Glenn
10-29-2007, 10:56 AM
:langlois: loves the Pistons!
Fran (Southfield): When Rodney Stuckey returns, will he get his position back or will he have to battle Flip Murray to be the backup point guard to Chauncey Billups?
Langlois: That’s a great question, Fran. There are no absolutes when dealing with players returning from injury. Murray has a great opportunity to solidify his status on the team, but I think no matter how well Murray plays the Pistons are going to find room for Stuckey whenever he returns. Flip Saunders, like all coaches, have a wider comfort zone with veterans than young players, but Saunders seemed smitten by Stuckey starting with his performance in the Las Vegas Summer League and said on the eve of training camp that Stuckey had a “chance to be special.” They know they’ll need Stuckey in the playoffs and they’re going to do everything they can to get him up to speed, so when he’s ready to play he’ll be back in the rotation.
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Lee (Oklahoma): I enjoyed your column “Rising Suns” and your assessment of the Pacific Division, but you didn’t say anything about one of my favorite players, Luke Walton. He’s near the top of my wish list for the Pistons. He’s a pretty decent player who is unselfish and usually has his head in the game. What do you think of Luke?
Langlois: I think you said it just about perfectly, Lee – decent, unselfish, heady. I think he’s like a lot of players in that if he’s your sixth- or seventh-best player, he looks great. And if he’s your second- or third-best player, he looks flawed. There’s not a team that wouldn’t like to have a guy like Walton, but if you’re asking him to score 18 a game and guard the best small forwards in the league 35 minutes, he’ll be occasionally overmatched.
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Joe: When Flip Saunders was with Minnesota, the team was up and down during the season. I thought they often played with almost no enthusiasm. Since being with the Pistons, I sense the team has lost its toughness. What are your thoughts about Flip?
Langlois: I keep hearing that his Minnesota teams never did much in the postseason, but show me when those teams lost to inferior playoff opponents. They didn’t. If Minnesota hadn’t lost its top two point guards and didn’t have to call on Darrick Martin in Game 7 against the Lakers in the 2004 Western finals, the Pistons would have been playing Minnesota in the NBA Finals that year. Saunders is highly respected around the league, especially for his offensive vision. If and when his time is up with the Pistons – and coaches know they almost never get to leave on their own terms – Saunders won’t be without a job for long.
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Tequila: I was reading comments made by Gilbert Arenas. He seems to think the Pistons will struggle and end up finishing third in the East without Webber. What’s your analysis?
Ben (Davison): What do you, the Pistons or Joe Dumars take out of what Gilbert Arenas recently said in SLAM magazine about the Pistons not having anything in the frontcourt without Webber or Ben Wallace and laughing at the fact that Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson are stepping in?
Langlois: Gilbert said that, huh? All due respect to Gilbert, he’s slightly crazy. Fun, endearing, amusing, but slightly whacky. I mean no disrespect to Webber here – I first saw him play the summer before his freshman season in high school, and wrote at the time that he struck me as a young James Worthy with more explosiveness – but I think the Pistons are better served at this point giving playing time to Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson. Webber would be a nice insurance policy behind them, in a perfect world, but the reality of the salary cap and limited roster space makes it unrealistic at this point.
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Keith (Troy): I always believe that the tone set in the beginning is what will last through the end. The Pistons are already getting hit with minor injuries (Hamilton, Johnson, Stuckey, Mohammed). Aside from any optimism you may have for the Pistons, do you think this season will be a struggle for them? Do you think they will be injury prone?
Langlois: Pistons fans must have become awfully spoiled by their run of good health the last several years. Stuckey’s hand injury was a complete fluke. The other three injuries were pretty typical of all teams’ preseason bumps and bruises. Look around the league. Charlotte is already without two players, Sean May and Adam Morrison, for the season. Chicago had three players forced to leave the same preseason game – Ben Wallace, Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah. No, I don’t think the Pistons are due to be snakebit by injury this season just because of a few twisted ankles in training camp.
