Oh shit, I completely forgot about Tay’s back injury in last year’s playoffs. That’s no good.

eh, it opens up playing time for the rooks.

If push comes to shove, Tay may very well have to sit out the rest of this season and hopefully try to come back at 100% for the beginning of 2010.

God damn. Way to fuck up a trade scenario…

However, Tay’s back could be better by the trade deadline. Maybe.

Get well soon Tayshaun Prince. He’s still fairly young and I would hate to see back injuries hurt his career. He’s got similar mileage on him to Scottie Pippen and Pippen was still a solid NBA player at age 37 so I’ll take my chances on him coming back strong in Detroit rather than moving in a trade.

Rip should take his time and get his ankle right too. I think it’s better in the short and long run to add a healthy Rip and have the team take whatever lumps are coming with the young makeshift lineup + Old Ben.

I have always been surprised Tayshaun went this long without a major injury. He gets banged around so much and has no meat on his bones to absorb it. From someone who knows a little (actually a lot) about back pain, he will be out a long time (unless he wants to be a crippled up 40 year old). Sometimes it takes two surgeries. I wish I had a magic wand-not so he can play as much as to take his pain away. It’s not fun.

We can also criticize the decision to have Rip in the game when Detroit was up 20+ points with about 4 minutes left (when he got hurt), and the decision to have a roster such that there wasn’t anybody else plausible to put in for him at that point.

Oh well, nice point about comparing the situation of Curry and the Q-ster. At least expectations aren’t as high this year, and it will give the rooks some burn. Although it does make trades trickier, and I don’t know anyone who thinks Detroit can get to the elite level with the current roster even if everyone is healthy.

But bottom line, get well ASAP Rip and Tay. We still love you.

Didn’t Rip say the ankle didn’t actually hurt that badly and he was good to go back in the game? It wasn’t until the day after when he was like, “Daaaaaay-um!”

eats crow on Tay statement made last week I hope Tay gets back when he is well. Anything back related is a beast to recover from. I am two months out from a shoulder surgery and it’ll take a full year to recover! I hope Tay does not have the same fate. The upside is the Rookies get some run.

Toledo Joe, the Pistons could only dress 10 players for that game. That’s why Rip was still in.

Or rather, not “why Rip was in,” but why someone who would normally not be in the game during a blowout was in.

If Rip has a partial tear in his ankle, he needs to stay the hell off it for as long as possible. Re-injury can lead to much much more serious problems. I can remember first injuring my right ankle, it hurt like hell and turned black and blue whilst inflating to double it’s normal size. Rolling that ankle twice in the next month resulted in surgery to reattach the ligament and at least 8 weeks before I could even attempt to run on it.
Rip can have as long as he needs to get it right in my opinion.

Its good that both Jonas and Daye are playing so well right now or we’d be in trouble. We have been short on decent back-up SF for years. This is arguably the first time since Corliss left that we have had 2 quality small fowards. Who would have thought that neither of them would be Tay?

re-sign Washington now!

@scntfc

Actually, I like that idea. Also…

UNTRADE SPELLCHECK NOW!!!
UNTRADE AMIR NOW!!!
UNTRADE SAMB NOW!!!
UN-GIVEAWAYFORFREE BUDINGER NOW!!!

Regarding the injuries, the needless dumping of Budinger seems even more stupid now than it did on draft night. What exactly was Dumars thinking? Seriously, were we saving that much money in not having a third 2nd rounder on the team? Especially when you remember that we gave Washington guaranteed money (Budinger’s spot) and then cut him for absolutely no reason… just asinine. And for a while there I was convincing myself that the Washington deal was in preparation for some type of trade that was coming— now it all just looks inexcusably stupid. Inexcusably. As it is, Joe hit maybe a “double” in the second round— but he could have EASILY hit a grand slam (Right Dejaun, JJ, Budinger). Potentially the greatest 2nd round draft any single team ever had? Fucking stupid.

Yeah, my point about Rip playing wasn’t so much about what Q-ster could have done at that point in the game with that roster, it was more about some seemingly odd and unnecessary decisions that left us with such a depleted roster. Crying over spilt milk, I know. . . .

@Joel:
Actually, I believe we traded the pick to Houston and they made the selection. I originally thought we picked Budinger and then traded him, but it was the pick we traded, not Budinger.

@MP

Who cares. We fucked up. I R so sad.

