Leetastic: Pistons Drop Another One

and really that’s all I have to say because frankly, I’m a little scared to see box scores at this point.

The team needs an identity at this point. They need to pick SOMETHING and get really good at it. I’d prefer it be defense, but heck, I’d settle for some way to get some points as well.

I THOUGHT this team was already pretty good at defense, but after the last 8 games, it’s apparent that they only play in spurts and seem to only knuckle down when they are about 15 points behind.

The offense has been pretty brutal as well. For all the shooters that the Pistons have at this point (Hamilton, Gordon, and CV31), NONE of them are able to hit the broad sign of a barn door right now. The team is shooting so many bricks, they have an entire NEIGHBORHOOD built at this point.

The Knicks are not a good defensive team, but they simply packed the paint and made the Pistons shoot from the outside. It worked like a charm. The Pistons MUST make some outside shots to open up the middle.

Oh, and get Wilcox out of the rotation, Q-star. Give us more Maxiell or even Kwame. Wontcox is awful.

One last thing: why didn’t the Pistons want David Lee in the offseason. Someone please remind me why that was, because I know we talked about it and most of us seemed ok with it, but after last night I can no longer recall. Someone please tell me it wasn’t because we needed the money to sign Chris Wilcox.

Our offensive ails can be boiled down to one thing, IMO: our propensity to play one-on-one basketball.

Last night, everyone was guilty. Stuckey, Tay, Rip, Ben Wallace (yes, he attacked off the dribble. Weird), and on the list goes.

Coach Q, please call a play. Call a timeout if you have to. Drill it into Rodney’s head that even though everyone thinks he’s a combo guard, he’s still responsible for initiating offensive sets when he’s on the floor at PG.

Get Rip moving off screens. Get players moving off the ball. And for pete’s sake, move the ball so the defense is forced to move and adjust.

We are entirely one-dimensional right now, and that’s just too easy to defend given our personnel.

Just move the ball! It makes me sick to watch them when they play like that. I do think it is kinda a function of not playing together. Even the plays they did run (all two) the timing was way off. The screens were lazy and rip and BG were not coming off clean.

Why, with david lee torching us, did we not send in Kwame? I mean Lee just needed to get roughed up a little. Give him some hard fouls.. throw a big body at him. I’m not sure what Q was thinking playing wilcox instead. Clearly that didn’t work out.. Wilcox 1pt 16pf 0reb

I was pro David Lee last summer, but I was also saying Boo-urns.

If I remember correctly, a lot of the anti-David Lee folks (MFMP was in that camp, I think) were saying his offensive game was too limited and that we needed a big with shooting range to stretch the floor. I think it’s pretty clear now that we need ANYONE with talent and hustle down low. We’re so weak up front that David Lee (or the other guy who polarized the threads, David West) would be a huge, huge, HUGE improvement over anything we have right now.

Chorus
Oh, post presence
oh, post presence
Whomever will be our big man?

Kwame’s hands are mighty small
Maxiell does not have range at all

repeat chorus

Charlie V loves Twitter much
He’d rather tweet than be clutch

repeat chorus

Big Ben can grab boards
but his jumper is absurd

repeat chorus

Wilcox’s mind tends to wander
leading to so many post blunders

I remember reading that he was a defense oriented coach his whole career and that the only reason he was named the offensive coach for Cleveland was because he was the only one in the staff who had some offensive knowledge and the team did not want to hire another assistant coach. I think the Cavs offensive improvement had more to do with Lebron’s growth coupled with the addition of better offensive players.

Like I said in the game thread, I don’t think he runs any plays. We don’t have Steve Nash on our roster, we need plays. Hell, the last good Pistons team was so good partly because they already had a number of set plays directed at each player’s strength that they ran to perfection.

But no, for me Chauncey was the major culprit in the whole lackadaisical attitude. It was time to break the core and he was the only movable piece. Not to mention that with his salary we would be too tied up (though that’s what Rip’s extension does).

For me Joe’s mistake was extending Rip, not trading Chauncey.

With so many trades and coaching turnover, haven’t most players had the chance to run a million different plays? So why can’t a guy like Rip, who has been in a number of winning systems, just say, “Hey guys, let’s do this and this and this…”?

NY is trying desperately to keep cap space for next summer. I have a hard time believing NY would have matched a five year, 7-8 million per (ascending) deal.

I think Lee’s worth that, and frankly, I think he would have thought long and hard about taking a deal like that.

Maybe I’m wrong about that, and my entire point is moot. Either way, I think Lee is worth at least that amount (relative to other NBA salaries) and would make a great PF for almost any quality NBA team.

One of the arguments I always saw on DBB was that so-and-so wasn’t worth X amount of money. There should be be a hierarchy of salary ranges so we can see who is worth what — especially when people are always saying other guys are overpaid. Are CV and BG considered overpaid? Rip? I think David Lee is putting up solid numbers (and has for his entire career) and is probably worth a good chunk of change. It’s getting harder and harder to find efficient, active big guys who can give you a double-double (and more) every night.