Pistons are "Stuck" in Last Place
Joe Dumars is a Hall of Famer who won two NBA championships as a player and one championship as an executive; there is no doubt that he understands what it takes to win at the highest level, which makes his apparently undying belief in Rodney Stuckey all the more baffling: Dumars essentially got rid of three All-Stars (Chauncey Billups, Allen Iverson and Richard Hamilton) in order to hand the keys to the car to Stuckey, who has proceeded to drive the Pistons straight to the bottom of the standings. The Pistons missed the playoffs in each of the past three seasons and they are currently 1-8, sitting in last place in the Central Division and ranking ahead of only the 0-7 Washington Generals--I mean Washington Wizards--among the league's 30 teams.If you click here for NBA betting at Top Bet you will see that the oddsmakers think that even the Dwight Howard-less Orlando Magic have a better chance to win the NBA championship than the Pistons--and Stuckey has played a major role in Detroit's pathetic record: he shot .282 from the field while starting in all eight losses and, probably not coincidentally, the Pistons finally cracked the win column when he sat out the ninth game of the season due to illness.
Only four NBA franchises have won at least three championships in the past 25 years: the Lakers, the Bulls, the Spurs and the Pistons--but the Pistons are not likely to add to that total as long as Stuckey is the team's second highest paid player and a key member of their rotation.
Labels: Allen Iverson, Chauncey Billups, Detroit Pistons, Joe Dumars, Richard Hamilton, Rodney Stuckey
posted by David Friedman @ 6:30 AM
2 Comments:
The situation with Stuckey was especially confounding early on when the Detroit backcourt was crowded with veterans. Stuckey is a decent NBA player but obviously not someone you build a team around.
However, like many I place a lot of blame on the large contracts given to Ben Gorden and Charlie Villanueva back in 2009. The Pistons paid those two players almost $100 million. They are only now getting out from under those commitments. They talk about how teams can have a high draft pick in the wrong year, and it may be the case that Detroit had cap space in the wrong year, not that they had to go out and do what they did.
Fortunately they got a really nice player in Greg Monroe in the 2010 draft, and may have landed another good big man in Andre Drummond (way too soon to tell, but so far so good). Brandon Knight looks like a work in progress as he begins his second season.
I think the Pistons need to gut the team of everyone but Monroe, Knight, Drummond, and Singler. Those guys should all be getting MAJOR minutes, and if they are terrible now oh well, they will develop. They are needlessly playing CHUMPS that won't improve the majority of the time, and wasting what could be a promising future.
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