AUBURN HILLS — Well, here we are! The NBA season has commenced and our Detroit Pistons are off to another woe is me campaign.
A new owner Tom Gores and coach Lawrence Frank, but the same president of basketball operation, Joe Dumars, yet the team looks as if it is headed towards the NBA basement.
The great Detroit Pistons Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton and Rasheed Wallace are now a memory. The six consecutive NBA Eastern Conference Finals appearances was a memory I like to recall and enjoy.
With the national TBT, ESPN and the NBA written media in town every year, it was a fun time. It is hard to believe how far the Pistons have fallen in the past three years.
Dumars’ selection of coach had been woeful and the release or trades of Aaron Affalo and Billups have been major mistakes. Now we trade Hamilton to a division rival, Chicago, which seems like another mistake.
I think Dumars’ re-signing of Tayshaun Prince and Jonas Jerebko to four-year contracts was a mistake. Prince is one of my favorite players and is a great person and citizen, but he is an average three. On a team where there are established scorers like the Pistons had with Hamilton, Billups and Wallace, he was a perfect fit, but with this collection of players he is not a great fit. Why couldn’t Dumars see that?
At best Jerebko is a very average power forward. Yet Dumars signs him to a four-year deal like he is supposed to be a franchise player. He is not a franchise player. He is a decent role player who could help a contending team in spot situations. But as the Pistons’ starting power forward, he is not a game changer.
So Franks throws out Jerebko, Prince and Greg Monroe in the front court every night and expects to win games. All three are role players and nice people, but not go-to scorers in key situations.
What Frank is doing is putting all the pressure on Ben Gordon and Rodney Stuckey to score all the points every game. That is an impossible expectation in the NBA. If Gordon or Stuckey are off at the start of a game the Pistons will be behind early.
Austin Daye has gotten off to a slow start this season, but he is the best three-point shorter on the team, and, at his length, is the most versatile player on the team. He needs to start somewhere to interject some offense into the team.
I do not understand why Damien Wilkins is getting so many minutes. At best he is a journeyman. So on a rebuilding team that is playing under .500 ball, why not play your draft choice, Daye?
And every time I see short guard Will Bynum, who Dumars signed to a three-year deal, I think of Affalo. How could you keep Bynum over tall defensive-minded Affalo? And whether or not you like center Kwame Brown, he was very big and young. Wasn’t he a better fit than Ben Wallace? I love Ben, but he is way past his prime.
So Frank is left to throw out a team that has three front court players who cannot score, a small reserve center that cannot score, a small guard (Bynum) who is not a point or shooting guard.
This is going to be a long, long season!
Monroe and rookie point guard Brandon Knight are indeed bright spots for the Pistons’ future direction. But they will not be able to keep Detroit from a dismal season.
“Look, it’s going to be a series of two steps forward and two steps back, two steps forward and one step back,” Frank noted. “You know this is not representative of who we want to be so we all have to own it starting with me. This is going to be a long season and what we have to do is figure out all the things that are going to be a part of the solution, and how you deal with adversity, and parts of the game and how you deal with other team runs. We’ve got some people at different spots, and different opportunities and with that opportunity comes responsibility and everyone will have to do their part. Overall, we have been very disappointing.”
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