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MONDAY, December 29, 2008
Tony (Los Angeles): I believe the Pistons can be great once they learn how to use Iverson. Everybody talks about putting Iverson on the bench, but you can’t put a 13-year veteran with the third-highest scoring average in league history on the bench. It would be great to put Hamilton on the bench. He’ll still be productive. I also think the Pistons need a veteran point guard to back up Stuckey.
Langlois: I understand where people are coming from on this issue, but I think it’s much hand-wringing over not much. Iverson and Hamilton are both going to be on the floor at the end of games, at least most nights. They have to be able to play together if the Pistons are going to be the team they hope to be. There won’t be any critical minutes of Pistons games all season where at least one of them isn’t on the floor, so the argument that bringing Hamilton off the bench would give the Pistons a scorer with their second unit is moot – because, in effect, either Hamilton or Iverson will always be on the floor with whatever the second unit is these days. As for the veteran point guard, again, what would his role be? The Pistons like Will Bynum well enough, but unless they can find somebody who’s good enough to take minutes away from their other perimeter players – Rodney Stuckey, Hamilton, Iverson, even Arron Afflalo – what would be the point?
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Dawn (Allendale, Mich.): I understand the big man situation. I’m just curious how players like Herrmann and Bynum keep the faith that they will get to play again? I only mention those two because they had semi-regular playing time earlier in the season.
Langlois: Players who have to fight for minutes every day have to take a big-picture perspective. Sure, they could get frustrated, bitter or despondent. But those aren’t the attributes an NBA organization will tolerate from role players. It’s a pretty lucrative job to be an NBA player – even a 15th man – and those lucky enough to hold them better prepare themselves every day as if they’re one play away from being needed by their team. Because if they don’t, there are thousands of players toiling in leagues not 10 percent as lucrative who’d jump at the chance to carry an NBA team’s equipment bags.
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Jeff (Cincinnati): Tayshaun’s not a four. Put him back at small forward or make a trade of one of the small guys. Put Maxiell in at the four and let him play. I watched him for four years at Cincinnati and he could help this team so much if they just let him play.
Langlois: Michael Curry knows Maxiell as well as anyone and appreciates what he brings, but he’s said in the past that he thinks Maxiell’s minutes have to be used wisely because he plays so hard as an undersized power forward that he wears down. It’s quite possible that Maxiell’s career niche will be coming off the bench for 20 minutes or so a game. If he does that effectively, he’ll be in the league a long time. As for Prince, the Pistons feel that the way the league has trended the past few years, he can hold up quite nicely at power forward for the first eight to 10 minutes of the first and third quarters.
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Jamar (Pontiac, Mich.): Is it true that Rip Hamilton is being traded by Feb. 19 to Utah for Carlos Boozer? Will that trade get the Pistons to the Finals?
Langlois: I’m guessing you’re referring to an article by Chris McCoskey of The Detroit News, who wasn’t suggesting that trade was being discussed – only that it was a swap that might make sense for both teams. Utah is legitimately concerned about losing Boozer as a free agent after the season and he’d give the Pistons a great low-post scoring threat and Utah has been surviving nicely without him because of the terrific production it’s getting from Paul Millsap. But the Pistons wouldn’t trade a valuable commodity like Hamilton on the hope they could retain Boozer at the end of the season. In fact, if the Pistons want Boozer, they’ll be one of the very few teams at season’s end that will have the cap space to go after him.
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Sid (Eugene, Ore.): We’ve read from Pistons officials and you saying that the Pistons need more time to adjust to Allen Iverson, but Denver is doing much better since the trade and faced the same challenge of changing once the season had begun. What explains these different results given the same challenges?
Langlois: It’s a fair question, Sid. I’ve tried to address it in different ways, but here goes again. Just because the teams swapped guards doesn’t mean they’re facing the same challenge. Denver inserted a veteran, savvy, prototypical point guard into its lineup and removed a go-to scorer. Many assumed from the get-go that it would help Denver immediately because it would allow Carmelo Anthony to assume the role he seems well-suited for – the undisputed go-to guy instead of the co-star. Think of it as if an NFL team, after two years of experimenting with a spread-option quarterback that was built, except for that one position, to play a pro-style system, reverting to form with a classic dropback quarterback. And the Pistons went the other way – dropping a spread-option QB into an offense that had been accustomed to playing a classic pro-style system. Since then, the Pistons have experimented further and asked different things of pretty much all of their central characters. If it sounds like a copout, sorry, but the truth is the Pistons are facing challenges with far greater dimensions than Denver has. Denver might not be playing any better in April than it is now, which isn’t a knock – the Nuggets are playing well and will be a formidable playoff opponent. The Pistons think they’ll be playing far better in April. We’ll see how it all plays out.
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Abdi (Toronto): Do you think there’s a chance of the Pistons and Lakers meeting in the Finals? Detroit already showed it could beat Cleveland and the Lakers are definitely the Western power. Imagine how dangerous the Pistons could be a month from now.
Langlois: Right now the Lakers are the safest pick of all NBA teams to reach the Finals. Cleveland and Boston might be as good or better, but only one team can get out of the East – and Orlando is going to give somebody a good tussle in the second round, assuming the top three seeds hold in the East. The Pistons will have a very tough time doing any better than the No. 4 seed – and that’s OK, as long as they go into the postseason feeling they’re playing their best basketball. The East playoffs are going to be pretty competitive this season. It’s too soon to say the Pistons are going to be a legitimate threat when the postseason arrives, but it would be equally foolish to write off their chances at this point.
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Ronnie (Detroit): Chauncey is playing like an animal in Denver, but let’s be honest with ourselves – that’s not the same Chauncey that was in Detroit. If he played as hard here as he is playing there, he’d still be here. I mean, sometimes you don’t always lose the same player that the trade you traded with gains.
Langlois: Well put, Ronnie. Trades often have a rejuvenating effect on a player’s career – or, perhaps just as often, a dampening effect. The trade to Denver obviously has agreed with Billups. He is playing as well as he did in 2005-06, when he was in the MVP discussion for much of the season. Would he have been playing that way if the Pistons hadn’t traded him? No one will ever be able to say for sure. But the inescapable truth is this: It was going to be impractical for Billups to finish his career in Detroit with Rodney Stuckey’s emergence. The salary cap era would have made it imprudent for Joe Dumars to keep both players around and tie up that much money in his backcourt when he needed to find a bigger role for Stuckey. If you can allocate the resources he had tied up in Billups to the frontcourt while Stuckey is still on his rookie contract, the Pistons should be better off. That has a chance to happen much sooner now with the trade because of Allen Iverson’s expiring contract and the flexibility it provides Dumars.
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Keith (Tampa): The Pistons need to make another move – trade either Rip or AI. What do you think?
Langlois: I wouldn’t count on it. Not saying it definitely won’t happen – anything is possible if the right deal comes along. But I do not think Joe Dumars will be out there shopping either player. He wants to let the Iverson experiment run its course to see what he can provide this year’s team and, even if it comes to the end of the season and it hasn’t produced the results he hoped, then he has Iverson’s expiring contract as ammunition for a bold move next summer. And Hamilton gives the Pistons a pure scorer going forward. If you trade him, you’d be looking for the same thing coming back.
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Lee (Durham, N.C.): Do you think Joe D should trade Prince for Lamar Odom since this team cannot win anything? That would surely give us much greater flexibility this summer and help the Lakers?
Langlois: There’s something to be said for flexibility, Lee, but the $22 million in cap space the Pistons will have when the summer arrives is enough to do something dramatic. Unless Joe D thinks Odom can give him what Prince does and would be interested in retaining him long term – Odom will be a free agent next summer – then it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me given Prince’s contract, which is more than reasonable for the production and versatility he provides.
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Darren (Miami): It looks to me that officials are doing everything in their power to get Rasheed to the 15-technical limit. His last barrage of techs has been bogus. Why was he given one in the Bulls game?
Langlois: Good question. Nobody on press row I talked to saw or heard anything that warranted the tech. When it was administered, Wallace yelled to Michael Curry to ask the official why it was called. He was still muttering about it in the locker room after the game. Rasheed isn’t an innocent, but a lot of the technicals he gets today are the result of a reputation he fostered a decade ago. He’s a naturally loud and demonstrative player who is put on a much shorter leash than almost anyone else in the NBA.
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James (San Bernardino, Calif.): How much longer do you think Rasheed Wallace will remain as effective as he is? He seems to do most of his damage on the 3-point line and with mid-range jumpers.
Langlois: If Rasheed chooses to continue to play, NBA teams will be lining up for his services for several more seasons. But he’s 34. His days as a 35-minute performer consistently are probably a thing of the past. He said himself recently that he’s not as fast as he once was. In a few more years, he’ll probably be better suited to 20 to 25 minutes. Rasheed is such a heady player and has such a well-rounded skill set that contenders looking to plug a certain area – somebody always needs a good rebounder, or a big man who can shoot, or someone who can defend the post for five minutes here and there – will be after him until he’s 40 if he wants to play that long. Look at how many options P.J. Brown had at 38 last spring when he decided he wanted to play again. And P.J. Brown was never Rasheed Wallace.
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Josh (Hsinchu, Taiwan): Before the question, I just want to give you credit for having faith in Stuckey when I was doubting his jumper. Now considering that this could be the best draft position the Pistons have had since they took Stuckey, which prospect do you find most intriguing at around the 20th pick?
Langlois: Unless you see something fundamentally flawed in a young player’s shot, the easiest projection to make about someone coming from college to the pros – especially if they’re coming to the NBA ahead of schedule – is that their shooting range will expand a little bit for each of their first several seasons if they work at it. And Stuckey works very hard at it. When you look at Stuckey and think about him as a high school and college player, it’s easy to imagine that he simply didn’t have to rely very much on a deep jump shot. With his quickness, ballhandling ability and strength, Stuckey surely got inside the defense at will in high school and almost that often at Eastern Washington. When players get to the NBA and those paths get cut off far more often, they by necessity start emphasizing their jump shot. Stuckey has good form. So does Arron Afflalo. He, too, is going to become a real perimeter scoring threat because, like Stuckey, he works at it like crazy. As for next year’s draft, I would expect the Pistons to concentrate on young big men and wing players. One thing about the Pistons’ recent drafts is they’ve shown they’ll take very polished college players (Jason Maxiell, Afflalo) or players with very high ceilings (Amir Johnson, Walter Sharpe). So it would be pure speculation at this point when teams are just watching and absorbing and not yet classifying.
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Daniel (New York City): Is Allen Iverson past his prime?
Langlois: He’s 33, so there would be no shame in it if he was no longer capable of doing everything he did consistently at 27 or 23. But he was 32 last season and he scored 27 points a game, so the more logical conclusion to explain the drop in his scoring average this season is that he’s now playing on a team with more legitimate scoring options than he’s ever had at his flanks. When Joe Dumars made the trade, he talked about Iverson with Nuggets assistant Adrian Dantley, Joe D’s former teammate and friend. Dantley called Iverson a freak of nature and compared him to former Redskins cornerback Darrell Green, who remained among the NFL’s fastest men into his late 30s.
