Official NBA Discussion Thread

[NinoBrown]

That was some lame booing last night. Aside from the Witless t-shirts, that was pretty bad game. Cleveland had no team chemistry and laughing and joking with LeBron during the game didn't help either. For a pitiful city like Cleveland, I expected more. Maybe when they start losing the paper bags will come out, like the old Browns fans.

 

[PeepShow]

I wish Rell was still here.

 

[Axis]

I am.

 

[PeepShow]

 

[sharkboy 3:16]

Celtics and heat are on good streaks, how many more wins you think theyll get before they lose?

Also that Celtics/Knicks games was crazy, Amare hits the 3 at the end of the game but its just after the buzzer so their streak ends and then they go on to lose 3 straight.

Sucks for the Rockets and Yao that hes out for the rest of the season with a fucked ankle again, don't know if we'll see him back in the NBA tbh, the Rockets have still been doing alright without him though.

Manu and the Spurs are on a nice streak too, Manu hit two game winners this past week I think, his stepback jumper against the Bucks was pretty awesome.

And onto my frustrating team the Pistons, they go from beating the Hawks to losing to the Clippers giving the Clips their first road win, to be fair though Blake was a monster. Detroit just beat the Hornets in OT, Paul went for the game winning layup but was Blocked by prince to send it to OT and in OT Ben Gordon and Will Bynum took them out with help from Jason Maxiell. Hopefully they can stay consistent now and beat the Raptors, Bobcats and Bulls in there next 3.

 

[He who knows more than Nation]

^^^You know what's wrong with the Pistons? Joe Dumars. One time he was one of the best GMs, not just in the NBA, but in all of sports. Trading a busted Stackhouse for a young Rip Hamilton, bringing in Chauncey, drafting Prince and giving Ben Wallace a chance. It used to be the only smear on his record was drafting Darko over Wade, Melo and Bosh. Yah, it probably cost them like 2-4 more titles, but when you consider their success, it kind of gets swept under the rug. Now he's mortgaged the teams future on long term, bloated contracts to guys that are either old, undeserving, injury prone or playing out of position. He had tradeable assets in Prince and Hamilton like 3 years ago when they should have been moved, but he wanted way too much in return, he wanted talent, draft picks and cap space and really, you only get two of the three in a solid trade. Now he's got a mess of a roster. Is there talent? Yes. But talent only gets you so far when you've brought in two different coaches in two years and you're best big man is a guy who was done three seasons ago.

Dumars needs to just have a fire sale during the trade deadline. Take what you can get for Rip, Prince, or Gordon or Villanueva. All of them are a bunch of un-athletic jumpshooters with no D who take turns with injuries. See what you can get from a contender in need of some firepower at the deadline. If I were the Pistons I'd be targeting teams that have excess athleticism like Atlanta since it always seems Jamal Crawford is involved in trade rumors, or Houston is trying to trade Kevin Martin too. But that's if teams like Boston, Miami, Dallas, Utah, Orlando or Denver aren't looking to wheel and deal, but might not have what the Pistons want in return since those teams will have low draft picks.

I'm also not sold on Stuckey as a franchise PG, he's got the size of a 2 with the speed of a 35 year old PG and is a streaky shooter. This team is a mess from top to bottom.

 

[He who knows more than Nation]

Well, cut out the Orlando option. Holy fuck, did anyone see how they just rebuilt their entire team? Rashard Lewis, the NBA's most overpaid player get swapped for the NBA's second most over paid player in Gilbert Arenas. Vince Carter got shipped to Phoenix for Jason Richardson and Hedo Turkoglu and they lost Gortat and someone else just as useless.

I know on paper they just got more potent on offense. I don't know if they should have traded for Arena's though, 120+ million for an injury prone back up PG, unless they plan on having him at the 2 spot or moving Nelson to the 2, which either way means they're an undersized back court. Some undersized back courts work, like in Golden State, but Ellis and Curry are both fast and decent to good defenders. But it looks like Richardson is going to start and Arenas will come off the bench. And bringing back Turk could be bad, I don't really see him recapturing his old form, if Nash couldn't pad his stats, no one can. And the worse thing about these trades, Orlando's D just got so much worse. I don't know what to think about it.

