Morning Shootaround: Bias on Bynum; Love for Ben Wallace, but Not on the All-Star Ballot; and Kuester Meets Old Mentor

Your morning shootaround the interwebs in mad preparation for tonight's home game vs. the Bobcats.  

  We'll start the morning off with a little Bynumite to wake you up. Natalie over at Need4Sheed has a great video interview of Joe Dumars discussing the Piston he admits he is a little biased about, Will Bynum.  Joey D says Bynum epitomizes everything you could want in a basketball player and how the Pistons are the beneficiaries of what Bynum learned in his couple years overseas.  

 It's hard to believe the season just started and the NBA All-Star ballots have already been unveiled.  It's no surprise that five Pistons make the ballot, but it might come as somewhat of a shock to see which Piston didn't crack the list.  Spoiler: Ben Wallace.   He could receive a good number of write-in votes though, as there seems to be a lot of love for Ben Wallace around the 'net. 

 Ben Wallace is averaging nearly 12 rebounds, two blocks, and two steals per 36 minutes.  As Charlie Villanueva emphasized in a recent interview, "the man is 35 years old!"  Chris Iott of MLIVE discusses the impact Ben Wallace has had on the Pistons thus far in the young season.  

 Matt Watson has a good piece on FanHouse that talks about how the injuries to Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince are forcing the Pistons to speed up their rebuilding plans.  While the two are definitely missed in the lineup, it's not as devastating as it could be, say if it happened last year.  Hopefully, Hamilton will be back within a week. 

 The Pistons rank dead last in assists and that has a lot to do with the injuries to two of their starters.  With the guards they have, the Pistons are playing a lot of one-on-one basketball.   Will Bynum leads the Pistons in assists with 4.1 per game,  but for what it's worth, Rodney Stuckey is averaging 3.7.  Not much of a difference statistically.

 The injuries and assist totals have Justin Rogers of MLIVE wondering if the Pistons will have a more up-tempo style of play once Hamilton, and hopefully, Prince return.  Kuester has stressed that, with the injuries, the Pistons have needed to control the tempo more often and choose wisely when to push it and vice versa.  Justin seriously doubts that the Pistons style of play will change much, and that the Pistons will predominantly continue playing half court, one-on-one basketball. 

 Remember how frustrated Dwight Howard was after the first game against the Pistons when he played just 17 minutes and fouled out?  And then he wrote that sour grapes blog?  Well, the NBA levied a hefty $15,000 fine for the remarks he made in that post.  

 Hopefully, the Magic wore out the Bobcats last night, so they come out sluggish against the Pistons tonight.  Orlando jumped out to a big lead, but the Bobcats fought hard to come back, pulling within eight at one point.  In the end, the Magic left Charlotte with a 12-point win and hopefully, left the Bobcats deflated.  

If you don't remember, John Kuester was an assistant under current Charlotte Bobcats coach, Larry Brown, in 2004 when the Pistons won the NBA championship.  John Kuester is eager to face his old mentor in Kuester's first meeting with Brown as a head coach. 

If you got involved in Life on Dumars' "Pick 'Em Contest," they have the update on the stats through six games. Some of the numbers might surprise you, but probably not as much as it might surprise you to hear that the Pistons defense is ranked no. 2 overall in the NBA.   Abakingpowder?

 Tip off tonight is 7:30 PM EST and can be seen on Fox Sports Detroit PLUS.  If you're confused, you can find the channel numbers for your area here. 

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