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Dave (Melbourne, Australia): How many minutes is Jason Maxiell likely to get behind Antonio McDyess now that Amir Johnson has gone down with an ankle injury.
Langlois: I think Maxiell will get 20 minutes a game and maybe more depending on how well he handles an increased role. It also depends how well Johnson plays and how many more minutes the Pistons are inclined to stretch McDyess above the 21 or so he’s averaged in his first three seasons with the team. Even though he’s starting now, I still don’t think McDyess is going to get more than 25 or so a night.
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Michael: Since Stuckey’s off-hand is injured, why does he need six weeks to recover?
Langlois: The bones need to knit themselves back together, Michael, or the injury will never heal. It’s tough enough being a rookie point guard in the NBA, never mind a one-handed rookie point guard. Just because he shoots jump shots with his right hand doesn’t mean he doesn’t need the left for little things like ballhandling and shooting lefty layups.
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Ryan (Grand Rapids): How close was Detroit to trading Flip Murray and Ronald Dupree for J.R. Smith? Smith is a bit of a wild card, but would also give the Pistons a younger and even more explosive bench. Would a trade like that make a Webber reunion more likely?
Langlois: They weren’t at all close, Ryan. It never got to the consideration stage. Smith has All-Star ability, unquestionably, but there were character questions on him coming out of high school and they continue to dog him four years into his career. New Orleans, a team in desperate need of young talent at the time, let him go. The Bulls shipped him out of town before he played a game. He’s on very thin ice in Denver. It has to tell you something.
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Dave (New Zealand): I’ve been a fan of Lindsey Hunter from the time he was drafted and am really glad he will be joining the front office. What will be his role?
Langlois: They haven’t really discussed it in specific terms yet, Dave. Joe Dumars told me last year that his management philosophy is to find good people and then let them find what it is they do best. I imagine Lindsey will dabble in a little bit of everything at first and then find his niche.
It's good to see Lee back in the fold.
Fran (Southfield): When Rodney Stuckey returns, will he get his position back or will he have to battle Flip Murray to be the backup point guard to Chauncey Billups?
Langlois: That’s a great question, Fran. There are no absolutes when dealing with players returning from injury. Murray has a great opportunity to solidify his status on the team, but I think no matter how well Murray plays the Pistons are going to find room for Stuckey whenever he returns. Flip Saunders, like all coaches, have a wider comfort zone with veterans than young players, but Saunders seemed smitten by Stuckey starting with his performance in the Las Vegas Summer League and said on the eve of training camp that Stuckey had a “chance to be special.” They know they’ll need Stuckey in the playoffs and they’re going to do everything they can to get him up to speed, so when he’s ready to play he’ll be back in the rotation.
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Lee (Oklahoma): I enjoyed your column “Rising Suns” and your assessment of the Pacific Division, but you didn’t say anything about one of my favorite players, Luke Walton. He’s near the top of my wish list for the Pistons. He’s a pretty decent player who is unselfish and usually has his head in the game. What do you think of Luke?
Langlois: I think you said it just about perfectly, Lee – decent, unselfish, heady. I think he’s like a lot of players in that if he’s your sixth- or seventh-best player, he looks great. And if he’s your second- or third-best player, he looks flawed. There’s not a team that wouldn’t like to have a guy like Walton, but if you’re asking him to score 18 a game and guard the best small forwards in the league 35 minutes, he’ll be occasionally overmatched.
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Joe: When Flip Saunders was with Minnesota, the team was up and down during the season. I thought they often played with almost no enthusiasm. Since being with the Pistons, I sense the team has lost its toughness. What are your thoughts about Flip?