 

[sharkboy 3:16]

Yeah Darko was such a terrible draft, if they had Wade or Melo they would have won so many more titles and would still be contenders imo. Another thing I didn't like was trading Chauncey for Iverson, I like Iverson but I don't see why they would trade Billups after how he helped them team so much and the chemistry he had with the team was good, now if they traded Billups for a couple good young players who they could help build their future team around it would have been alright but instead they traded for an aging Iverson who didn't want to come off the bench. I would have traded Rip Hamilton a long time ago, hes way past his prime, misses near half a season due to injuries and just doesn't contribute as much as he once did. I still think Prince is good, he only had his first injury in a long time last season and still plays quite consistently scoring and defendingwise but he is getting older and it would have been good to trade him too.

If I were them I would definitely try getting rid of Rip, Villanueva and Prince (although out of the 4 you listed he's the best defender imo) and maybe Gordon too but they'd need a SG in return for him and Hamilton. What the Pistons need in return from a trade is a good solid big man, you cannot have Ben Wallace as your best big man, I'll admit since going back to Detroit Big Ben has been doing better then the years when he first left Detroit but he's old and is beginning to slow down again, Villanueva can't defend and is in foul trouble alot, Maxiell is inconsistent and rarely plays good, theyre playing Austin Daye at PF but he just doesn't have the size for it and is bullied down low and last of all we have Greg Monroe who is still finding his way in the NBA, theyve got heaps of guards that are capable of scoring but our big men are no threat inside, if we can get one dominant big man and trade the likes of rip and/or villanueva it would help them out alot.

Stuckey's been doing quite well this season, he's scoring consistently and he's getting career high assists I think but yeah I do agree I really don't think PG is where he belongs but in this team there's no way hes starting SG because theyve already got Hamilton, Gordon and Tmac. Another reason why the Pistons shouldn't have gotten rid of Billups, because Stuckey hasn't done well enough at taking over the PG position.

Yeah some crazy trading going on. Rashard is overated and Gilbert just as overated imo. I don't know what theyre going to do with Gilbert, will he start at SG, come off the bench for Nelson, maybe theyll start him ahead if Nelson? No idea. Turkoglu has been awful since leaving the Magic and I doubt he'll find his form from when he was previously with the magic, he was awful with the suns but he he somehow does manage to find his old form then thats a big help for the Magic.

 

[NinoBrown]

Not too surprised Carter got traded, he's already have a career worse but Marcin Gortat and Mickael Pietrus getting traded is more surprising. Whose going to back up for Howard when he gets in foul trouble?

And Gilbert looks like he might actually want to play.

After he found out his trade to the Magic was official, he ended his workout, grabbed a pair of shoes, said his goodbyes and caught the first flight to Orlando. There was no time to waste.

 

[Montana]

^^^You know what's wrong with the Pistons? Joe Dumars. One time he was one of the best GMs, not just in the NBA, but in all of sports. Trading a busted Stackhouse for a young Rip Hamilton, bringing in Chauncey, drafting Prince and giving Ben Wallace a chance. It used to be the only smear on his record was drafting Darko over Wade, Melo and Bosh. Yah, it probably cost them like 2-4 more titles, but when you consider their success, it kind of gets swept under the rug. Now he's mortgaged the teams future on long term, bloated contracts to guys that are either old, undeserving, injury prone or playing out of position. He had tradeable assets in Prince and Hamilton like 3 years ago when they should have been moved, but he wanted way too much in return, he wanted talent, draft picks and cap space and really, you only get two of the three in a solid trade. Now he's got a mess of a roster. Is there talent? Yes. But talent only gets you so far when you've brought in two different coaches in two years and you're best big man is a guy who was done three seasons ago.

Dumars needs to just have a fire sale during the trade deadline. Take what you can get for Rip, Prince, or Gordon or Villanueva. All of them are a bunch of un-athletic jumpshooters with no D who take turns with injuries. See what you can get from a contender in need of some firepower at the deadline. If I were the Pistons I'd be targeting teams that have excess athleticism like Atlanta since it always seems Jamal Crawford is involved in trade rumors, or Houston is trying to trade Kevin Martin too. But that's if teams like Boston, Miami, Dallas, Utah, Orlando or Denver aren't looking to wheel and deal, but might not have what the Pistons want in return since those teams will have low draft picks.

I'm also not sold on Stuckey as a franchise PG, he's got the size of a 2 with the speed of a 35 year old PG and is a streaky shooter. This team is a mess from top to bottom.

