Glenn
07-14-2008, 11:15 AM
:langlois:
MONDAY, July 14
Kevin (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.): I am officially panicking. I heard that a Toronto newspaper reports that the Pistons are trying to trade for Tracy McGrady. Why? Yes, he’s a terrific player, but he’s always hurt 30 times a year. Why give up two core guys to get him? Joe D said he wanted to bring in a player to take the team to the next level. How is McGrady going to do that? He’s never even taken a team to the second round of the playoffs?
Langlois: Kevin, I’ll let your question represent the 8 million others I got on the subject of the McGrady rumor. Let me start by saying this: I can’t confirm one way or the other the reports that the Pistons and Houston were talking about a McGrady trade that would involve Chauncey Billups or Tayshaun Prince or both, but it’s been pretty roundly rejected by media outlets in both cities. But it wouldn’t surprise me if those teams had talked about McGrady since the season ended. When Joe D said he had talked to 10 or 12 teams and wasn’t talking about anybody’s second- or third-best players, McGrady would have been a logical contender for that list. Why? Because Houston has floundered with the McGrady-Yao pairing and probably feels some urgency to shake up their chemistry in the same way Dumars said he wished to. Would there be an inherent risk in the deal? Absolutely. There usually is. But McGrady is, flat-out, one of the five best pure scorers in the game. If the Pistons were to seriously consider dealing for him, you can bet your bottom dollar that Dumars would have thoroughly vetted McGrady’s health history and ran it past training guru Arnie Kander for his take. As for McGrady’s playoff record, until a month ago Kevin Garnett had gotten his teams out of the first round exactly once in his career. I think it’s silly to put that history on McGrady. For most of his years, he’s been on teams that didn’t have the roster to make much postseason noise. People tend to forget that when McGrady’s Orlando team lost a 3-1 lead to the 2003 Pistons, Detroit was the No. 1 seed and Orlando the No. 8 seed.
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Bingo (Detroit): Are the Pistons planning on shipping Rasheed out? He was clearly the weak link in the playoffs. Something needs to happen. A few other teams in the East are getting better and if they keep the same roster I don’t even think the will make it to the Eastern Conference finals.
Langlois: Bingo, fans need to calm down a little and let the summer play itself out. Kevin Garnett didn’t get traded to Boston until July 31 last summer. Major trades, unless they happen on draft night, usually don’t occur until after the dust settles on free agency, and that hasn’t happened yet. But if the worst-case scenario for the Pistons is status quo, is that so bad? They’ll have a new coach who by every indication is held in high regard by his players and they have several young players who are ready to not just play but make an impact. Yes, the East will be deeper next year, but the Pistons won’t head into next season feeling they’ve been passed by.
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Matt (Windsor, Ontario): What free agents do the Pistons have that they can re-sign without using the mid-level exception? I think Lindsey Hunter is one of them.
Langlois: You’re right, Matt. If Hunter and Theo Ratliff come back for one more season, the Pistons would most likely sign both to veteran’s minimum contracts, which for their years of service would put them somewhere between $1.5 million and $2 million. The good thing about veteran’s minimum deals is that the league picks up a good chunk of the contract and only about half of it counts against the salary cap. It was a provision put in to prevent teams from shunning worthy veterans to sign cheaper young players. Besides the MLE, which was set last week for the coming season at $5.585 million, the Pistons also have the biannual exception to use, which is roughly $2 million. I don’t think they’ll have to use the biannual, though, because if both Hunter and Ratliff return, that puts the roster at 13. And the Pistons probably will sign two veterans with the MLE.
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Steve (Rochester, Mich.): A strong defensive force down low is imperative to stopping someone like Kevin Garnett. Are there any big men left that would sign maybe a low-money, one-year deal like maybe Kwame Brown? The Pistons seem to have a knack for turning good players into All-Stars.
Langlois: Not with the way the roster is presently constituted. If the Pistons bring back Theo Ratliff, they’d be pretty stacked up front with Rasheed Wallace, Antonio McDyess, Jason Maxiell, Amir Johnson and Cheikh Samb – and Maxiell and Johnson, for sure, and Samb, perhaps, are all in line for expanded roles. Besides, Kwame Brown should get more than a low-money, one-year deal. He’s fallen far short of the expectations for a No. 1 pick overall, but considering DeSagana Diop got a full mid-level exception deal, Brown should get something close.
