Glenn
08-24-2009, 03:40 PM
On the ground floor of a championship retooling
Measuring Sticks
by Keith Langlois
Unless a franchise takes up residency in the lottery for an extended stretch – think Clippers, Sonics/Thunder, Grizzlies, et al – it’s incredibly difficult to add even one player a year good enough to crack an NBA rotation.
Without having sunk to lottery depths since going there eight years ago with the undermanned roster he inherited, Joe Dumars added no fewer than three this summer, and, more likely, anywhere from four to six for the future.
Spend an hour or so scanning the scores of Web sites devoted to NBA basketball and read the various assessments of the off-season’s body of work, and the Pistons sort of get lost in the din created by teams within striking distance of a title run.
I get it. The buzz is generated by what those teams did to escalate the arms race over the summer: Cleveland trading for Shaq, Orlando snagging Vince Carter, the Lakers adding Ron Artest, Boston signing Rasheed Wallace, San Antonio trading for Richard Jeffferson and picking up Antonio McDyess.
It’s the kind of move Joe D himself would have made two or three summers ago, when the Pistons were one of those teams. They aren’t at the moment. Dumars alluded to it when he talked about the type of coach he was looking to hire a few months back – a coach with the temperament to take those first steps back toward title contention.
But let’s get one thing clear: Deciding in July that your wisest course isn’t to add veterans with one or two good seasons left to a young core is hardly an admission of non-competitiveness. Joe D probably didn’t think in July 2003 that a year later he’d be caressing the franchise’s third Larry O’Brien Trophy, either, but he knew he had a nucleus in place that would allow him to seize opportunities to put the Pistons in position to contend somewhere down the road.
Rasheed Wallace was put in play seven months later, and the rest is a history evident in The Palace’s rafters.
That’s where the Pistons are at now. It didn’t make sense for Joe D to allocate his carefully cultivated resources now on wild swings at players like Carter or Artest. Those are the final pieces you pursue when everything else is in place.
It remains to be seen if “everything else” is under Joe D’s roof already. We’ll begin to gather that evidence once the season gets going.
But with a nucleus of Rodney Stuckey (23), Ben Gordon (26) and Charlie Villanueva (25) added to two All-Star-worthy veterans still in their primes in Rip Hamilton (31) and Tayshaun Prince (29) – plus three rookies who showed in Las Vegas that they could be ready to challenge for roles as soon as this season, the near certainty that Will Bynum is still in ascendancy, and the very real possibility that Chris Wilcox will flourish in the first winning NBA environment he’s ever enjoyed – even if they’re a body or two short of “everything else” just yet, their transformation has been remarkably swift and pain-free.
:KING:
And while nothing is quite as exhilarating for fans as celebrating a championship, a close second is going along for the ride and being there from the start.
That’s why this season holds such appeal to so many Pistons fans. As much as they adored the familiar core that made up the Goin’ to Work Pistons that had their finishing touch applied with the Rasheed Wallace trade in February 2004, there’s a palpable excitement in the air – in the volume and tone of traffic I see in Pistons Mailbag entries, in the constant flow of questions and comments about the rookies – for what this team promises.
The payoff doesn’t have to be a deep 2010 playoff run, necessarily, but compelling evidence that the pieces are in place for another four- or five-year run that suggests the same type of anticipation and promise is possible.
Winning is always the best reward a team gives its fans. And Joe D has built a team, on the fly, strong enough to be in solid playoff contention as soon as this season. But success or failure for the Pistons this season will be measured through a different prism than it will be for those teams within striking distance that added the marquee aging veterans of summer.
Here are some of the measuring sticks I’ll be using to gauge the 2009-10 Pistons season:
•Can Ben Gordon fully emerge as one of the NBA’s elite scorers? Can he be the late-game killer consistently he showed he could be last season for Chicago, capped by a brilliant playoff run? Can Gordon and Rip Hamilton mesh where Hamilton and Allen Iverson failed to?