That sums it up well. I've been a piston die hard fan for 20 years, and the past two seasons have probably been the most disappointing. It's not that Joe Dumars hasn't put in effort into trading Rip and Prince, because he has the past 2 years. But like you mentioned about 3 years ago, he hung onto them, back when they still had some value.

As far as the Darko draft went, i think most teams with the #2 pick back then would have went with Darko if a big man was needed. Again, good point about that getting swept under the rug.

Onto the more recent moves (good and bad) Iverson for Billups. I think it was a move that needed to be done. They weren't going to win the championship, with Billups...so they took a gamble with iverson, and made some cap space out of it. Iverson was a huge flop, but they had the extra cash. It didn't work out, but it wasn't as bad of a move as people make it out to be. The bigger flop was wasting the extra money they had.

They lost Rasheed Wallace who was considered a bad boy, but really he was the spiritual leader of the team. He was quietly one big loss to the team. Another deadly blow was losing Memo Okur...whom the pistons really couldn't afford to keep at the time. Looking back they should have figured out a way to keep him.

Then they gambled on bringing in Ben Gordon ASSUMING they could trade Rip. They couldn't get anything for Rip. They brought in Charlie V to replace Rasheed, but he just hasn't fit into the system.

So now you have the pistons with more talent, than most would give them credit for, but they can't put it together. They've needed a big man the past two years, but couldn't trade any of the top players to get one in return. So now they are relying on Wallace and Monroe. One too old, and one too young.

A lot of the roster shake ups that need to be made have also been delayed due to the ownership situation in Detroit. The pistons don't want to take on any big contracts until they have a new owner.

But yes, it looks like Joe Dumars has been to one of the best GM"s to one of the worst.

 

[FabulousRougeauBrother]

The Pistons are in a really rough spot. A glut of wing players and no presence in the post really. Hopefully around the trading deadline somebody will feel desperate to make a trade for that playoff push. Here's one I came up with:

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=24gypml

OKC would get immensely better with a sharp shooter freeing up the floor for Durant. They've gotten NOTHING out of the SG position so far this year. In return, the Pistons get two expiring deals and a decent project center for the future.

 

[sharkboy 3:16]

^ Yeah that wouldn't be a bad trade, two pretty good shooters off the bench and Ben Gordon would stay as they starting SG, Aldrich seems like a decent big man rookie although the Pistons already have Greg Monroe for that but both wouldn't be too bad, then once Cook and Petersons contracts run out they could do something better with the left over money, either signing a good big man since Wallace will be retiring soon or something along those lines.

Funny how as we begin talking crap about Hamilton and whatnot hes gets put on the bench then gets 35 points lol, what timing, he should stay on the bench from now on too, it seems to give him something to play for.

 

[He who knows more than Nation]

^^That's only a good deal for the Pistons. It's an AWFUL deal for the Thunder, why would they do that? James Harden puts up 75% of Rips production at 85% cheaper. And Rip IS NOT a sharpshooter, sharpshooters shoot better than 42% from the field. Plus Rip needs the ball too much to be effective , he's slow and stagnant, he doesn't move as well as he used to, he is the antithesis of a Thunder player. And why would they tie themselves down to a player on the decline who's salary is on the rise for the next three years when they could just stick it out with what they have, which is pretty good as is, and have those expiring deals, plus losing Cole Aldrich automatically makes this a very stupid deal for the Okies.

From a Pistons fan's standpoint, I can understand, but anyone not named Kahn or Colangelo isn't Blue enough to make such an awful deal. Sam Presti has built this team on youth and shrewd moves, he's not going to risk losing precious cap space that could lure a more effective FA SG during the offseason, in favor of Rip Hamilton. Especially if it means losing Aldrich.

 

[He who knows more than Nation]

BTW, I LOVE the trade machine, but I HATE the Hollinger analysis. How can PER be the lone factor in deciding how well a team is going to perform after a trade. It doesn't take in to count if the player fits the system, fresh change of scenery, new team mates and so forth. I absolutely HATE John Hollinger, his stupid freakin PER stat and basically any peice of rubbish he calls sports journalism. If I named all the times he's been wrong, fallen off of bandwagons and tried posing biased opinions as fact. He is awful, just awful.

 

[PeepShow]

Charlie V

Cancer patient.