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Scott (Orion Twp., Mich.): Could you explain how salary matching works with trades and what exceptions there are? Also, does Cheikh Samb still weigh195?
Langlois: Scott, there’s not room enough and I don’t have a firm enough grasp of it myself, but whenever I have questions about the minutiae of the salary cap, I go to this http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm Web site. As for Samb, no, he weights considerably more than that now. He’s spent a lot of time in the weight room in the past two years. I’d say he’s probably at about 240 right now. That’s still not a lot of weight on a 7-foot-1 frame, but his upper body, especially, is now pretty solid.
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Marcus (Kalamazoo, Mich.): What are your thoughts on trading for Eddy Curry? What would it take to get him?
Langlois: The Knicks would dump him in a heartbeat. Curry has three years left on his contract – though the final two are at his option. But he isn’t very likely to opt out of those two years, which would pay him more than $21 million, unless he has a monster year next season. And I don’t see Curry as a very good fit for the way Mike D’Antoni likes to play. But the Pistons don’t have $10 million worth of dead weight hanging around to ship to New York to make the deal work.
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Erges (Tirana, Albania): Why does NBA.com use feet and inches instead of meters and centimeters to measure players’ height? Don’t you think it’s an old technique and very uncomfortable for people like me and others living in Europe? Stuckey at Afflalo are both listed at 1.96 meters but it’s clear that Afflalo is 2 or 3 centimeters taller than Stuckey. Rasheed definitely seems to be taller than the 2.1 meters he’s listed at.
Langlois: The NBA is expanding globally, Erges, but it’s still a league with 29 of its 30 franchises in the United States, which doesn’t use the metric system. As for Stuckey and Afflalo, they’re actually pretty close. I’m not sure if it’s exact, but it’s pretty close.
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Natan (Tel Aviv, Israel): It would be insane to trade Chauncey Billups. Stuckey needs the mentoring. It’s too early to put the whole team on his shoulders.
Langlois: If the Pistons trade Chauncey Billups, they’ll get a good player back. And there will be plenty of good players still on the team. They won’t be putting the whole team on Rodney Stuckey’s shoulders. But I disagree that Stuckey needs “mentoring.” He’s ready to shoulder whatever load the Pistons give him.
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Stephen (Clarkston, Mich.): You said in a recent Mailbag that Samb could compete for the spot as fifth big man in the rotation though that role would probably go to Theo Ratliff. Since Theo is up there in age, why not start the season with Samb and then insert Ratliff in February?
Langlois: It’s possible the Pistons would handle Ratliff similarly to the way they used Lindsey Hunter last year, I suppose – keep him with the team but spot his appearances on the active list in order to keep him fresh. But the reason that worked so well with Hunter is he gave the Pistons something truly unique with his harassing on-the-ball defense. Samb gives them a lot of what Ratliff provides – a shot-blocking force and a long, active body defensively. The other part of the equation that can’t be measured right now is how that scenario would appeal to Ratliff.
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Giles (Riverside, Calif.): It makes a lot of sense to sign Josh Childress to the full mid-level exception. If Tayshaun gets involved in a deal – he always seems to be “the sweetener” – it would be like the Pistons are only losing one player in a two-for-one deal and Childress would be tied up at a lower cost than Prince.
Langlois: Sounds good, but it’s hard to imagine a team allowing Childress to get away – he’s a restricted free agent, not unrestricted – for the MLE. Then again, Atlanta might be the team that would do it with an uncertain ownership situation complicated by Josh Smith’s restricted status, as well. Here’s the thing: No one really wants to fork over that type of money to someone it doesn’t know will be a starter. And if Atlanta brings back Josh Smith, Childress would still be coming off its bench. The Pistons wouldn’t want to spend that kind of money on Childress, either, unless it had a prominent role available to him and felt he was up to the responsibility.
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Chris (Detroit): Would a trade with Portland where we send them Chauncey Billups for LaMarcus Aldridge and Steve Blake have potential? That would give us a big man and inside offense and Portland needs a point guard.
Langlois: If I’m Portland, it would be hard to justify trading Aldridge. The Blazers acquired Jerryd Bayless on draft night and are taking a long look at last year’s No. 1 pick, Petteri Koponen, in the Summer League. If the right deal for a point guard came along, I’m sure the Blazers would be interested. But I think they regard Aldridge, Greg Oden and Brandon Roy as fairly untouchable.
