Dante (Grand Rapids): The last four years I’ve been lucky enough to score courtside seats to the Pistons’ preseason game held in Grand Rapids at Van Andel Arena. Sure, it’s a preseason game and you might not see the visiting teams’ stars. Who cares? We’re there to see the Pistons’ future and their starters get a decent amount of playing time. My question is if you know if the Pistons will return to Grand Rapids next year? (P.S. – Tell Tayshaun I’m going to see him again next year if they come and nail that 3-pointer. He let me shoot two really long 3-pointers from my seat during halftime warmups.)
Langlois: Start working now on scoring courtside seats for a fifth straight year, Dante. The Pistons will play San Antonio in Grand Rapids next year. The date will be announced in August. And be happy it was Tayshaun who let you shoot the 3-pointer. If it had been Rasheed, he’d have turned it into a high-stakes contest – and, somehow, you’d have lost.
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Ben (Salt Lake City): I happen to like Flip Murray a lot. He makes exciting plays and can put up some points. I’m glad we have him on the roster. But he seems to be inconsistent. What is the likelihood of the Pistons being involved in trade talk and who would be most likely to go at this point?
Langlois: Aside from trying to find a taker for someone toward the end of the roster so the Pistons don’t have to swallow one of their 16 contracts to get down to the max of 15 by the season opener, I doubt Joe Dumars has much interest in doing a trade right now. With the news that Charlotte will be without Adam Morrison this season, it’s possible the Bobcats will be on the lookout for a backup small forward – and the Pistons have one in Ronald Dupree. If you were linking Flip Murray to trade talk, it probably would be pretty easy for the Pistons to move Murray if they chose to. He’s on the last year of a very reasonable contract and he’s had a strong preseason – that’s a pretty good formula for attractive trade bait. But the Pistons see Murray as valuable insurance at point guard should either Chauncey Billups or Rodney Stuckey go down for any length of time – and Stuckey’s going to be out a while now after breaking his hand Wednesday night – so they’re not eager to move him.
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Jason: Will Kobe even be traded? It seems the Mavs won’t trade Nowitzki and no other team has much to offer. Can the Pistons trade Hamilton, Prince and Maxiell for Kobe?
Langlois: I didn’t think Kobe was very likely to be dealt until Lakers owner Jerry Buss reignited the possibility – a big mistake – in talking to a Los Angeles Times reporter during training camp. Now? It’s a 50-50 proposition. I still don’t think it’s going to be very easy to get something done because I’m sure the Lakers, when it comes time to pull the trigger, are going to want too much to make it a worthwhile deal. I disagree that other teams don’t have much to offer. I think the Pistons could put together a package that would leave them with enough left to make a title run. You can lump Phoenix, Chicago and Dallas into that category, too. But I wouldn’t expect the Pistons to get involved.
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Mohammed (Canton): I think the Pistons still need good interior defense and the one player I think would be a match is Marcus Camby. How about McDyess and Mohammed for Camby and a second-round pick.
Langlois: The problem with Camby is durability, Mohammed. He missed 12 games last season – and that was a great season, by his standards. It was only the second time in his 11-year career he’s suited up for as many as 70 games. He’s played fewer than 60 games four times. And you want to trade two big men for him? (Never mind that the trade you propose wouldn’t work under salary-cap limitations.) That would leave the Pistons critically thin up front. I know – now I’ll get flooded with suggestions that they run out and sign Chris Webber. Remember: The Pistons are $400,000 under the luxury-tax threshold.
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Shirley (Goodrich): Joe Dumars has made a lot of errors and one was trading Jerry Stackhouse. He is playing very well with Dallas as the sixth man. Dallas knows a good player when they see him and they also want Chris Webber. I don’t believe Rasheed is happy as the center – he is a power forward. The team needs Chris Webber back.
Langlois: Dumars would certainly admit that he’s made mistakes. It’s the nature of the job, Shirley. Every GM who’s been on the job for a few years or more can tick off a handful of moves he wishes he had back. But trading Stackhouse is certainly not one that Dumars – or anyone else, for that matter – would consider a mistake. You do recall that Dumars got Rip Hamilton in that trade, right? And that Hamilton has been the leading scorer of the team for all five years since he arrived – seasons that ended with the Pistons advancing at least to the conference finals all five years and winning the franchise’s first NBA title since the Bad Boys era? And that he’s been an All-Star the last two years? Stackhouse is still a fine player, but there’s not a GM in the NBA who’d take him over Hamilton. As for Rasheed at center, Rasheed’s role hasn’t really changed. It’s Antonio McDyess who’ll be guarding most of the few true post players (Shaq, Dwight Howard, Eddy Curry) still left. Yeah, Wallace will end up doing a little more of that than in the past, I suppose, but he’s on the record saying he’ll play wherever asked.
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Byron (Detroit): Who on the current roster do you see being a mainstay for many years to come?
Langlois: I assume you mean beyond the starters, each of whom already has roots sunk pretty deeply. The Pistons like the young nucleus in place behind them – Rodney Stuckey, Arron Afflalo, Amir Johnson, Jason Maxiell and Cheikh Samb. Stuckey and Johnson are the two players that seem to have star potential, so right now I’d pick them as likeliest to stick the longest with Maxiell right there behind them.
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Dave (Sterling Heights): I’m still not convinced the Pistons have made enough off-season moves to affect the “complacency” of which Joe Dumars spoke last spring. I feel the bench might be better, but we will win and lose with our starters. Watching Rasheed get T’d up already in the preseason and watching our effort vs. teams like Dallas and San Antonio sure feels a lot like last year. Tell me I’m wrong.
Langlois: What I’ll tell you is that you’re basing your conclusions on flimsy evidence, Dave. Don’t read anything into preseason road losses where rookies and end-of-bench players are handed significant roles and 10 percent of offensive and defensive schemes are in play. You’re half right in saying the Pistons will win and lose with their starters. Yeah, their starters need to play better than the other teams’ starters. But if the bench can hold its own and win more battles than it did a year ago, the Pistons’ starters won’t have to outplay their counterparts by quite as wide a margin this time around.
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Bruce (Windsor): With Amir not playing a single minute this preseason until the finale, would we expect not to see him playing many minutes at all in the beginning of the season? Does his lack of experience put him in the back of the lineup behind Maxey and Nazr at least for a while?
Langlois: Nobody knows the answer to that just yet, Bruce. It didn’t help his cause to miss 17 days, for sure. But how much it sets him back remains to be seen. In addition to getting his feet wet in Wednesday night’s preseason finale – he looked much more comfortable in his second-half stint than in the first half – Amir now has a week of practice to state his case. It’s probably fair to assume he’s the third big guy off the bench for now, definitely behind Jason Maxiell in the pecking order and possibly trailing Nazr Mohammed, too, although I think how Johnson and Mohammed get used is probably going to come down to who the opponent is that night, at least initially.
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Preston (Muskegon): I read about Amir Johnson’s return on Pistons.com and how he averaged 18.5 points, 9.7 rebounds and 3.1 blocked shots in the D-League while shooting 63 percent … so why is he not a starter? If the Spurs were trying to get Amir, to met that says something about the youngster.
Langlois: Why is he not starting? Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess, who put up their numbers in the NBA. It does say something, Preston, that San Antonio was so hot after Amir. Trust me, other NBA teams noted San Antonio’s interest and – out of respect for Spurs management’s personnel track record – put in calls to Amir’s agent, as well. That’s a big part of the reason Amir wound up with the contract he got despite limited exposure to the NBA. But he’s not right now a better player than Wallace and McDyess. Two years from now, all bets are off.
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Kartik: I was wondering if you had an explanation for why the Pistons are not among the elite in terms of field-goal percentage. Is it because of the tighter defense and style of play in the Eastern Conference? Is it because they expend more energy on defense that their offense is affected?
Langlois: Those are two likely factors, Kartik. Another is that the Pistons don’t have a true post-up player and those guys usually shoot a much higher percentage than jump shooters for obvious reasons. The Pistons shot 45.4 percent last year and that was 20th in the 30-team league. But every offensive statistic must be studied in context. Of the 19 teams that ranked ahead of the Pistons, seven of them didn’t make the playoffs. If you’re going to pull out one stat other than records to put some stock into, make it point differential. The Pistons finished sixth in the league last year.
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Gil (Charlotte, N.C.): I hate hearing a player described as the “next so and so,” but in watching Jason Maxiell I couldn’t help but recall the first half of Larry Johnson’s career. I don’t know if Maxiell will ever be an All-Star like LJ, but his game has more than a passing resemblance to Johnson’s pre-back injury career.
Langlois: In that they were both explosive and strong if undersized players around the rim, you’re absolutely right, Gil. Here’s another link in common – they both grew up in Dallas and played for college coaches who were always suspected of running afoul of NCAA violations. I think LJ was always a pretty good perimeter shooter, though, and Maxiell is only now gaining some consistency on his 15-foot face-up jumper. Johnson also had pretty good ball skills – he averaged four-plus assists in several seasons and could create plays for himself. I’m not sure Maxiell can develop the all-around package that Johnson had, but if he can match Johnson in one or two areas that will be enough for him to leave a pretty big impression on the NBA.
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