•Can Charlie Villanueva take his terrific second half of 2008-09 and use it as a stepping stone to a career that elevates him to a status among the top 10 at his position? The talent is there. He’s at an age where you’d expect his best basketball for the life of his five-year contract. If Charlie V can approximate the numbers he gave Milwaukee last season consistently for the Pistons, 16 and 7, Joe D got a bargain.
•Will Rodney Stuckey again be the fearless, assertive player with physical attributes not many at his position can match now that the chaos that swirled around him during an incredibly trying second season has dissipated?
•Can Chris Wilcox, removed from the ridiculously hopeless situations he’s endured for each of his first seven seasons in the league (really, the Clippers, Sonics/Thunder and Knicks?), play at a level commensurate with his physical skills? Which means, basically, can Wilcox play well enough to demand heavy frontcourt minutes and separate himself from the field of contenders?
•Can the rookies – one or more from the group of Austin Daye, DaJuan Summers and Jonas Jerebko – find a niche and fill it well enough to earn a role? You can chart a playing rotation filled with quality that doesn’t include anything from the rookies – in fact, we engaged in just that exercise last week – but if Daye can shoot it from deep well enough, or Jerebko’s hustle and athleticism prove invaluable, or Summers’ size and shooting stroke make him the best option for minutes behind Prince, then the Pistons are that much the better for it.
•Even in a backcourt with three potential stars in Gordon, Hamilton and Stuckey, can Bynum do what he does – squirt through openings with the explosion of Barry Sanders and finish at the rim with uncanny consistency – often and well enough to force his way into a permanent role?
The Pistons are going to look and feel much different in the season ahead. They’ll have a new coach, John Kuester, whose offensive expertise plays well to a roster replenished with skilled offensive players in an era that tilts toward offense. It’s a mix that should yield faster-paced, higher-scoring games. That alone should be different and exciting enough to pique fans’ interest.
But keep the theme of the season in mind amid the monitoring of individual achievement and the curiosity over a new playing style: Are we seeing the early steps, as we did in 2003, of a team that’s good enough to put Joe D in position to seize whatever opportunity presents itself for putting the Pistons over the top?
:langlois:
Measuring Sticks
by Keith Langlois
Unless a franchise takes up residency in the lottery for an extended stretch – think Clippers, Sonics/Thunder, Grizzlies, et al – it’s incredibly difficult to add even one player a year good enough to crack an NBA rotation.
Without having sunk to lottery depths since going there eight years ago with the undermanned roster he inherited, Joe Dumars added no fewer than three this summer, and, more likely, anywhere from four to six for the future.
Spend an hour or so scanning the scores of Web sites devoted to NBA basketball and read the various assessments of the off-season’s body of work, and the Pistons sort of get lost in the din created by teams within striking distance of a title run.
I get it. The buzz is generated by what those teams did to escalate the arms race over the summer: Cleveland trading for Shaq, Orlando snagging Vince Carter, the Lakers adding Ron Artest, Boston signing Rasheed Wallace, San Antonio trading for Richard Jeffferson and picking up Antonio McDyess.
It’s the kind of move Joe D himself would have made two or three summers ago, when the Pistons were one of those teams. They aren’t at the moment. Dumars alluded to it when he talked about the type of coach he was looking to hire a few months back – a coach with the temperament to take those first steps back toward title contention.
But let’s get one thing clear: Deciding in July that your wisest course isn’t to add veterans with one or two good seasons left to a young core is hardly an admission of non-competitiveness. Joe D probably didn’t think in July 2003 that a year later he’d be caressing the franchise’s third Larry O’Brien Trophy, either, but he knew he had a nucleus in place that would allow him to seize opportunities to put the Pistons in position to contend somewhere down the road.
Rasheed Wallace was put in play seven months later, and the rest is a history evident in The Palace’s rafters.
That’s where the Pistons are at now. It didn’t make sense for Joe D to allocate his carefully cultivated resources now on wild swings at players like Carter or Artest. Those are the final pieces you pursue when everything else is in place.
It remains to be seen if “everything else” is under Joe D’s roof already. We’ll begin to gather that evidence once the season gets going.