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Jose (Lansing, Mich.): I read that Charlotte might entertain the thought of a sign-and-trade for Emeka Okafor. He’s an athletic young center who plays with his back to the basket. I would not mind trading Rasheed for him. He would give the Bobcats an experienced, talented vet to play alongside the young guys on their roster. The only downfall I see is that I don’t know if Larry Brown would want to deal with Rasheed again.
Langlois: Larry Brown famously fell in and out of love with a million players. I’m not sure where he is on Rasheed Wallace at the moment, but he sure gushed love for him during his time in Detroit. I think NBA GMs are sort of lukewarm on Okafor. At the right price, he’s an asset, but he turned down a deal that would have paid him an annual average of more than $12 million before last season began. That’s a lot of money for what Okafor has supplied so far – never mind he’s also had a pretty scary injury history.
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Alex (Grand Rapids, Mich.): How much potential do you see in Cheikh Samb after the scrimmage on Thursday?
Langlois: He can already do a few things – make shots and block shots – well enough to command minutes, Alex. Can he hold his position defensively against NBA low-post players? Can he get out and defend the pick and roll? Can he establish low-post position himself offensively and hit that half-hook he’s developed – which has looked pretty good here in Las Vegas – with a fair amount of consistency? I can definitely see him being good enough within the next season or two to work his way into the rotation. Where he goes from there is still anyone’s guess.
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LeTherron (Port Huron, Mich.): With New Jersey adding three 7-footers in Lopez, Yi and Krstic and also having four 6-foot-10 players, do you feel this makes them the No. 1 favorite in the East?
Langlois: New Jersey? Not by a long shot. That team is barely trying to conceal its strategy of clearing cap room for a run at LeBron in two summers. Trading Richard Jefferson for Yi leaves the Nets with a gaping hole at small forward. And it’s looking more and more like Krstic won’t be back next season.
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Jason (Grand Rapids, Mich.): I am a huge Rodney Stuckey fan, but if we trade Chauncey Billups who would back up Stuckey? Isn’t it a little risky to hand the keys to the team over to someone who has only had one good season? What if Stuckey got injured again?
Langlois: Before Stuckey was a Piston, what did they do when Chauncey Billups got hurt? They patched it together with Flip Murray and Lindsey Hunter for a while. If All-Stars go down, you’re going to have a dropoff. If the Pistons were to decide the best way to alter the mix was to trade Billups, they would have to find a competent backup point guard somewhere. The free agent market doesn’t have a whole lot to offer. I like Keyon Dooling, but he’s probably going to get more money for a more prominent role elsewhere.
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Josh (Chicago): Two of the free agents the Pistons were reportedly interested in, James Jones and Mickael Pietrus, are now off the market. To acquire James Posey they’d need to offer a substantial multiyear contract and fend off a number of other teams. Is it possible for the Pistons to get any good backup to Rip or Tayshaun any more?
Langlois: If the Pistons come back with the roster as it is, I think they feel OK about their perimeter positions because of the expanded role they foresee for Arron Afflalo and because of the way Rip Hamilton proved he could defend small forwards last season. If Afflalo can handle 20 minutes or so a game, that would free Hamilton to play some at small forward in relief of Prince. You know Rodney Stuckey is going to get 30 minutes a night. That means the load on Billups, Prince and Hamilton can be kept in the low 30s. And it’s also possible that Walter Sharpe will show the Pistons enough in Summer League to work his way into the mix at small forward.
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Richard (Howell, Mich.): Do you ever see Ben Wallace wearing a Pistons jersey again? Do you think Joe D would consider making a move to get him back?
Langlois: Never say never, Richard, but it’s hard to envision the Pistons bringing him back under the present circumstances. He’d be their highest-paid player but a long way from their best player any more, and they already are trying to carve out more minutes for Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson.
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Michael (Modiin, Israel): I really hope Will Bynum does not end up with Detroit. I watched him in Israel and while at times he can be unstoppable – he has an amazing first step and is really athletic – he is not a team player and does not have an ounce of Pistons DNA inside of him. NBA guards will post him up and he will be in foul trouble most of the time. He can also easily be trapped and turns the ball over a lot.
