Philip (Munising): Do you really think Theo Ratliff can help? I remember him as a frisky young player but have no idea what he has left.

Langlois: Between injuries and playing on some awful teams – the last winning team Ratliff played on was Philadelphia, when he was traded from the 76ers to Atlanta in 2001 just before Philly made it to the NBA Finals that season – Ratliff has been far from the spotlight for a long time. But all reports on Ratliff are that he’s still a guy who can score from inside 15 feet, defend, rebound and block shots. I’m not saying he’s going to be the first big man off the bench, but he’s got a better shot at working his way into the rotation than Dale Davis or Jamaal Magloire would have.
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Kevin (Bloomfield Hills): I thought a player had to be on a team's roster by March 1 to be eligible for the playoffs, yet we have guys like Brent Barry, Theo Ratliff and Sam Cassell who will join teams after that. What’s the scoop?

Langlois: They had to be waived by their former teams before March 1. Once that happens, a team can sign a waived player any time before the end of the regular season and he’d be eligible for the playoffs.
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Alex (Troy): I know the Pistons want to get Rodney Stuckey ready for the playoffs, but he’s hot and cold. From what I saw in the Clippers game, Juan Dixon is ready to step up and really help. What are the chances of Stuckey splitting minutes with Dixon?

Langlois: There are six weeks left in the regular season to make Stuckey more hot than cold for the playoffs. Ultimately, it’s a results-oriented business, Alex, but I’d be more than a little surprised if Stuckey isn’t the first guard off the bench come playoff time.
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Andre (Detroit): Will P.J. Brown help the Celtics more than Theo Ratliff will help the Pistons?

Langlois: Flip a coin, Andre. My first hunch is to say Brown is a bigger signing because the Celtics have a greater need, but Glen Davis and Leon Powe are playing pretty well, actually. Ratliff, though he’s been hurt, at least has been with an NBA team all year and has been healthy and playing for the last few weeks, so he should be a leg up on Brown as far as being in basketball shape. They’re both nice insurance policies.
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Clifford (Detroit): With Sam Cassell on his way to Boston, do you see Chauncey, Rodney or Lindsey having any trouble against a 38-year-old point guard in the playoffs?

Langlois: For what the Celtics are going to ask of Cassell, he’s a good signing. Sam moved like he was 38 when he was 28, so I wouldn’t make too much of his age. He’s always gotten by more on savvy and fearlessness than amazing physical skills.
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Oriel (Panama): I saw that Antoine Walker is seeking a buyout. He’d be an interesting pickup for the Pistons – another scoring option from the bench, an energy guy and a person who wants a ring

Langlois: Energy guy? Antoine Walker has been called many things, but “energy guy” – that’s a new one. First time I ever saw him, he was going into this senior year of high school and playing at one of the shoe company’s All-Star camps. Every time one of his teammates jacked up a shot that could have been his, he pouted and made sure everyone knew how displeased he was. The guy once was talented enough to tolerate his selfish play and sour attitude. Not anymore. Besides, the buyout didn’t happen.
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Digger (Farmington Hills): I’m so frustrated by the loss to the Jazz. I can handle losing a game, but the way they lost – chucking it up wildly, not driving to the basket – I fear is a pattern that will come back to haunt them in the playoffs.

Langlois: Flip Saunders says it after almost every loss – the Pistons get in trouble when they stand around on offense as players take it upon themselves to go one-on-one. I know it sounds easy – call timeout and remind them what they’re doing and what happens when they do it. But basketball games tend to take on a life of their own. When momentum turns, defenses seem able to dictate to offenses how they’re going to play, as counterintuitive as that seems. If I could figure it out any better than that, I’d be coaching somewhere and getting rich doing it.
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Sean (West Bloomfield): Why was Amir not in the game against Utah? I’ve raved to my friends about him and now they can’t wait until he gets in games, either. We lost that game because we lost our focus but also because Amir didn’t get to play. Mehmet Okur got hot because Rasheed was too tired to defend him late in the game. If that’s how Flip is going to handle his bench during the regular season, how will he handle it in the postseason?