But with a nucleus of Rodney Stuckey (23), Ben Gordon (26) and Charlie Villanueva (25) added to two All-Star-worthy veterans still in their primes in Rip Hamilton (31) and Tayshaun Prince (29) – plus three rookies who showed in Las Vegas that they could be ready to challenge for roles as soon as this season, the near certainty that Will Bynum is still in ascendancy, and the very real possibility that Chris Wilcox will flourish in the first winning NBA environment he’s ever enjoyed – even if they’re a body or two short of “everything else” just yet, their transformation has been remarkably swift and pain-free.
:KING:
And while nothing is quite as exhilarating for fans as celebrating a championship, a close second is going along for the ride and being there from the start.
That’s why this season holds such appeal to so many Pistons fans. As much as they adored the familiar core that made up the Goin’ to Work Pistons that had their finishing touch applied with the Rasheed Wallace trade in February 2004, there’s a palpable excitement in the air – in the volume and tone of traffic I see in Pistons Mailbag entries, in the constant flow of questions and comments about the rookies – for what this team promises.
The payoff doesn’t have to be a deep 2010 playoff run, necessarily, but compelling evidence that the pieces are in place for another four- or five-year run that suggests the same type of anticipation and promise is possible.
Winning is always the best reward a team gives its fans. And Joe D has built a team, on the fly, strong enough to be in solid playoff contention as soon as this season. But success or failure for the Pistons this season will be measured through a different prism than it will be for those teams within striking distance that added the marquee aging veterans of summer.
Here are some of the measuring sticks I’ll be using to gauge the 2009-10 Pistons season:
•Can Ben Gordon fully emerge as one of the NBA’s elite scorers? Can he be the late-game killer consistently he showed he could be last season for Chicago, capped by a brilliant playoff run? Can Gordon and Rip Hamilton mesh where Hamilton and Allen Iverson failed to?
•Can Charlie Villanueva take his terrific second half of 2008-09 and use it as a stepping stone to a career that elevates him to a status among the top 10 at his position? The talent is there. He’s at an age where you’d expect his best basketball for the life of his five-year contract. If Charlie V can approximate the numbers he gave Milwaukee last season consistently for the Pistons, 16 and 7, Joe D got a bargain.
•Will Rodney Stuckey again be the fearless, assertive player with physical attributes not many at his position can match now that the chaos that swirled around him during an incredibly trying second season has dissipated?
•Can Chris Wilcox, removed from the ridiculously hopeless situations he’s endured for each of his first seven seasons in the league (really, the Clippers, Sonics/Thunder and Knicks?), play at a level commensurate with his physical skills? Which means, basically, can Wilcox play well enough to demand heavy frontcourt minutes and separate himself from the field of contenders?
•Can the rookies – one or more from the group of Austin Daye, DaJuan Summers and Jonas Jerebko – find a niche and fill it well enough to earn a role? You can chart a playing rotation filled with quality that doesn’t include anything from the rookies – in fact, we engaged in just that exercise last week – but if Daye can shoot it from deep well enough, or Jerebko’s hustle and athleticism prove invaluable, or Summers’ size and shooting stroke make him the best option for minutes behind Prince, then the Pistons are that much the better for it.
•Even in a backcourt with three potential stars in Gordon, Hamilton and Stuckey, can Bynum do what he does – squirt through openings with the explosion of Barry Sanders and finish at the rim with uncanny consistency – often and well enough to force his way into a permanent role?
The Pistons are going to look and feel much different in the season ahead. They’ll have a new coach, John Kuester, whose offensive expertise plays well to a roster replenished with skilled offensive players in an era that tilts toward offense. It’s a mix that should yield faster-paced, higher-scoring games. That alone should be different and exciting enough to pique fans’ interest.
But keep the theme of the season in mind amid the monitoring of individual achievement and the curiosity over a new playing style: Are we seeing the early steps, as we did in 2003, of a team that’s good enough to put Joe D in position to seize whatever opportunity presents itself for putting the Pistons over the top?
:langlois: