Langlois: Joe D. is building around Stuckey
by brgulker on Jan 13, 2010 5:04 PM EST
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PrintJoe D is going to be watching Rodney Stuckey to see how he emerges from this experience. He appeared to take another stride toward leadership earlier this week with his declaration that he was picking up the offensive pace and it was up to his teammates to match it. If Stuckey is indeed at the center of the next phase in Pistons history, he needs to continue to progress as a player and a leader over the next three months.
Then there’s Gordon and Charlie Villanueva, the major moves Dumars made last summer as the first step in the remaking of the roster. The idea is they’d be Stuckey’s wing men, two young veterans steering the ride for the next five years.
While there is nothing Earth-shattering here, it is interesting to see it phrased so explicitly: Joe Dumars is constructing a team around Rodney Stuckey.
If I'm reading this correctly - please let me know if I'm not - Joe's moves last summer (and presumably whatever moves are made next) are built on the assumption that Rodney Stuckey will become at least as good as a guy like Chauncey, who was arguably the center of the previous phase in Piston history.
We've been back and forth on whether or not that comparison is fair or not, but regardless of the outcome of our conversations, it seems clear that Joe values Stuckey highly enough to invest $90+ million in "sidekicks" around him.
Thoughts?
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He refuses to see the truth in front of his face
The Pistons will never be good again until Dumars acknowledges that the team desperately needs a point guard who can pass and shoot.
It’s nothing personal against Stuckey, who tries his hardest every night. The guy can’t shoot, and he isn’t much of a passer. That’s the situation, and it’s very hard to learn to shoot if you’re already 23 and can’t do it at all. It’s almost impossible to win in the NBA if your point guard can’t pass or shoot.
I think he can shoot
From what I have seen of Stuck, he has range out to the elbow and that’s about it. Is he consistent? No not at all, especially when he tires. I fully expect him to be in the range of average to good by this time next season.
ok yes
I agree that Stuckey very often shoots a very horrible percentage from the field. But behind the box score it is more often because the offense is not clicking like it should. when the offense is clicking Stuckey often has 7-9 assists and shoots close to 50%. When the offense isn’t clicking he puts up 20+ shots and shoots 40%, if that.
Honestly I believe Stuckey has what it takes, because it shows when the Pistons do what they want to do. They are a fairly young team and have trouble adjusting to what other teams are doing. On the Pistons recent losing streak they were playing absolutely HORRIBLE defense. Not rotating correctly on Pick and Roll. And even getting caught in very awkward situations when they themselves ran the high pick and roll on offense.
I like John Kuester as a coach, but I’m honestly questioning his ability to adapt to change. Thats one of the things I miss most about Rick/Larry/Flip.
Langlois is not Dumars
The combination of Langlois working for Pistons.com and his trying to make everything sound really cool makes understanding his articles slightly difficult.
What I got out of it, was that by “center” and “build around” he was saying Stuckey would presumably be a Pistons for a long time and be of close to all-star caliber in the next couple years.
By Stuckey’s wing men, I think he’s saying that BG and CV31 are role players in general. Like Lamar Odom type players. Role players on a championship potential team.
But yeah, that article sort of confused me too. I also think he vents in his articles sometimes, which makes them a little less logical.
Fair assessment
I agree. It’s hard to decipher him, quite often.
This is a good example of two people who’ve read him for a long time coming to quite different understandings of what he was actually trying to say.
Build around a shooting guard?
From watching Stuckey Mack the last couple years, everyone agrees son is not a point guard.
Get a great PG in here (easier said than done) and build around the two of them. Identify the weaknesses in CV & BG and work them hard for their contracts. Finally, get a us a goddamn gangster ass center who likes to smash teeth.
Lastly- Commit to some fucking defense Joe. Defense.
Do this and we will have the baddest squad in the Eastern Conference.