Langlois: You weren’t the only fan riled that Amir didn’t get into the Utah game, Sean. Amir Fever runs high. There’s no question that almost all coaches have a much greater degree of confidence in veterans. During the ABC telecast of the Suns game last Sunday, Jeff Van Gundy – a coach by trade – openly speculated that Saunders would be tempted to use Juan Dixon and Lindsey Hunter over his rookie backcourt in the playoffs. My guess is that you won’t see Saunders let Johnson sit out a whole game again during the regular season, but I can’t say how he’ll react once the playoffs arrive. That’s going to be one of the most intriguing things about the postseason to monitor.
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Marvin (Richmond, Va.): The Utah game was a prime example of why fans worry about Flip – he coached the game plan instead of the game. With Rasheed having a bad game, it would have been a perfect time to use Amir. Could this be a red flag with Flip’s reluctance to use the bench in big games?

Langlois: Probably a combination of factors at work in that game, Marvin. First, Utah is a very tough place to play, especially for young players. Second, the Pistons had the next two days off and Saunders probably figured he could use his starters for longer minutes. No matter how strong the bench is, starters are going to play more minutes in the playoffs – that’s true for everybody. There are no back-to-backs and the stakes are higher. So it’s not a bad thing to push the starters closer to 40 minutes every now and then in the regular season to give them a feel for what that’s like. Third, the Pistons played zone extensively in that game and maybe he felt Amir wasn’t as in tune with that as others. And fourth, when it would have been time to bring him into the game in both the second and fourth quarters, Utah was making a move. I wouldn’t read too much into it unless it became a pattern. Saunders has since said it was a mistake to not use him.
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Mohammed (Canton): If the Pistons don’t re-sign any of their own free agents when the season ends, would they have enough money to sign Corey Maggette?

Langlois: Only if Maggette wants to take a pay cut. Unless the Pistons do some radical surgery, the best they can offer to any free agent will be their mid-level exception, which last year was roughly $5.3 million and probably won’t change much this year. He has an opt-out clause in his contract for next season, when he’s due to make $7 million. If Maggette opts out, it won’t be for an MLE deal.
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Dan (Venice, Calif.): Born and raised in Detroit and root only for Detroit teams. My question is about Rodney Stuckey – seems able to get to the basket at will but struggles to finish. Like a jump shooter who works on his J, will Rodney get better or is it a matter of lacking that next level of freakish athleticism like Dwyane Wade?

Langlois: Please tell me you don’t suck your energy core dry rooting for the Lions, Dan. Stuckey: Yes, he’ll definitely get better at it. He’ll also get better at shooting his jump shot, which will help. Keep in mind that rookie point guards struggle as surely as rookie quarterbacks do. It’s extremely rare for point guards to make the transition to the NBA seamlessly. Stuckey’s transition was greater than most because he was relied on so heavily as a scorer at Eastern Washington.
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Donald: I shake my head at some of the trade proposals in Mailbag. If you could trade table scraps for an All-Star it would be great. What do you think the Pistons will do from a personnel standpoint for next year, assuming they have a good playoff run?

Langlois: Assuming a good playoff run, they probably won’t do any major surgery. Joe Dumars resisted that notion a year ago when the public and media clamored for it, so it wouldn’t follow that after having shored up his bench with young players that he’d tear things apart after seeing his vision come to life. Now … if the Pistons go out in the second round this year and Dumars senses something more needs to be done, all bets are off. But there’s no big issue on his desk that we see coming at this point of the season, unlike the past two seasons when the contracts of Ben Wallace and Chauncey Billups were coming up.
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Nima (Windsor): During the Phoenix game, Mark Jackson said the Pistons will only lose to a team that has no business beating them, like Cleveland. Do you think there is any truth to that?

Langlois: Gross overstatement, Nima. Yeah, the Pistons were a better team than Cleveland last spring and should have beaten them, but for whatever reason they couldn’t muster enough collective willpower, after seemingly exhausting themselves in the Chicago series, to match what Cleveland threw at them. But the two years previous to that, they lost in Game 7 to a great San Antonio team and in Game 7 to a Miami team with two terrific players, one of them (Dwyane Wade) playing at an unbelievable level. So don’t make too much of Jackson’s assessment, a pretty careless one.
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Tyler (Norfolk, Va.): When Lindsey Hunter is activated for the playoffs, I see Flip being able to use a lineup of Hunter and Afflalo in the backcourt with Prince and any two of the four big men up front. Not a lot of offense, but I don’t see anyone scoring against that lineup.

Langlois: In short spurts, a perimeter group of Hunter, Afflalo and Prince definitely has something to offer defensively. But if you’re the opposing coach, I’m not sure you mind seeing Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton on the bench, either.
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K.J. (Southfield): Cheikh Samb I listed at 245 pounds on the Mad Ants’ Web site. Is that correct?

Langlois: Probably in the ballpark. He’s listed at 215 pounds in the Pistons’ media guide, but that’s a weight from more than a year ago. He was listed at 195 pounds in various places when the Pistons got him on draft night 2006, but I was told at the time he was 215. Then last year, when he was rehabbing an injury in Spain, Pistons executive Tony Ronzone told me Samb had seriously dedicated himself to the weight room and had added 20 or 25 pounds of muscle. He’s continued to add good weight since. He’s 7-foot-1, so 240 pounds or so still isn’t going to make him look like Shaq. His upper body is actually pretty well-defined. He needs to add lower-body strength, but we’re not talking about a Manute Bol or Chuck Nevitt here.
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Ziga (Slovenia): If Utah gets to the Finals, we would lose in four games. Why do we have such problems with Utah?

Langlois: Two games a year is too small a sample size for me to draw too much out of the Pistons’ recent history with the Jazz. If they get to the Finals, I’d be willing to wager Utah wouldn’t sweep.
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Harsh (Rochester): The starters looked exhausted and shaky against Utah. Those are the games the Pistons should be winning, not taking comfort in blowouts of Phoenix. Can the rookies win us games?

Langlois: Rookies can help win games for the Pistons by playing as error-free as possible when they’re in there, holding down the fort and allowing the starters to get six or seven minutes of rest as a time instead of three or four. Makes a big difference. But let’s not kid ourselves. The Pistons probably can overcome bad games from Rodney Stuckey and Arron Afflalo. They can’t overcome bad games from Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton against good teams.
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Gary (Waxahachie, Texas): Does Detroit have what it takes to beat Boston in a seven-game series? I know Detroit is deeper than Boston, but can they match up with Garnett, Pierce and Allen night in and night out? I’m a die-hard Pistons fan and have been since I was born, but I just don’t see a great chance that they can beat Boston unless Detroit plays on some kind of ungodly level.

Langlois: I think just a regular old godly level will do just fine, Gary. I think it’ll be a great series, if it happens. No guarantee of that, either. If Boston and Cleveland meet in the second round, that has a real chance to be a highly competitive series that could go either way. The Pistons would go into a series with Boston feeling good about their chances. They respect the Celtics a great deal, but there’s no intimidation factor there. The Pistons truly believe they’re the better, deeper team, with more answers than the Celtics have questions.
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Bryan (Britton): George and Special K have always presented themselves as knowledgeable professionals. How do their peers regard them?

Langlois: Never heard a disparaging word uttered about either one of them, Bryan, but I must confess I don’t go polling the radio and TV guys about their favorite peers.
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Jody (Canton): I’ve been hearing a lot lately that we should trade Tayshaun Prince. Am I the only one who has seen what he’s been doing lately?

Langlois: I think the correct answer is “no.” I haven’t sensed any clamoring to dump him. Joe Dumars isn’t a sentimental GM, so he’s not going to keep anybody on the roster just because he drafted him or helped win a title here. If he thinks he can upgrade the roster at any position, he’ll do it. That’s his job. But I don’t think he’s the least bit dissatisfied with Prince – and his opinion is the only one that matters.