Langlois: I keep hearing that his Minnesota teams never did much in the postseason, but show me when those teams lost to inferior playoff opponents. They didn’t. If Minnesota hadn’t lost its top two point guards and didn’t have to call on Darrick Martin in Game 7 against the Lakers in the 2004 Western finals, the Pistons would have been playing Minnesota in the NBA Finals that year. Saunders is highly respected around the league, especially for his offensive vision. If and when his time is up with the Pistons – and coaches know they almost never get to leave on their own terms – Saunders won’t be without a job for long.
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Tequila: I was reading comments made by Gilbert Arenas. He seems to think the Pistons will struggle and end up finishing third in the East without Webber. What’s your analysis?
Ben (Davison): What do you, the Pistons or Joe Dumars take out of what Gilbert Arenas recently said in SLAM magazine about the Pistons not having anything in the frontcourt without Webber or Ben Wallace and laughing at the fact that Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson are stepping in?
Langlois: Gilbert said that, huh? All due respect to Gilbert, he’s slightly crazy. Fun, endearing, amusing, but slightly whacky. I mean no disrespect to Webber here – I first saw him play the summer before his freshman season in high school, and wrote at the time that he struck me as a young James Worthy with more explosiveness – but I think the Pistons are better served at this point giving playing time to Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson. Webber would be a nice insurance policy behind them, in a perfect world, but the reality of the salary cap and limited roster space makes it unrealistic at this point.
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Keith (Troy): I always believe that the tone set in the beginning is what will last through the end. The Pistons are already getting hit with minor injuries (Hamilton, Johnson, Stuckey, Mohammed). Aside from any optimism you may have for the Pistons, do you think this season will be a struggle for them? Do you think they will be injury prone?
Langlois: Pistons fans must have become awfully spoiled by their run of good health the last several years. Stuckey’s hand injury was a complete fluke. The other three injuries were pretty typical of all teams’ preseason bumps and bruises. Look around the league. Charlotte is already without two players, Sean May and Adam Morrison, for the season. Chicago had three players forced to leave the same preseason game – Ben Wallace, Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah. No, I don’t think the Pistons are due to be snakebit by injury this season just because of a few twisted ankles in training camp.
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Dave (Melbourne, Australia): How many minutes is Jason Maxiell likely to get behind Antonio McDyess now that Amir Johnson has gone down with an ankle injury.
Langlois: I think Maxiell will get 20 minutes a game and maybe more depending on how well he handles an increased role. It also depends how well Johnson plays and how many more minutes the Pistons are inclined to stretch McDyess above the 21 or so he’s averaged in his first three seasons with the team. Even though he’s starting now, I still don’t think McDyess is going to get more than 25 or so a night.
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Michael: Since Stuckey’s off-hand is injured, why does he need six weeks to recover?
Langlois: The bones need to knit themselves back together, Michael, or the injury will never heal. It’s tough enough being a rookie point guard in the NBA, never mind a one-handed rookie point guard. Just because he shoots jump shots with his right hand doesn’t mean he doesn’t need the left for little things like ballhandling and shooting lefty layups.
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Ryan (Grand Rapids): How close was Detroit to trading Flip Murray and Ronald Dupree for J.R. Smith? Smith is a bit of a wild card, but would also give the Pistons a younger and even more explosive bench. Would a trade like that make a Webber reunion more likely?
Langlois: They weren’t at all close, Ryan. It never got to the consideration stage. Smith has All-Star ability, unquestionably, but there were character questions on him coming out of high school and they continue to dog him four years into his career. New Orleans, a team in desperate need of young talent at the time, let him go. The Bulls shipped him out of town before he played a game. He’s on very thin ice in Denver. It has to tell you something.
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Dave (New Zealand): I’ve been a fan of Lindsey Hunter from the time he was drafted and am really glad he will be joining the front office. What will be his role?
Langlois: They haven’t really discussed it in specific terms yet, Dave. Joe Dumars told me last year that his management philosophy is to find good people and then let them find what it is they do best. I imagine Lindsey will dabble in a little bit of everything at first and then find his niche.
It's good to see Lee back in the fold.