Joel:

It’s pretty crazy to think that without any special maneuvering we could have had:

SG: Budinger
SF: Daye/Jerebko
PF: Blair
C: Jordan

I’m obviously glad we grabbed Daye/Jerebko. But wow… we had an amazing group of player fall to us in the 2nd round the last two years, and Jod didn’t fully take advantage.

NBA GMs are weird.

This trade is a little off the wall, I know, but I think it would make us a better team in the end.

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

@joel:
Who cares. We fucked up. I R so sad.

No doubt man, I’m with you.

Gosh, this only further exacerbates the AA and Budinger dumps as stupid moves.

Come on, Jod. Stop giving away promising young guards so you can sign the Chris Wilcox’s of the league.

Can I move that Won’tcox is referred to only as The Nameless One from this point forward? I’ve never been less impressed with a “professional athlete.”

It’s funny, after we signed Wilcox, Kevin S. was pissed— we offered him $3M/yr. with a PLAYER OPTION for the second. So if Wilcox kicked ass, he could just leave and go elsewhere. If he plays like dogshit, which he is, we’re stuck paying him $3M next year for nothing.

Jod, Jod, Jod.

But hey, he’ll be an expiring deal!

/silver lining’d

I like “Won’tcox” as a nickname.

Tay has no value as a player or human being except as trade bait or salary dump.

/DBB Nation

(thought some Boneyesque sarcasm was in order)

OT: Anyone read that Insider Future Power Rankings on ESPN? What do they have to say about the Pistons?

I swear that we picked Budinger … I remember feeling happy that we did, in fact, because I liked how he looked the 1-2 times I saw him in college (although I failed to see his athleticism).

But spilled milk is spilled milk.

“Won’tcox” it is.

BTW, what’s with the socks? I mean, if you’re that bad at playing basketball, wouldn’t you not want to call attention to your failures by visually sticking out amongst your teammates?

yeah detroit picked budinger before trading him

http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/budinger_090625.html

I advocated getting Wilcox. So far it’s not looking good for me but I still have hope for him. He’s got the right set of tools for a 4th big but they aren’t exactly Craftsman tools, more like the screwdriver set you get at Family Dollar. But if you need a screwdriver, those work (sometimes).

The Pistons picked Budinger FOR the Rockets. The Pistons traded the pick and the Rockets told them who they wanted them to take.

So Morrey was basically like, “Hey Joe, I’m way smarter than you so I’m gonna have you pick a legitimate rotation player for me and then sell us his rights for pennies. Oh yeah, we have worst big-man depth problems than you and we’re STILL going to be better. KTHXBAI!”

*worse

joejoejoe: Yeah, I was semi-high on Wilcox as well, just because I remember him having a few really awesome games for the other teams he played for. I always kind of thought he had Birdman-like potential (good leaper, crazy athleticism, spot minutes of energy here and there) but that hasn’t been the case at all. Big disappointment so far, but it’s a long season….

Also, I had no idea who Chase Budinger was so I Googled him and found this:

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/budinger.jpg

Nice.

@ Joel:

“Can I move that Won’tcox is referred to only as The Nameless One from this point forward? I’ve never been less impressed with a "professional athlete."”

Obviously you’ve never seen Wilcox’s former teammate, Robert Swift play the game of basketball.

off topic, but apparently Shaq’s wife got wiff of the whole thing with Arenas’ fiance and has filed for a divorce. No wonder shaq uses twitter, he doesn’t know an once of proper english (based off emails)

Also, does anyone know what the Pistons average age is and how that compares with the rest of the league when Tay and Rip are out? I know Ben still skews it a bit, but I’d have to figure they’re somewhere in the youngest 5…

I calculted 25.4 with Big Ben, 24.4 without him. This does not include Chucky Atkins because I don’t think he’ll actually see court time.

The calculator is your friend James ;)

*calculated, not calculted

also I should point out that with Prince and Rip, I calculate 26.1. Someone should check my numbers on this.

I would guess that the only team with younger rotation players would be OKC and perhaps New Jersey. Philly looks very close and Orlando is just a tad older than them.

@garrett:
Also, I had no idea who Chase Budinger was so I Googled him and found this:

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/budinger.jpg

Nice.

Who, nice is right— he’s got some nice tits for such a butterface. Is that Scalabrini behind him?

Meh, the Budinger thing doesn’t bother me. We have too many SFs as is and adding another one was pointless. Having an extra 2nd round pick down the line when we don’t have as many 2nd rounders is probably better.

As for the Blair pick, well, I was a huge supporter of taking Summers and absolutely loved the pick, but I’ll call a spade a spade and as of right now, Blair is way better than Summers.

All those guys are nice players but in the long term, they also can be found each and every draft. They’re not particularly unique. He’s played well for Houston because there’s room for him to play. Even with Rip and Tay down, there’s a good chance he’s still not pushing for minutes (they want Jerebko for his size and strength, and Daye is our top draft pick). Blair probably would have cracked our frontcourt rotation, but these are just nice complimentary players that can be acquired a number of ways.

As for Wilcox, I was big on the signing because I figured he could be a solid back-up for us. This is a guy who averaged 13-7 at one point. But he’s been just miserable. Like, worse than even my lowest expectations.

I just Jod’s judgment because the guy seems to have the ability to find talent where there is none. It causes him to sometimes overthink and miss out on in his face opportunities, but the trade off is that he find players that surprise the hell out of you. Yeah, he missed on Blair and Budinger, but he’s found a hard-working Swede in Jerebko. His signings are sometimes questionable (Maxiell) and sometimes ridiculously good (Bynum). He’s like every GM in the league: he makes some mistakes, but he makes some damn good moves, too. The key is when his mistakes outweigh his triumphs, then it’s probably time for him to go. But he’s not even close to that. I’d say we had a pretty damn good offseason. Gordon looks like a scoring superstar and much better defensively than previously anticipated. Villanueva has show signs of being pretty good (his 22 in the 4th was mighty impressive). Wilcox was a mistake, but Daye looks pretty good and Jerebko is a nice surprise. Yeah, it sucked losing Afflalo for nothing but he was also going to be our 5th guard and probably would have become disgruntled with the position.

I trust Jod’s judgment*

@Terrence Lynch:
I can’t quite agree with you on Jod, specifically in the draft. He’s not a good GM when it comes to drafting. Case in point? 2008 draft. Walter Sharpe.

And this season, you mentioned a miss on Blair and Budinger, but a hit on Jerebko. Funny enough, he could have had Blair and Budinger AND Jerebko, as the other two came from what look like wasted picks in hindsight— but certainly not wasted picks to DBB, who had been pulling for Blair for the most part even in the first round.

I trust Jod’s judgement. Just not in the draft. (and have had a hard time trusting his moves in general lately, but historically he’s been solid)

Actually, he couldn’t have all 4 due to roster limits. Someone was going to be the odd man out (assuming he still keeps Atkins) because he wants to keep on roster spot open for uneven moves.

Crying about Buddinger is silly. Missing on Blair was criminal.

@Terrence:
He didn’t sign Chucky until September. The draft was in June.

@Colin:
Criminal indeed, no doubt.

I still suspect he would sign Atkins regardless of who he drafted, mainly because if Bynum or Stuckey goes down we are horribly thin at PG. More than likely one of our three rooks would have to go overseas.

If, by your rationale, we couldn’t have four because he’d be signing Atkins, then you’d have to accept that he’d cut Washington too. So there aren’t any roster limits that would have prevented those signings.

No, the whole issue is that Dumars doesn’t like having 15 players under contract. Right now, we have 14 players under contract.

Stuckey
Hamilton
Prince
Villanueva
Wallace
Bynum
Gordon
Daye
Maxiell
Wilcox
Atkins
Budinger
Jerebko
Blair
Brown

That would be 15 players. Meaning one of them would be sent overseas (more than likely either Jerebko or Budinger).

On the bright side, at least we never drafted Fran Vasquez or Yaroslav Korolev over Danny Granger…

Unless you are going to hand out minutes like it’s Europe you can’t have young players in your 10-12 roster spots and develop them. I understand stockpiling assets but unless you are going to develop those assets I can see where Dumars is coming from. We all see Second Round Steal playing well elsewhere but if they were in Detroit they might ride the pine and never see sustained action (Amir, Afflalo).

I think Dumars is trying to get 5-6 undervalued starters who jell into a championship team and everybody else he looks at as a role player. Are DeJuan Blair or Budinger rotation players on a championship team? Role players? If not I think Dumars has no use for them. How Dumars decides who will be what kind of player in the NBA I don’t know but that’s my opinion of his thought process.

Hey, you, get off my cloud
You don’t know me and you don’t know my style
Who be gettin flam when they come to a jam?
Here I am here I am, the Method Man
Patty cake patty cake hey the method man
Don’t eat Skippy, Jif or Peter Pan
Peanut butter, cuz I’m not butter
In fact I snap back like a rubber
band, I be Sam Sam I am
And I dont eat green eggs and ham
Style will hit ya, wham!, then goddamn
You be like oh shit that’s the jam

@Terrence Lynch:
Dude, stick to your point, money:
“Actually, he couldn’t have all 4 due to roster limits.”

He could have had all 4. We could have had Daye, Blair, Jerebko and Budinger. Saying “he couldn’t have all four due to roster limits” is wrong. I don’t care if “well, joe likes to have an extra roster space” or “maybe one would have ended up overseas”. Switching up your statement doesn’t make the original one right.

I’m not going to cry over spilled milk when that milk is Chase Budinger. But it doesn’t matter how much you side step your “he couldn’t do it, there are roster limits”— we could have had those guys on our roster this very season.

Kenyon Martin looks more like Mef.

In wu-related news, I saw Ghostface last night. Shit was straight bangin.

@MFSkylar:
We will now fight with knives. Pretty Tony is my MFing GUY. “Jealousy” is too weak a word…

Pretty Tony is my MFing GUY. "Jealousy" is too weak a word…

is this you mp?http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhmUTq7eLbK84yh616

http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhmUTq7eLbK84yh616

Nope, I’m much better lookin’

@Mike Payne
Sorry, I meant Joe Dumars roster limits, not the standard. It may seem like trying to backpedal, but in my head I was thinking “14 roster spots” and for some reason said that was the standard. We could have had them if Dumars wanted 15 players on the roster, which we’ve seen over the years is simply not something he’ll do.

@Terrence Lynch:
Right on, I got you.

In NBA 2K10 it said Prince is out 8-10 weeks.

I traded for marc gasol in 2k10 and my team is a monster despite only being ranked at about 80.

SCNTFC, MFMP

Yall gonna be in MI 12/12/09, Raekwon the Chef is playing the same venue in Ann Arbor. Come through, 20 dollar or 26 + copy of OB4CLPTII, I’ll buy you cats some beers and us Pistons kids gone go hoarse for WU

The dollars is for cover.. my bad.

/drunk & sleepy, not surly

@MP…dude, unless you’re in the UK, it’s “judgment”.

Dumars got Daye at 15, when he probably should have gone higher, and Jerebko, a 2d rounder, looks promising. We haven’t heard from Summers yet, but Kuester is OTR as saying he deserves minutes. And you want to break balls because he didn’t take your guy Blair, who looks like a JMax clone. Now, you are closer to this from I, but some of what you write sounds like result playing. I mean, even I understand the Sharpe pick. Picks like those are longshots, but when they pay off, they usually pay off big. With the, what was it, 42d pick, you are allowed to do some coal mining.

You have what…4 guys auditioning for Tay’s spot, and with Blair, just what we need, another undersized 4? Quite a few teams passed on Blair, too.

I think at some point Tay is going to get packaged for a big, maybe Boozer, because of the expiring contract, but they will likely need a 3d team to pull that one off.

Finally, remember Maxiell held out for a fourth year on his contract-Dumars didn’t want to give it to him, but he relented. That fourth year looms very large right now.

@V:
And you want to break balls because he didn’t take your guy Blair

We’ve been over and under this every day since the draft. It’s not about Blair, it’s not about Budinger. It’s about Joe not being a good draft GM, that’s what I disagreed with dude above about. Yeah, I’m still chapped about the Blair pick, and you can cry “another undersized PF”, but not when we signed Wilcox. The whole reason I brought it up was because I don’t trust Jod’s judgement (suck it) when it comes to the draft.

I don’t buy the argument that Blair and Maxiell are redundant. Maxiell’s biggest weakness is defensive rebounding, which happens to be Blair’s greatest strength.

And you want to break balls because he didn’t take your guy Blair, who looks like a JMax clone.

Max is to Blair as Toyota is to Lexus.

Blair’s 7.5/7.5/61%fg is already better than anything Max has ever put up in his entire career in the same minutes. The per/36 #‘s aren’t even close. That statement is, as it was before the draft when other people were saying the same thing, completely retarded.

And Afflalo or Budinger would both be getting solid playing time this year, because of the injuries. Now there’s no way to foresee that, but hindsight being what it is (20/20), it’s safe to say that either of those guys would be getting plenty of burn on this year’s squad.

Oh yeah, I watched the Bulls/Nuggets game last night— AA looks FANTASTIC. He’s going to be the starting SG permanently (soon), and he’s already shown the same defensive aggressiveness with 100% more confidence offensively. Definitely a bad move on Dumars’ part, especially considering that we dropped AA to make room for what eventually was the Won’tcox signing. There’s no point in trying to spin it positive— there are no positives.

I think Joe has drafted some quality guys, but he fails miserably at drafting a star player. Darko, Sleepy, Amir (from the hype), stuckey, etc.

But Max, Afflalo (I’m surly on that one), Stuckey, Daye, Yonas, maybe Dejuan on the left. All Good players, quality role players to low key starters.

But letting AA go for nothing is terrible, add that with not signing Walter Herrmann to a Max contract over 40 years and its just blasphemy.

Still pissed about Afflalo, and I think Washington was premature. Dumars do what he does, I just watch games and talk shit my mans in here. I can only think of a couple GMs in the league that could be an upgrade over that dude.

Just saw some stats on ESPN’s Rookie Report:

The top 3 rookies in PER? Ty Lawson, The Right Dejaun, and Budinger. All three were draftable, would have met needs, and were passed on (I’m okay with Daye over Lawson, even know God knows we could use a legit PG).

True shooting %? #1 – Lawson, #5 – Blair, #8 – Budinger.
Off. Reb rate: #1 – Blair (#2 isn’t even CLOSE)
Def. Reb rate: #1 – Blair (#2 isn’t even CLOSE)
Overall Reb rate: #1 Blair (#2 isn’t even CLOSE))
VA (value added): #1 – Lawson, #4 – Blair, #5 – Budinger

How about some Blair stats compared to the entire NBA?

1. in O-REB%
2. in D-REB%
3. in overall REB%
4. REB/48min

So, basically, The Right Dejaun is the best (or just about the best) rebounder in the NBA by the minute, by the percentages, on offensive rebounds AND defensive rebounds. Anybody want to try comparing him to Max or bitching about his knees or saying we did the right thing to draft the Wrong Dejuan over this once-a-decade rebounding stud? Anybody?

I’m listening… no I’m not.

Joel,

I’ll bet you the “right dejuan” isn’t rated that high at the end of the year.

Name your price, I’ll put it up

@ MP,

why would we cry “another undersized PF” about Wilcox? He’s 6’10.

Hey guys, this is off topic of the current discussion. For one of my graduate courses (reliability engineering), I’m writing a paper about NBA injuries and whether or not some teams are better at keeping their players healthier than others. I’m having a hard time finding injury information over the past 10 seasons. What I did to start was use Basketball-Reference.com to compile rosters for every team, age of players, games played, and games started. What I’ve been trying to do for the last couple of hours is to go back through old box scores and try to flesh out who didn’t play and why (injury, suspension, DNP-CD, and what the injury was). Does anybody know of a place where injuries from previous seasons are listed or have a better method for information gathering?

Thanks ahead of time.

@Other Matt:
You might consider reaching out to XMLTEAM or STATS Inc. I’ve worked with XMLTEAM before on a sports stats project, they basically have every stat collected throughout the last X seasons, including all the DNP data. You can take this, put it into a spreadsheet and look at the hard data about why a player didn’t play or otherwise. It might be hard to sort if you’re not comfortable with xml and spreadsheets (see also: impossible if you’re not familiar with xml).

Just tell ‘em you’re working on a graduate course and need DNP data. Might give you some very clearcut data to work with.

@Boney:
why would we cry "another undersized PF" about Wilcox? He’s 6′10.

I didn’t call Wilcox undersized. I’m saying that Wilcox is garbage, in comparison to Dejuan Blair, who is undersized. And that “undersized PF” would have outplayed the fuck out of Wilcox. Swap Blair for Wilcox, I don’t care if he’s undersized— we’d instantly be a top 10 rebounding team. Or better.

I’ll bet you the "right dejuan" isn’t rated that high at the end of the year.

Name your price, I’ll put it up.

I’m sure you would. Not the point. If he’s anywhere in the top FIFTY he’s a better pick than Wrong Dejuan. Just so happens he’s by-minute maybe the best rebounder in the league so far. If you want to put money on him staying top-10 all year, then I’m all for it. Anywhere he lands at the end of year, with the exception of on the sidelines with bum knees (doubt it), will be a 100% better place than the guy we picked instead, and it’s hard to argue against that.

MP, I lost your email address, I figured we could take this discussion off the thread here since everybody probably doesn’t care about it. If you’ve got my email, can you email me? Thanks.

oops, I posted that as Joel on accident :-\

my bad Joel

With our system I can never put any stock into any of those #s. the bottom line is all of those top rookies are getting much more playing time than any of ours. It’s becoming more obvious. Our system breeds pressure. we went from having rookies that needed to compete w/ veterans, to a bunch of rookies competeing against each other.

