Go Stones!

Word! Go Stones!

When was the last time that the Pistons were under .500 after 55 games?

decent justin.tv link:

http://www.justin.tv/intevision4

@Mike:
Nineteen-Ninety-Teal.

I’m just tuning in now. Does it look like we’re doing the same things as before, but just harder?

Dia-who-a? I bet he scores a new career high tonight.

@Garrett:
you mean sucking?

@MP: Yeah, but they’re just doing it harder now. Just like Curry demands.

Great interior defense by the Pistons

@Garrett:
I just threw up a little. :)

On the who lack of leadership thread, nobody really mentioned Rip. Isn’t he technically the team’s captain? He’s got skills, experience, and should have the respect of his peers. Why doesn’t he fill that leader role?

So Stephon Marbury has been waived. I was thinking— let’s go for it. And after the season is over, let’s retain him. Maybe even try for Artest and Jermaine O’Neal. Our starting lineup would be:

Stephon Marbury
Allen Iverson
Ron Artest
Rasheed Wallace
Jermaine O’Neal

That’d be a pristine locker room. If Jermaine isn’t available, let’s go for Zach Randolph.

(i’m being sarcastic, btw)

Curry must be asleep again, Max has just checked in. Dammit Curry wakeup or we might win this thing!

(the sad thing is, if you give each of those players frontal lobotomies, that lineup would not suck)

@Garrett: I mentioned Rip and Tay in regards to leadership in the previous thread. The one about the Knicks I think.

I’m day-kwan cook of the miami heat. I don’t smoke, I don’t dip, I don’t chew tobacco, and I have no fucking business being in front of a camera. Join me in creating a tobacco-free florida.

Nice. AI just did that thing where he drives awkwardly into traffic, is forced baseline, and then jumps to pass. He stepped out of bounds. I swear Curry is making AI worse.

Nice drive and finish there AI

Nice steal and finish there AI

And steal. All game please.

Laughton and Garrett— the two funniest people on DBB. Same person? You decide.

That Rip ad is damn good. I wish we had ads like that here :(

DID WE JUST FINISH A QUARTER STRONG???

Garrett is my Canadian doppleganger.

Laughton is my Australian dopple— doh!

Herrmann should have cut his flowing, golden locks in support of AI.

As usual, the other team’s commentators are praising Maxiell and wondering what’s up with his minutes. That little turnaround J in the lane looked smooth.

As Boney would say: WTFallaway!

Kwame?

Better feed here:

http://www.justin.tv/edwin730

It’s so weird seeing Herrmann on the court after sitting for 50 games.

Thats the Stuckey I want to see. Drive it hard and finish strong.

Maxy either needs to get better at that jump shot.

I need to either finish my posts.

@Toledo Joe:
Better us have trouble finishing than Stuckey.

The heat commentary is fairly balanced. I must admit that I don’t want to mute them.

Detroit commentary is praising the Pistons “effort.” I don’t actually disagree, but it’s sort of sad it’s come to that.

Curry certainly is trying some new lineups tonight.

Lasorda thinks this is an outstanding game? really?

Can we win?

it’s gonna be hard to win a game when you’re playing zone defense.

how so?

I think he was hit in the nuts.

I’m more concerned that we can’t stop them 4 on 5. That was bizarre.

I’m more concerned that we can’t stop them 4 on 5. That was bizarre.

My bad.

stuckey on fiirrrree :P

Why is Wade still wearing a bandaid on his face? Someone needs to show Wade a tube of Neosporin.

Well I dont think a win will be likely.

Obama > Pistons

Kevin Rudd > Pistons

It’s partially zone defense causing the heat to hit 3s all over the place. Tonight, the pick and roll defense ain’t terrible, but AI’s shooting is. That in addition to playing zone defense.

Our defense tonight, including pick and roll, IS terrible. The only thing that has kept us in the game was shooting 50% for the first half. As soon as our shots stopped falling we were stuffed.

another loss and another missed opurtunity to season amir and affalo. so stupid.