Langlois: I’ll grant you the benefit of having seen him more often than I have, Michael. But I do know Michael Curry speaks highly of him, so that tells me he has something going for him, because Curry has little regard for soft players. Bynum has had his share of highs and lows in Las Vegas. He did have a few turnovers, but also some very nice passes to set up baskets and he busted his backside defensively and showed the ability to be a pest a la Lindsey Hunter. I think the odds are less than 50-50 that he sticks with the Pistons this season, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did – or stuck with another NBA team.
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J.J. (Columbus, Ohio): I’ve seen Earl Calloway play for the Mad Ants about six times and each time he was excellent. I know he’s a streaky shooter and is a bit small, about 5-11, but he makes smart decisions that lead to quality assists, is a hustle defender and is a great option to be the third point guard behind Billups and Stuckey. What’s your opinion and are his rights owned by anyone?
Langlois: I haven’t seen Calloway since he was at the University of Indiana. The problem with players like Calloway is they have to be able to do one thing really well to stick in the NBA. If he was a great defender, or a deadly 3-point shooter, or an unflappable ballhandler – and I mean he does one of those things better than 90 percent of all the other 5-11 point guards populating the D-League – then he’d have a good chance of catching somebody’s eye. But guys like him who do everything pretty well and don’t have any glaring weaknesses have a tough time making it to the NBA.
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Bobby (Seal Beach, Calif.): Will the Pistons sign Deron Washington or will he be traded before the regular season begins?
Langlois: The plan is to stash Washington in Europe for a year or two to see how his game rounds out. Right now he doesn’t have enough offense to stick in the NBA. He’s athletic enough that he might be able to stick, regardless, because he has the potential to develop into a top-flight perimeter defender.
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Dan (Grand Rapids, Mich.): Did Joe Dumars make any attempt to sign Elton Brand before he became a 76er?
Langlois: He had no chance. Brand was going to sign a deal with a starting salary of $12 million or more. In order for the Pistons to get in the running, they would have had to shed almost $20 million worth of contracts – theoretically, they could have entered the bidding for Brand by, say, giving Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince away to teams like Golden State and Memphis who had the cap room to absorb those salaries. That wouldn’t make any sense.
MONDAY, July 14
Kevin (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.): I am officially panicking. I heard that a Toronto newspaper reports that the Pistons are trying to trade for Tracy McGrady. Why? Yes, he’s a terrific player, but he’s always hurt 30 times a year. Why give up two core guys to get him? Joe D said he wanted to bring in a player to take the team to the next level. How is McGrady going to do that? He’s never even taken a team to the second round of the playoffs?
Langlois: Kevin, I’ll let your question represent the 8 million others I got on the subject of the McGrady rumor. Let me start by saying this: I can’t confirm one way or the other the reports that the Pistons and Houston were talking about a McGrady trade that would involve Chauncey Billups or Tayshaun Prince or both, but it’s been pretty roundly rejected by media outlets in both cities. But it wouldn’t surprise me if those teams had talked about McGrady since the season ended. When Joe D said he had talked to 10 or 12 teams and wasn’t talking about anybody’s second- or third-best players, McGrady would have been a logical contender for that list. Why? Because Houston has floundered with the McGrady-Yao pairing and probably feels some urgency to shake up their chemistry in the same way Dumars said he wished to. Would there be an inherent risk in the deal? Absolutely. There usually is. But McGrady is, flat-out, one of the five best pure scorers in the game. If the Pistons were to seriously consider dealing for him, you can bet your bottom dollar that Dumars would have thoroughly vetted McGrady’s health history and ran it past training guru Arnie Kander for his take. As for McGrady’s playoff record, until a month ago Kevin Garnett had gotten his teams out of the first round exactly once in his career. I think it’s silly to put that history on McGrady. For most of his years, he’s been on teams that didn’t have the roster to make much postseason noise. People tend to forget that when McGrady’s Orlando team lost a 3-1 lead to the 2003 Pistons, Detroit was the No. 1 seed and Orlando the No. 8 seed.
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Bingo (Detroit): Are the Pistons planning on shipping Rasheed out? He was clearly the weak link in the playoffs. Something needs to happen. A few other teams in the East are getting better and if they keep the same roster I don’t even think the will make it to the Eastern Conference finals.
