mentally and physically from what has been a disappointing season so far. "We really need this (break)," Pistons guard Allen Iverson said. "Especially at a time like this." Detroit head into the All-Star break with a three-game losing streak. At 27-24, the Pistons are just three games over .500. Detroit hasn't been this bad this late in the season since they finished 30-52 in 2001 which was also the last year the team failed to make the playoffs.

Detroit is tied for the sixth playoff seed with Philadelphia, a game behind Miami (28-24). Cleveland leads the Central Division with a 40-11 record. "We have to play some really good basketball down the stretch to get ourselves and position ourselves for the playoffs," said Pistons coach Michael Curry. Detroit must also develop some type of team identity. Point guard Rodney Stuckey is the team's primary ball-handler and decision-maker during games. But even he admits a big part of the team's struggles has been the lack of an identity. "If we're going to play fast, we have to play fast," Stuckey said. "That's the type of guys we have on the team, get out and push the ball on the break. "There are times when we run, and times when we have to settle down. But we have to find which one to do often. Hopefully, we come back from the break and get things back on track."

The style of play shouldn't matter as much as the team's inability to play with the mental toughness and confidence in the latter stages of close games that too often have become losses this season. "Hopefully after this break, guys come back mentally and physically ready to play, and just control what you can control as a player," Curry said. "Pull for your teammates to be successful, help each other each possession offensively and defensively, and just try to play harder than the opposing team. Those are the things that you have to do, and sometimes those are the things you forget when you've been able to win without doing those things every night."

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Tough road ahead : The Pistons' road schedule shortly after the All-Star break includes a bunch of playoff-bound teams and the defending NBA champion Boston Celtics.

The Celtics are just part of a grueling stretch of road games that include Cleveland (Feb. 22), Miami (Feb. 24), New Orleans (Feb. 25), Orlando (Feb. 27) and the Celtics on March 1.

With such a grueling schedule, the Pistons will be hard-pressed to avoid a second consecutive month with a losing record. Back-to-back losing months for the Pistons hasn't happened since February and March of 2001.

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No laughing matter : Tayshaun Prince was asked why the Pistons do not joke around with one another on the bench during games like they used to.

"We're losing games," Prince said. "You think we'll be joking on the bench?"

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NBA fines Cavaliers coach Mike Brown
Cavaliers coach Mike Brown has been fined $25,000 by the NBA for criticizing officials following Cleveland’s last-second loss at Indiana on Tuesday night. Brown, who will coach the Eastern Conference team at this weekend’s All-Star game, went into a tirade about a call by referee Joey Crawford that awarded the Pacers two free throws and gave them a 96-95 win. Crawford called a foul on LeBron James, who was trying to stop an alley-oop pass to Indiana’s Danny Granger. Brown felt Crawford made a predetermined call against James, who had been involved in a similar call moments earlier with Granger.

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Pistons hope for strong 2nd half; Iverson wants to keep fighting
Pistons coach Michael Curry hopes his players come back from the All-Star break recharged for the second half of the season. "It's still a long season to go, a lot of basketball to play," Curry said after Wednesday's 99-95 loss to the Atlanta Hawks. "We gotta play some really good basketball down the stretch, to position ourselves for the playoffs."

The Pistons fell to 0-2 against the Hawks this season, a team it could face in the first round of the playoffs. "We haven't played great basketball either game, and we've had a chance in both of them," Curry said.

Curry said before the game that rebounding is one area the team needs to improve in the season's second half. "When we rebound the basketball and get a balance of frontcourt scoring, I think we're fine," Curry said. "Frontcourt scoring helps your tempo in the game. "Rebounding is definitely No. 1 and balance in our frontcourt scoring. The other things we're doing defensively, we'll be OK."