Can you jumpshoot your way to an NBA Championship?

[Glenn]

With little-to-no inside presence?

Is it possible?

[Fool]

We've done this before. There's been one team in history that has done it IIRC.

[Cross]

We can be the 2nd. Sheed dice all take outside shots and even max is developing a 15 foot jumper.

[Zekyl]

When we won last time we had Corliss going inside. I can't think of anyone else we had that was an inside presence though.

[Cross]

I don;t think you could call Ben a presence, even if he had that one 29 point game in the playoffs vs the 76ers

[Zekyl]

The one where no one really guarded him and he got a ton of dunks and putbacks? I'm just guessing here, because that's the only way I can imagine him getting more than 15 points.

[Wilfredo Ledezma]

I don;t think you could call Ben a presence, even if he had that one 29 point game in the playoffs vs the 76ers

Yeah but he could grab offensive boards thus giving us tons of second chance scoring opportunites...

this summer, we better get an inside scorer, and move dyess back to the bench where he belongs...IMO

[Glenn]

I think Joe tried to address this issue through the draft with Maxiell, and that looks like a major success, but it's just not enough.

When jumpers stop falling, this team is dead in the water, especially since they can't stop dribble penetration.

[yargs]

You can win with a jump shooting team if you have a guy that can dominate the defensive end of the floor (especially a guy that can secure defensive rebounds). Just look at the history of this franchise. Before it was Dennis Rodman (who needs to be in the Hall of Fame. He's one of the most dominant defensive players to ever play the game) and eventually it became Ben Wallace (who was the most important player on the Detroit Pistons 2004 team). The 89/90 championship teams were jump shooting teams.

Rodman was so good Chuck Daly was playing him to close out games as early as his rookie season and evantually was starting at the 3 over aguirre in 1990.

Chuck Daly recognizes the value of a Dennis Rodman. Flip Saunders would have played a guy that can hit a jump shot over him.

That team's rise to greatness coincided with the rise of Dennis Rodman. The energy he brought to both ends of the floor was a major reason for this team's past success (energy players are important despite what some people think) Dennis Rodman is severely under-rated.

Same thing with Ben Wallace (although he's not quite as good as Rodman).

The pistons lack this presence this season which is why they will not win with this current lineup.

[WTFchris]

The problem is we do have a dominate inside presence - offensively. He just refuses to play there. If Sheed would decide to operate in the post (at least in the playoffs) more, we'd be getting a lot more high % shots.

I put this on Flip. Sheed relishes in putting on a clinic in the post, but he defers too often. Flip needs to call plays to utilize that weapon more.