Langlois: Bingo, fans need to calm down a little and let the summer play itself out. Kevin Garnett didn’t get traded to Boston until July 31 last summer. Major trades, unless they happen on draft night, usually don’t occur until after the dust settles on free agency, and that hasn’t happened yet. But if the worst-case scenario for the Pistons is status quo, is that so bad? They’ll have a new coach who by every indication is held in high regard by his players and they have several young players who are ready to not just play but make an impact. Yes, the East will be deeper next year, but the Pistons won’t head into next season feeling they’ve been passed by.
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Matt (Windsor, Ontario): What free agents do the Pistons have that they can re-sign without using the mid-level exception? I think Lindsey Hunter is one of them.
Langlois: You’re right, Matt. If Hunter and Theo Ratliff come back for one more season, the Pistons would most likely sign both to veteran’s minimum contracts, which for their years of service would put them somewhere between $1.5 million and $2 million. The good thing about veteran’s minimum deals is that the league picks up a good chunk of the contract and only about half of it counts against the salary cap. It was a provision put in to prevent teams from shunning worthy veterans to sign cheaper young players. Besides the MLE, which was set last week for the coming season at $5.585 million, the Pistons also have the biannual exception to use, which is roughly $2 million. I don’t think they’ll have to use the biannual, though, because if both Hunter and Ratliff return, that puts the roster at 13. And the Pistons probably will sign two veterans with the MLE.
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Steve (Rochester, Mich.): A strong defensive force down low is imperative to stopping someone like Kevin Garnett. Are there any big men left that would sign maybe a low-money, one-year deal like maybe Kwame Brown? The Pistons seem to have a knack for turning good players into All-Stars.
Langlois: Not with the way the roster is presently constituted. If the Pistons bring back Theo Ratliff, they’d be pretty stacked up front with Rasheed Wallace, Antonio McDyess, Jason Maxiell, Amir Johnson and Cheikh Samb – and Maxiell and Johnson, for sure, and Samb, perhaps, are all in line for expanded roles. Besides, Kwame Brown should get more than a low-money, one-year deal. He’s fallen far short of the expectations for a No. 1 pick overall, but considering DeSagana Diop got a full mid-level exception deal, Brown should get something close.
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Scott (Orion Twp., Mich.): Could you explain how salary matching works with trades and what exceptions there are? Also, does Cheikh Samb still weigh195?
Langlois: Scott, there’s not room enough and I don’t have a firm enough grasp of it myself, but whenever I have questions about the minutiae of the salary cap, I go to this http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm Web site. As for Samb, no, he weights considerably more than that now. He’s spent a lot of time in the weight room in the past two years. I’d say he’s probably at about 240 right now. That’s still not a lot of weight on a 7-foot-1 frame, but his upper body, especially, is now pretty solid.
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Marcus (Kalamazoo, Mich.): What are your thoughts on trading for Eddy Curry? What would it take to get him?
Langlois: The Knicks would dump him in a heartbeat. Curry has three years left on his contract – though the final two are at his option. But he isn’t very likely to opt out of those two years, which would pay him more than $21 million, unless he has a monster year next season. And I don’t see Curry as a very good fit for the way Mike D’Antoni likes to play. But the Pistons don’t have $10 million worth of dead weight hanging around to ship to New York to make the deal work.
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Erges (Tirana, Albania): Why does NBA.com use feet and inches instead of meters and centimeters to measure players’ height? Don’t you think it’s an old technique and very uncomfortable for people like me and others living in Europe? Stuckey at Afflalo are both listed at 1.96 meters but it’s clear that Afflalo is 2 or 3 centimeters taller than Stuckey. Rasheed definitely seems to be taller than the 2.1 meters he’s listed at.
Langlois: The NBA is expanding globally, Erges, but it’s still a league with 29 of its 30 franchises in the United States, which doesn’t use the metric system. As for Stuckey and Afflalo, they’re actually pretty close. I’m not sure if it’s exact, but it’s pretty close.
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Natan (Tel Aviv, Israel): It would be insane to trade Chauncey Billups. Stuckey needs the mentoring. It’s too early to put the whole team on his shoulders.
Langlois: If the Pistons trade Chauncey Billups, they’ll get a good player back. And there will be plenty of good players still on the team. They won’t be putting the whole team on Rodney Stuckey’s shoulders. But I disagree that Stuckey needs “mentoring.” He’s ready to shoulder whatever load the Pistons give him.