Plus, MCIAFI woke up after half time.

i think Curry must have told Stuckey that hes going to be taking a backseat to Iverson and Rip for the reast of the season, because Stuckey just doesnt look fo his shots anymore.

Yea, you’re right. Our pick and roll defense is bad. With bad defense, it becomse hard for the offense to pick up. Also, I will never understand why this team is so slow.

As i say that, the teams moves faster, pushing after every miss and has now gone on a run. Why should they ever move slowly.

why the hell do i even watch pistons games anymore? I was able to ignore university of michigan basketball for years.. so hard to start ignoring the stones..must, use time for masturbating, or watching something VERY FUNNY on tbs.. but not for watching pistons-its really stupid to watch them..must stop..

I hate when there is a stat about sheed making 91 threes this season.. too bad it wasn’t on 200 or 210 attempts

i’m starting to worry that we’re fucking up Stuck’s development this season

Yeah, he looks terrible.

He looked afraid to dribble there. Jesus!

So another change in strategy tonight by the genius Michael Curry. The Pistons ran there offense through Prince (8) assists thus marginalizing Stuckey even more.

In any case, another loss.

What the hell is going on? I’m am dumbfounded…

Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepresing Basketbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall!!!

Whatever our offensive scheme is, it’s completely taken Stuckey out of his game. Didn’t he score 40 points once this year? Why can’t we go back to doing that?

Late to the party, I guess.

That box score looks…whew! This team just can’t get more than 4 people or so going, on any given night.

I hope we lose every game until Michael Curry is gone.

Lets Go Stones!!!!!!

Get that treak to double digits!!!!

sobbing uncontrollably

Unless we’re talking about the opposition.

How many losses in a row would it take for Joe to fire Curry?

I just can’t believe he’d fire him. I’d say, like 12. 12 sounds good. But it’s hard to lose that many in a row in the NBA, so it’ll never happen. We’re bad, but somebody’s gonna slip up, or…
we could turn it around. Those are the options, right there.

“How many losses in a row would it take for Joe to fire Curry?”

Non. Alvin Gentry already has a coaching a job.

It will take 37 losses.

We’d have to lose the rest of this years games, then Dumars would stick by “his” coach all of the off-season, but then we’d lose our first two games of next season and he would fire Curry two games into the season.

R_I, you’re closer to the truth than anyone who would say that he’d be fired soon. I’ve been wrong before, though. Especially about this season.

You guys are exactly right, and that’s why I have absolutely no hope in this team now or going forward. I truly believe Curry will be our coach to begin next season, and that is just depressing as a Pistons fan.

Didn’t see it, but expected it. We’re officially losers!

As far as firing Curry goes, McCosky has brought up the point a few times that we’re still paying Flip something like $5 million for his contract and then you’ve got Curry’s deal. So, in this time of cutting costs, do you really think the Pistons would, essentially, pay three different coaches for one season of basketball?

We’re stuck with him…

Maybe Curry is learning what not to do????

I saw the game, and yeah, our defense looked shaky. Looking at the box score, it would appear the big difference was 3-pointers. Heat, 9-19; Pistons, 1-8. Detroit also got seriously outrebounded.

Oh, and for those +/- fans out there, the only two Pistons with a positive number were . . . wait for it . . . Kwame and Herrmann. And they combined for a total of no points on 0-3 shooting (all Walter) in just over 19 minutes combined. Go figure.

And was it my imagination, or at one point did we have a “big” lineup of ’Sheed, Maxiell, Prince, Herrmann, and either AI or Rip?

Silver lining: D. Wade is on my bball rotisserie team (ducks).

I think the only things missing from this team is Grant Hill, Doug Collins, and Teal Jerseys.

O and stupid McDonalds/Taco Bell commercials featuring any of those three.

Our starting point guard ended up with zero assists.

Man. I’m glad I didn’t watch the second half. Somewhere PG4L is saying, “I tried to tell you guys!”

Random change of subject- Hollinger article about possible moves necessitated by salary cap lowering in the off-season:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=PERDiem-090223

The section that interested me was:

“The most interesting case by far is Washington. It appears that its best route to getting under the tax would be to trade its first-round pick — which could be first or second overall — to a contender along with a handful of bad contracts, and get back a productive player on a good contract. Just to create one completely hypothetical (I emphasize hypothetical) scenario, they could send the pick along with Darius Songaila and Etan Thomas to Memphis for Marc Gasol and get under the line.”

So who would you guys be willing to give up and how many crappy players would you take back for a chance at Blake Griffin or James Harden?

All of them? Are we allowed to play 1-on-5?

More from Hollinger:

We have a big change to report in today’s Playoff Odds, as Chicago and Milwaukee have surpassed Detroit in the race for the East’s final playoff spot. The Pistons’ odds fell to 51.8 percent today, and their projected record is 39-43.

One thing in the Pistons’ favor is owning the tiebreaker with the Bucks, having won three of the four meetings. Detroit will own the tiebreaker with Chicago as well if the Pistons can beat the Bulls on March 6 in Chicago.
_

39 wins seems a little high to me.

Count me in the camp that wants losses until curry is gone. You can’t even begin to discuss the future until he’s removed from it.

Forty’s girlfriend for coach!

Oh irony of all ironies. Here’s what AI has to say:

"Our whole thing is not on the offensive end," Iverson said. "We can’t stop anybody. The way we’re playing we have to shoot 60 percent to win a basketball game. Everybody’s always going to look at the offensive end and scoring points. We scored enough points to win the basketball game. But we just can’t get stops consistently. We can’t get stops when we need them."

Also, our starting point guard keeps having low points and assist totals. You can’t blame Iverson for that, cuz look what happened against Chicago.

Rodney Stuckey is struggllliinnnggg. Here are his February numbers.

31.6 min 8.7 ppg on 36% shooting, 3 reb, 3.2 ast, 2 TOs.

The Pistons are 2-8 for the month. In four of those losses, he had one or fewer assists.

What the heck is going on with the Pistons? Is AI that poisonous?

Gabe, I like Songaila a lot. Both he and Etan Thomas are good backup bigs. But, I think Washington would want a big in return and I doubt Amir, Kwame or Maxiell (our only bigs under contract) would tempt them.

@entityabyss:
it’s no mistake that Stuckey has averaged 6 attempts per game in the last 4. Why is Stuckey getting so few touches? MCIAFI.

Rodney Stuckey is struggllliinnnggg. Here are his February numbers.>>
=======
The facts are simple

1. Johnson got frozen out
2. Afflalo got frozen out
3. Stuckey is getting frozen out. When he is on the court with Iverson as soon as Stuckey dribbles the ball past the half court line Iverson waves for the ball to run the offense and Stuckey passes it to him.

Bottom line. The core group doesn’t want anyone else cutting in on their minutes. You still have the same clowns as last year, Dyess, Sheed, Maxiell, Prince, Hamilton except now you have swapped The Midget for Mr. Big Shot and replaced Hayes with the flavor of the game; i.e., either small ball or the Aryan Bomber.

The 6 clowns who have frozen out the young guys aren’t good enough to beat a .500 team. The Lottery is there waiting. At the rate things are going the Pistons could get 11th or 12th most ping pong balls. Who knows, once in the lottery anything can happen.

@QuickDarshan:
Agreed. If the Pistons try to get involved with Washington for that pick, I would only see them bringing interest in either Hamilton or Stuckey.

They have the three and the four all sewn up with Jamison and Butler, and have a slew of serviceable 5’s (but no solid starter) in Haywood, Thomas and Blatche. Since Arenas is a combo guard, they could put Stuckey at the 1 or Rip at the 2 and play Arenas in the other position. In short, I only see Washington making a move for a starter in the backcourt if they move that pick.

Would we take that move? First, I don’t see Joe thinking that any of those picks could bring the level of contribution that Stuckey or Rip will likely bring next year when AI moves on. Would Joe risk his best recent draft success in Stuckey on this draft class? Would Joe risk one of the most efficient (and top defenders) at the 2 in Rip Hamilton, who is also one of only three guaranteed Pistons starters come next November?

Is Washington dumb enough to try to make a move for anything LESS than a starter for their backcourt?

@Mike:
Your whole “The Midget” thing is kind of tired. Be nice, buddy. I’m not happy about what has happened to our backcourt either, but slurs just make you look dumb.

A.I. is a black hole

I said this from day 1. A.I. makes us a bad team. Everybody stands around when he has the ball. There is no movement. The moral is down. The attitudes are bad.
This is not a failure though until we miss the playoffs. Joe D’s plan was to rebuild on the run. That means being competitive, making the playoffs and being dangerous in the playoffs if we began to gel at the righ time, having A.I. as a dagger if needed to take over a quarter here and there. You never know.
We look terrible. Nobody is rebounding…DOES SHEED EVEN KNOW HOW TO BOX OUT ANYMORE!? And that is rubbing off on everybody. We settle for outside shots because if A.I is not driving or shooting unbalanced. They are not letting Stuckey be the point that they need him and he is capable of being. I mean, he is in his 2cnd year, playing aside A.I, Sheed, Tay, Rip…yes he needs to be more aggressive, but he is passive to these vets. I think we would be pretty damn good with Stuckey driving the lane consistently. He makes his free throws and he is strong and really learning how to finish.
Dyess just came out and said we lack leadership. Well F*&K yea we do. Our leader is leading a different team to the number 3 spot in the difficult west. As much as I LOVE Sheed he just still seems so out of it at times. I am a season tix holder and I mean, he is awesome on some plays….but so many times I find myself yelling because he is not boxing out, he does not go down low anymore, and sometimes seems to not care. ( I still want to mic this guy up at all times during games, and shoot, mike him at all times, he is hilarious! Make a show out of this dude. I am trademarking that!)

Thats it I guess. I have been a long time reader but I have not spoke much. You guys rock. I love my Pistons. I still have a couple Isiah Thomas candy bars, and the Isiah Thomas ice cream containers. Ha!
I wanna give shout outs to my homies of course Matt Watson, and Keith , I think, no Kevin. Also QD, Mike Payne, Garret forty! I always see your guys names on here. And I never met pg4l but I always pictured her as hott! Just cuz she knows her Pistons!! ;)

Yes, I am kinda wasted!

Oh yea I forgot to mention the D. Kinda shows how important Chauncey was at stopping and/or contaning the opposing point. A.I. defends the point on most occasions and it shows.

WOW! only 99 comments the day after a pistons game!
we’re losing interest fast.
on stuckey, he’s playing hurt. if you watched the tnt game the other night, they showed a little snipet of a tape showing stuckey telling curry that his leg was hurting bad and was thightening up quickly.curry told him he would shorten his minutes so stuckey should go “all out” while on the floor.
WHY? should’nt curry rest the guy so he can heal?Isn’t resting the guy a couple of games and him plying at 100% the rest of the season better than playing him hurt and only getting 60 -70% of his talent?
but I guess thats why the people at the top at the pistons management make the BIG money and I do not.

Stuckey playing hurt would explain a lot, and actually be a relief — because it would mean he’s not necessarily radically regression in his development.

What the Pistons really need is a better backup for Tayshaun. They haven’t had a good one since Supe Dupe.

/Phil Dupree

Interesting contrast between the Heat and Pistons.

The Heat give the ball to Wade, let him attack, and when the defense keys on him, instruct their players to get in position to immediately catch and shoot against a defense that is paying attention to Wade.

The Pistons give the ball to Iverson, let him attack, and tell him not to pass. When he does pass, there is no gameplan to let them immediately take advantage against a defense that is paying attention to Iverson.

Typical Pistons possession last night: Iverson drives, attracts three defenders, kicks out to Prince wide open behind the three point line. And Prince just waits for a defender to come out to him before attacking. The crucial second of extreme advantage for the Pistons offense is not taken advantage of. And the problem is not Prince – he is just doing what Curry is telling him to do.

Curry’s heartfelt admonition to Iverson to score rather than pass misses some basic basketball strategery. If you have a player who attracts multiple defenders, you have THE necessary building block for NBA success.

“Stuckey playing hurt would explain a lot, and actually be a relief — because it would mean he’s not necessarily radically regression in his development.”

Stuckey is not being given a role well suited to his talents.

A good NBA coach tailors the roles he gives his players around the talents of the players. Curry gives players roles tailored around Curry’s Platonic ideal of how basketball should be played.

This season may already be lost, but if Curry keeps trying to turn Stuckey into The Next Chauncey, he’s going to destroy the somewhat average potential that Stuckey actually possesses. Stuckey was never going to be as good as he looked in December, but with good development, he should be better than he looks now.

However, with bad development, which is what is happening, he’s going to end up below his actual level of potential. Stuckey is never going to be particularly successful at the NBA level as the kind of PG Curry is trying to turn him into. You folks need to fire Curry because he’s destroying your kids.

“Stuckey was never going to be as good as he looked in December”

===

That is a completely incoherent statement. You essentially argue that Stuckey is not going to be as good as he has already proven himself to be on the court.

=====
“Stuckey is never going to be particularly successful at the NBA level as the kind of PG Curry is trying to turn him into. You folks need to fire Curry because he’s destroying your kids.”

This, on the other hand, is well-said, and I completely agree.

“What the Pistons really need is a better backup for Tayshaun. They haven’t had a good one since Supe Dupe.”
=

You are absolutely right. It’s been the glaring weakness of our bench since we lost Corliss. And I’m dead serious about that.

Petey:

I agree that too often, when Iverson drives, draws multiple defenders, and then he passes, good things don’t happen. I see a few problems. First, sometimes AI drives, looks lost/out of control, and throws either a bad pass or a pass to a player in a bad position.

But wait, I’m not bashing AI mainly here, because second, even when other players catch the ball, with the exception of McDyess taking good shots and ‘Sheed taking bad shots, as you say, they don’t attack immediately as they should. If you put Herrmann or Afflalo out there to spot up behind the three point line, and they get the ball unguarded, they should shoot, period. OK, Herrmann was off last night, and the jury is still out on whether he or Afflalo CAN knock that shot down with sufficient frequency to make the offense work. But they should at least TRY.

Tayshaun got the ball several times last night wide open behind the three-point line, but as you say, he waited for a defender, made an up-fake, and got a closer shot. That’s not always a bad play, but it really does seem like we need folks to make three-pointers. Again, Detroit was outscored 27-3 in 3 point shots last night.

Re the backup SF, I was beating that drum in ‘04-’05, ‘05-’06, ‘06-’07, and ‘07-’08. I kept sayin that a good backup SF might be the most important piece we could get, and I was puzzled at how Detroit kept failing at that.

This year it’s still a problem, but there are many, many more problems.

“That is a completely incoherent statement. You essentially argue that Stuckey is not going to be as good as he has already proven himself to be on the court.”

Meh. A lot of Stuckey’s success in December was simply the opposition scouts not feeling the need to clue their players into his tendencies. The stuff he was getting in December was the low-hanging fruit that disappears quickly once folks in the association realized that Stuckey only move right now is to drive in a straight line towards the basket. That’s a VERY easy thing to take away, if the player doesn’t have anything else. And Stuckey won’t have anything else for quite a while.

The tragedy of Iverson in a Pistons jersey is more sad to me because he DOES have something else. Opposition scouts tell their players to run a second defender at Iverson when he attacks, so if Curry were to tell Iverson to pass at that point of the second defender coming, and tell his teammates to be ready to catch and shoot at that moment (as George Karl did, for example) then the Pistons would be able to take advantage of opposition teams taking away Iverson’s main move. But Curry tells Iverson to just “be a scorer”, and thus negates the advantage he brings.

This quote is from McCosky’s post-game article about the heat game. IMO it is the perfect encapsulation of why MCIAFI:

“I thought the guys fought and had a concentrated effort on what we were doing,” coach Michael Curry said. “We just have to play better. We have to come up with the loose balls, the stops and the buckets when we need them.”

Gee, thanks Mike! That’s some great analysis, can’t wait until the boys put that bit of know-how to use!

“Maybe the explanation is as simple as Billups, who had developed into the prototypical point guard, being replaced by Allen Iverson, the classic undersized chucker. Or maybe the Pistons made one too many coaching changes, or passed on one too many big men.

This former group of second-generation Bad Boys went from the ultimate example of team basketball to appearing entirely unfamiliar with the concept.

Tuesday, the Pistons ran nothing but isolation play after isolation play, and it wasn’t just Iverson doing his shimmy-and-shoot routine.

It was Tayshaun Prince or Rodney Stuckey or even Jason Maxiell just burying their heads, heading for the rim and hoping for the best.

Those precise half-court sets are long gone, and with them went the effectiveness of Richard Hamilton, who was one of the most irritating players to guard when he was dodging defenders and weaving through screens until he found open space.

And those players the Pistons hoped would get them past the losses of Billups and Ben Wallace have been something of a disappointment. Maxiell doesn’t seem nearly as energetic and explosive now that he’s playing extended minutes. And Rodney Stuckey, who was supposed to make up for Billups, is barely contributing.

The struggles have vacuumed the passion out of these former champs. Even Wallace, formerly the angriest man in the NBA, could be seen joking with Jermaine O’Neal and Udonis Haslem more often than he was bickering with officials Tuesday.

It’s as if he knows there’s no life left in these Pistons."
-—————————
Source: www.miamiherald.com

“But wait, I’m not bashing AI mainly here, because second, even when other players catch the ball, with the exception of McDyess taking good shots and ‘Sheed taking bad shots, as you say, they don’t attack immediately as they should. If you put Herrmann or Afflalo out there to spot up behind the three point line, and they get the ball unguarded, they should shoot, period. OK, Herrmann was off last night, and the jury is still out on whether he or Afflalo CAN knock that shot down with sufficient frequency to make the offense work. But they should at least TRY.”

FWIW, the problem is not on those other Pistons players. The problem is on Curry.

Curry needs to gameplan and practice the concept that when Iverson drives, the other four players need to get to specific spots on the floor, and know what to do if Iverson finds them. Dice needs to get to his spot for the jumper. Roscoe needs to get to his spot. Afflalo or Herrmann needs to get behind the arc. Prince needs to either be ready to shoot the ‘3’, or find another way to be useful in those situations. Max needs to be ready to catch and attack the basket. Rip needs to be ready to hit the ‘3’ or find a mid-range spot on the weak side.

None of this comes by instinct. It all comes through gameplans and practice.

Playing with a combo guard like Wade or Iverson requires actual roles to be given to the players by the coaching staff. It’s a specific kind of offense that must be instructed.

Dunno if you Tivo the games like I do, but if so, check out Miami’s offense when Wade attacks. The other four Heat players all have a very specific role when Wade attacks, which means that when the Pistons sent extra attention dealing with Wade, the other four Heat players knew where they were supposed to be, and were ready to take advantage of the Pistons trying to recover when the ball ended up in their hands. The advantage only lasts a second, but it’s a BIG advantage if the players are ready for it.

For example, Stuckey could regain some of the easy baskets he was getting in December if he were ready to IMMEDIATELY drive to the hoop when Iverson passed it to him and the defense was scrambling to recover. And again, the problem is not on Stuckey. Curry is not instructing him to be ready to catch and immediately drive in those situations.

The reason Curry kept issuing those bizarre, “we want Iverson to score, not pass” quotes was that he wasn’t preparing the other Pistons to be ready to take advantage of the momentary opening after the pass. The stupidity is epic. The idiocy is monumental. To waste so much is actually perversely impressive.

“"I thought the guys fought and had a concentrated effort on what we were doing," coach Michael Curry said. "We just have to play better. We have to come up with the loose balls, the stops and the buckets when we need them."

Gee, thanks Mike! That’s some great analysis, can’t wait until the boys put that bit of know-how to use!"

======

On some level, I agree with MC on this one, especially on defense and the defensive glass. We just have to work harder on that side of the ball.

On the other hand, the offensive schemes suck royally, game in and game out, and that’s on the coaching staff.

There’s an interesting article in the free press this morning about A.I. , that i agree with 100%. A.I. needs to go to the bench hamilton needs to be back in the starting line up , we need to rebuild Stuckeys confidence and to do that he needs to have the ball . if A.I doesn,t like it the hell with him, he can sit on the bench for the rest of the year for all i care. He’s a cancer that needs to be removed from the statring lineup . I’ve reading this post for the last 3 yrs. and don’t think even the most loyal of A.I . fans should be disputing the disrupted influence a.I. has had on this team and if you do the hell with you.

This article could explain some things… :)
http://dberri.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/the-billups-trade-as-it-was-as-it-is-imagined-and-as-it-can-be/

/Petey-baiting

Petey: That sounds about right to me.

“Petey-baiting”

Berri is considered an out-and-out fraud by his peers in the APBRmetrics community. The consensus there is not that he is wrong on some specific point or another, but that he operates in an actually fraudulent manner.

I agree with their consensus.

Defor: I read that article as well. Rosenberg is right; Iverson’s domination of the ball is killing this team. Stucky can’t learn how to be a point guard when his shooting guard needs to have the ball all the time and keeps forcing shots. Hey “The Answer”, I have a question for you. What should you do when you can’t find an open look?
A. Chuck the ball at the rim and hope for the best
B. Get the ball to a teammate, preferably the point guard
C. Dribble around for 20 seconds and turn the ball over under the rim
I don’t know if Iverson’s game includes option B. But he sure does love A and C.

“Berri is considered an out-and-out fraud by his peers in the APBRmetrics community. The consensus there is not that he is wrong on some specific point or another, but that he operates in an actually fraudulent manner.

I agree with their consensus."

I’m not baiting or trolling here… but I would like to see some proof of that claim.

@Petey-
sigh I’m not a crazy Berri fan myself, but I don’t really understand how he or his statistic can be called “fraudulent,” especially when it has proven to be almost exactly correct in measuring/forecasting the difference between AI and Billups. Because his stat focuses so strongly on efficiency, it can be questionable in how it rates bigs (ranking very low usage bigs too highly), but it does a good job of separating out the very good high usage guards (Chris Paul being the ultimate example, but also Wade/Kobe SG types), from the less good high usage guards (AI).

On a different note, I think you’re making some good points re:the mismanagement of our guards, although the one problem with your Wade vs. AI comparison is that Wade has scored MUCH more efficiently then AI has this year, this means the defense has to respect his drive more, and because the defense has to focus on stopping him from scoring, it opens up larger passing lanes.

This “deforming” ;) effect, while it happens when AI drives (it happens when almost any player drives), it is not as pronounced, because teams aren’t as worried about AI scoring as they are about Wade. For reference, this season AI’s eFG% is .435%, Wade’s is .504%. eFG% just takes into account shots from the field- adjusting for 2’s and 3’s, but doesn’t count FT’s. Basically when AI hasn’t gotten to the FT line, he has been incredibly inefficient as a scorer. His inefficiency as a scorer hurts his ability as a passer.

Also, Petey, it seems like you’re baiting a little bit with the critiquing of Stuckey as someone “that possesses somewhat average potential.” But I’ll let that slide if you permit me to call AI “perpetually overrated.” Deal?

“Meh. A lot of Stuckey’s success in December was simply the opposition scouts not feeling the need to clue their players into his tendencies.”

Really? Scouts would simply neglect to prepare their team for their opponent’s starting point guard? That seems like a good way to not be scouting for much longer.

Everyone talks about our Sunday curse, but we’re awful on Tuesdays too. Seriously. We haven’t won on a Tuesday yet in 2009. And it’s almost March. Nice.

Do you know what the best thing that can happen to the Pistons right now?

Flip Saunders needs to get hired to another coaching job. That will allow the Pistons to renegotiate his contract so they won’t owe him as much (unless they’ve already bought him out, does anyone know?).

That would make it easier to fire Curry after the season is over.

Flip Saunders needs to get hired to another coaching job.

Right as usual, QD.

In Dave Bing news:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3932384

Flip Saunders needs to get hired to another coaching job.

Think he would come back?

/sarcasm

#$#%@#%

How do you quote someone else on this board???? Or at least put it in italics?

@ brgulker:

To use italics, boldface, and other text effects, you surround the text with HTML tags. This webpage offers a quick introduction:

http://www.ironspider.ca/format_text/fontstyles.htm

The great thing about using italics is that Aussies can’t read italicized text, so if you want to say something bad about Laughton, just put it in italics.

Like this:

Laughton is a dingus.
Laughton is a chode.
etc..

QD: I believe Flip is only owed this season. The problem is between he and Curry their making 7.5M (5 & 2.5) and we’ve got shit for coaching. At that rate, we’re only 2.5M shy of P. Jackson territory. MC has a 3 year deal, which means if he’s fired this summer he’s still owed 5M and I do not know if it goes away if he coaches somewhere else. Fat chance there.

I agree that AI has to go to the bench and insert Rip. This season is already about the future. A future that does not include AI. WTF is MC waiting for? And at the end of the day, AI’s only hope next season if he wants to get a chip is to be someone’s 6th man. No contender is going to re-arrange their offense around him. Wait. There’s one team, but that’s this year.

@PS:
And Canadians can’t read strikethroughs.

eat this, garrett!

Eat a chode, Laughton and Garrett!

I meant:

Eat a chode, Laughton and Garrett!

My HTML skills are weaker than I thought.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

“sigh I’m not a crazy Berri fan myself, but I don’t really understand how he or his statistic can be called "fraudulent”

Easy. What he says about his numbers is different from his numbers. Even after his APBRmetric peers have pointed out his mistakes, he does not acknowledge his misstatements or correct himself. That’s fraudulent behavior.

If I were to say that Iverson’s free throw numbers prove he’s the best three point shooter on the team, and if I kept on saying that after it was explained to me why this is a misstatement of what my own numbers say, I’d be acting fraudulently.

APBRmetrics is a very fuzzy science, and you can EASILY reach the wrong conclusions from the stats even while operating in a completely honorable manner. But when you misstate the meaning of your own numbers, and keep on making the same misstatements after the APBRmetric community shows its work on where you are fibbing, then you are no longer just honorably wrong – you are then acting in a fraudulent manner. That’s Dave Berri’s methodology. He’s a con man.

We kid because we love.

Let me try that again, for Shinons’s benefit.

Eat a chode, Laughton and Garrett!

Thanks for the html tips… I was using different tags from a board I used to post on. They obviously weren’t working.

Test meaningful post. (Most blogs don’t allow strikethrough…)

Test 2 meaningful post…

One of these days our Canadian technology will catch up and allow us to read strikethroughs!

In the meantime, Garrett, can we borrow some money? I heard that Canada has a federal budget surplus.

Hey I can read the strikethroughs?! Strange…. my proximity to the U.S. border must allow me some American benefits.

why did this thread die?

controversy please! i need something to get me through the next hour.

Controversy:

http://www.imeem.com/paisleypark/video/gPMz2ckP/prince_prince_controversy_video_music_video/

controversy!