I was very high on the Wilcox signing, but in all honesty the guy has played like what? 10 min. out of 6 games? I wouldn’t quantify that as evenenough time to learn from your mistakes.

Blair is in the perfect situation to be developed. So is Budinger. here, they would by at the end of the bench just like the guys we have.Joe said no pressure on the coach this season. But there is. Qster still wants to win. look at the rotations. we have moved from “feeling players out” to shortening our rotation. which IMO is wrong. I’m not saying tank the season. But allow all of the players to play. lets see what we have for once.

The only player who has had an op. and not lived up to expectations, is Maxiel. He should get DNPs until further notice. The only one who has been allowed to earn his way is JJ. I’m all for it. but I want to see more of Dayeshaun as well.

In summary as high as everyone was on the Darko pick… It is becoming more and more obvious that our system stunted his growth. I believe he had the talent that everyone saw in him but our system and LB crushed him to the point where he even questioned whether or not he wanted to play anymore.

lets forget about Joe Ds picks. Lets talk about the lack of development.

Sorry, “perfect situation to be developed”? Um, we’re one of the youngest teams in the league, with absolutely no frontcourt depth, and with a dire need for defensive rebounding. The Spurs are maybe the deepest team in the league, with massive frontcourt depth, and championship aspirations. And yet Blair’s getting 20min a game and performing— but he wouldn’t get minutes here? Why, because a 190lb 7footer and a hustle player from Sweden are gonna beat him out for minutes? Get real. Quit making excuses for horrible judgment. If Jerebko and Daye can get minutes for this squad, how the FUCK would Blair not got minutes for this squad? The reasoning makes no sense.

No more talk about “our system.” What is it? Play one-on-one ball, keep away from the bigs, hope our jumpshots fall, sub-.500 basketball? This isn’t 2006. We no longer have a “system.” When you’re going to struggle to go .500 and make the playoffs, 2 of your top 3 guys are injured, and you have no frontcourt depth, you no long have a “system” to blame for our lack of development for the young guys. No excuses. We needed exactly what the Right Dejuan would BE GIVING us right now. Yes, he would BE GIVING US those things right now. If he can get minutes on the Spurs— having to impress the best coach in basketball during practice to get said minutes— you can be damn sure he’d be getting minutes on our shit-poor squad right now. Ridiculous.

LOl. no question about what Dejaun would give us. I think you need to re-read my post. If we had Blair or Budinger then JJ/Daye would be sitting. I’m all for drafting the right player. And hind sight is always 20/20. My point is we dont even know what we have on this squad, which is/was the point of my previous post the bottom line is, someone is going to always be sitting. and it shouldn’t be that way. Is 10 min.in six games enough for Wilcox to proove himself?

and on the Spurs Roster Blair is competing w/ Mcdeyss who is probably best used sparingly untill the playoffs. and Malik Kairston who has not played this season, for obvious reasons.

Budinger? 9 pts. 3 rbs. for the season. Not worth looking back on draft night with tears in our collective eyes.

@ Joel

When you’re going to struggle to go .500 and make the playoffs, 2 of your top 3 guys are injured, and you have no frontcourt depth, you no long have a "system" to blame for our lack of development for the young guys.

which is the emphasis of my post. why else would summers be dnp? Q want to win games.

“why else would summers be dnp?”

There’s a not insignificant chance that Summers sucks. In which case, giving him minutes is kinda pointless.

don’t quite understand your post with the double negative. but how is giving summers minutes Pointless. he hasn’t had the oppurtunity to play in a real game.

Summers played real games in college, and he sucked in those games. He had some of the worst stats I’ve ever seen for an upperclassman prospect that was actually drafted. So if it turns out the college DaJuan Summers is the real DaJuan Summers, i.e. not very good at basketball, then giving him minutes doesn’t make much sense because he’s unlikely to ever help us win games (now or in the future).

@Gabe,

Understood! although those college #s contradict his SL #S as well as the pre draft workout. I recall “everyone” scouts within/outside our organization "regular posters here,being supper high on him after Las Vegas. the guy once touted as having the most “Nba ready body” has played 1min. in 6 games

nbadraft.net had him ranked:
8. DaJuan Summers- Detroit / 18ppg, 5.4rpg, 1apg, 44.3fg%