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Stephen (Clarkston, Mich.): You said in a recent Mailbag that Samb could compete for the spot as fifth big man in the rotation though that role would probably go to Theo Ratliff. Since Theo is up there in age, why not start the season with Samb and then insert Ratliff in February?
Langlois: It’s possible the Pistons would handle Ratliff similarly to the way they used Lindsey Hunter last year, I suppose – keep him with the team but spot his appearances on the active list in order to keep him fresh. But the reason that worked so well with Hunter is he gave the Pistons something truly unique with his harassing on-the-ball defense. Samb gives them a lot of what Ratliff provides – a shot-blocking force and a long, active body defensively. The other part of the equation that can’t be measured right now is how that scenario would appeal to Ratliff.
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Giles (Riverside, Calif.): It makes a lot of sense to sign Josh Childress to the full mid-level exception. If Tayshaun gets involved in a deal – he always seems to be “the sweetener” – it would be like the Pistons are only losing one player in a two-for-one deal and Childress would be tied up at a lower cost than Prince.
Langlois: Sounds good, but it’s hard to imagine a team allowing Childress to get away – he’s a restricted free agent, not unrestricted – for the MLE. Then again, Atlanta might be the team that would do it with an uncertain ownership situation complicated by Josh Smith’s restricted status, as well. Here’s the thing: No one really wants to fork over that type of money to someone it doesn’t know will be a starter. And if Atlanta brings back Josh Smith, Childress would still be coming off its bench. The Pistons wouldn’t want to spend that kind of money on Childress, either, unless it had a prominent role available to him and felt he was up to the responsibility.
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Chris (Detroit): Would a trade with Portland where we send them Chauncey Billups for LaMarcus Aldridge and Steve Blake have potential? That would give us a big man and inside offense and Portland needs a point guard.
Langlois: If I’m Portland, it would be hard to justify trading Aldridge. The Blazers acquired Jerryd Bayless on draft night and are taking a long look at last year’s No. 1 pick, Petteri Koponen, in the Summer League. If the right deal for a point guard came along, I’m sure the Blazers would be interested. But I think they regard Aldridge, Greg Oden and Brandon Roy as fairly untouchable.
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Jose (Lansing, Mich.): I read that Charlotte might entertain the thought of a sign-and-trade for Emeka Okafor. He’s an athletic young center who plays with his back to the basket. I would not mind trading Rasheed for him. He would give the Bobcats an experienced, talented vet to play alongside the young guys on their roster. The only downfall I see is that I don’t know if Larry Brown would want to deal with Rasheed again.
Langlois: Larry Brown famously fell in and out of love with a million players. I’m not sure where he is on Rasheed Wallace at the moment, but he sure gushed love for him during his time in Detroit. I think NBA GMs are sort of lukewarm on Okafor. At the right price, he’s an asset, but he turned down a deal that would have paid him an annual average of more than $12 million before last season began. That’s a lot of money for what Okafor has supplied so far – never mind he’s also had a pretty scary injury history.
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Alex (Grand Rapids, Mich.): How much potential do you see in Cheikh Samb after the scrimmage on Thursday?
Langlois: He can already do a few things – make shots and block shots – well enough to command minutes, Alex. Can he hold his position defensively against NBA low-post players? Can he get out and defend the pick and roll? Can he establish low-post position himself offensively and hit that half-hook he’s developed – which has looked pretty good here in Las Vegas – with a fair amount of consistency? I can definitely see him being good enough within the next season or two to work his way into the rotation. Where he goes from there is still anyone’s guess.
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LeTherron (Port Huron, Mich.): With New Jersey adding three 7-footers in Lopez, Yi and Krstic and also having four 6-foot-10 players, do you feel this makes them the No. 1 favorite in the East?
Langlois: New Jersey? Not by a long shot. That team is barely trying to conceal its strategy of clearing cap room for a run at LeBron in two summers. Trading Richard Jefferson for Yi leaves the Nets with a gaping hole at small forward. And it’s looking more and more like Krstic won’t be back next season.
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Jason (Grand Rapids, Mich.): I am a huge Rodney Stuckey fan, but if we trade Chauncey Billups who would back up Stuckey? Isn’t it a little risky to hand the keys to the team over to someone who has only had one good season? What if Stuckey got injured again?
Langlois: Before Stuckey was a Piston, what did they do when Chauncey Billups got hurt? They patched it together with Flip Murray and Lindsey Hunter for a while. If All-Stars go down, you’re going to have a dropoff. If the Pistons were to decide the best way to alter the mix was to trade Billups, they would have to find a competent backup point guard somewhere. The free agent market doesn’t have a whole lot to offer. I like Keyon Dooling, but he’s probably going to get more money for a more prominent role elsewhere.
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Josh (Chicago): Two of the free agents the Pistons were reportedly interested in, James Jones and Mickael Pietrus, are now off the market. To acquire James Posey they’d need to offer a substantial multiyear contract and fend off a number of other teams. Is it possible for the Pistons to get any good backup to Rip or Tayshaun any more?
Langlois: If the Pistons come back with the roster as it is, I think they feel OK about their perimeter positions because of the expanded role they foresee for Arron Afflalo and because of the way Rip Hamilton proved he could defend small forwards last season. If Afflalo can handle 20 minutes or so a game, that would free Hamilton to play some at small forward in relief of Prince. You know Rodney Stuckey is going to get 30 minutes a night. That means the load on Billups, Prince and Hamilton can be kept in the low 30s. And it’s also possible that Walter Sharpe will show the Pistons enough in Summer League to work his way into the mix at small forward.
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Richard (Howell, Mich.): Do you ever see Ben Wallace wearing a Pistons jersey again? Do you think Joe D would consider making a move to get him back?
Langlois: Never say never, Richard, but it’s hard to envision the Pistons bringing him back under the present circumstances. He’d be their highest-paid player but a long way from their best player any more, and they already are trying to carve out more minutes for Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson.
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Michael (Modiin, Israel): I really hope Will Bynum does not end up with Detroit. I watched him in Israel and while at times he can be unstoppable – he has an amazing first step and is really athletic – he is not a team player and does not have an ounce of Pistons DNA inside of him. NBA guards will post him up and he will be in foul trouble most of the time. He can also easily be trapped and turns the ball over a lot.
Langlois: I’ll grant you the benefit of having seen him more often than I have, Michael. But I do know Michael Curry speaks highly of him, so that tells me he has something going for him, because Curry has little regard for soft players. Bynum has had his share of highs and lows in Las Vegas. He did have a few turnovers, but also some very nice passes to set up baskets and he busted his backside defensively and showed the ability to be a pest a la Lindsey Hunter. I think the odds are less than 50-50 that he sticks with the Pistons this season, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did – or stuck with another NBA team.
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J.J. (Columbus, Ohio): I’ve seen Earl Calloway play for the Mad Ants about six times and each time he was excellent. I know he’s a streaky shooter and is a bit small, about 5-11, but he makes smart decisions that lead to quality assists, is a hustle defender and is a great option to be the third point guard behind Billups and Stuckey. What’s your opinion and are his rights owned by anyone?
Langlois: I haven’t seen Calloway since he was at the University of Indiana. The problem with players like Calloway is they have to be able to do one thing really well to stick in the NBA. If he was a great defender, or a deadly 3-point shooter, or an unflappable ballhandler – and I mean he does one of those things better than 90 percent of all the other 5-11 point guards populating the D-League – then he’d have a good chance of catching somebody’s eye. But guys like him who do everything pretty well and don’t have any glaring weaknesses have a tough time making it to the NBA.
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Bobby (Seal Beach, Calif.): Will the Pistons sign Deron Washington or will he be traded before the regular season begins?
Langlois: The plan is to stash Washington in Europe for a year or two to see how his game rounds out. Right now he doesn’t have enough offense to stick in the NBA. He’s athletic enough that he might be able to stick, regardless, because he has the potential to develop into a top-flight perimeter defender.
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Dan (Grand Rapids, Mich.): Did Joe Dumars make any attempt to sign Elton Brand before he became a 76er?
Langlois: He had no chance. Brand was going to sign a deal with a starting salary of $12 million or more. In order for the Pistons to get in the running, they would have had to shed almost $20 million worth of contracts – theoretically, they could have entered the bidding for Brand by, say, giving Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince away to teams like Golden State and Memphis who had the cap room to absorb those salaries. That wouldn’t make any sense.