"We’re going to turn this team around 360 degrees." –Jason Kidd
by Skylar on Jan 13, 2010 9:13 PM EST reply actions 3 recs
“Finally, get a us a goddamn gangster ass center who likes to smash teeth.”
THIS. So much. Again, easier said than done or else everyone would have one, but that sure would solve a lot of problems.
by garrettelliott on Jan 13, 2010 9:33 PM EST up reply actions
It's all about eFG%
If Rodney Stuckey can improve his shot and become an average 3pt shooter he’ll be an elite player. If he can’t, he won’t. Nobody questions Ben Wallace’s work ethic and he still can’t shoot after more than a decade in the league. Not everybody can learn to shoot so it’s a crapshoot projecting Stuckey to be anything more than he is today as a shooter.
Clear as mud
<img src="[IMG]http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt275/crakghoul/stuck.jpg[/IMG]"/>
I hope it works, I am no internet ninja. What I think is that Stuck is still growing as a player and that by the end of next season we will know for sure what his ceiling is.
I Agree
There are a lot of good points in this entire thread. I don’t think it was a coincidence that Stuckey enjoyed his best stretch of the season when he was playing the 2 full time.
But I’m still holding firm in my belief that you can’t make a truly fair assessment of him until his 4th year. Chauncey had 4 miserable years to start his career and now he is an elite point guard. I’m not saying Stuckey will be as good as Chaunce, but go ask any Boston fan how they feel about giving him up so early.
Plus, take a look at Stuckey’s per-36 and advanced numbers — no one can argue that he’s not steadily improving year after year. Maybe not at the rate we hoped for, but still, it’s improvement.
Great points about Stuck
The lingering question in my mind, though, is this: Is anyone worried that Joe has essentially put the immediate future of the franchise on potential that may or may not pan out?
If CV and BG are, in fact, regarded as “sidekicks” — which I read to mean complementary guys who are supposed to play off of and complement Stuckey’s strengths — isn’t there a good reason to be worried about the next 1-2 years?
If this report has any truth to it, the cynical way of looking at last season and this season is this: Joe made a $95 million gamble on Rodney Stuckey.
That just doesn’t sit well with me.
@ "Joe made a $95 million gamble on Rodney Stuckey."
When you put it like that, Damn. Joe D will probably look back on this summer and learn from it. The thing about him is he takes a lot of risks and is still a relatively young GM.. So if he learns from his mistakes I’m not too concerned about the long term future of Detroit.
AND we keep forgetting the one thing about having a couple bad but not terrible contracts. It’s good for making trades. For a few years we’ve been griping about not getting in on those blockbusters because we didn’t have the $8 million Kwame Brown, etc.
Here’s to holding my breath for a month and hoping Joe can pull off a trade so we have a $95 million gamble on Rodney Stuckey and YoungPlayerX.
by Roll The Dyess on Jan 14, 2010 12:44 PM EST up reply actions
Depending on how the season plays out
Dumars can address the front court, specifically center, and the point guard issue as well in the draft. If we lose much more than we win- the draft should yield a talented YPX.
"We’re going to turn this team around 360 degrees." –Jason Kidd
This seems really silly
I don’t see how you can say he made a $95 million dollar gamble on Stuckey. He gambled that the players he signed would help us win. If we swapped Stuckey for Sessions, would CV and BG Session’s sidekicks? I guess. Stuckey is replaceable. Obviously, The salary cap makes resigning Stuckey more feasible than signing a quality FA pg. Honestly, we should all hope that Stuckey improves drastically AFTER we resign him to a bargain contract. If we have to replace him that’s just another need we have to fill with limited dollars. That would be a problem, but it wouldn’t mean the BG and CV signings were a mistake. Those signings will be judged based on how those players play.
Admittedly, I’m reading into Keith’s comments here. I’m also assuming (and I think it’s fair) that Keith has more access to Dumars than any other reporter. And I’m also assuming that he works for the Pistons and is going to spin things as the Pistons would have him spin things.
With those assumptions in mind, I’m interpreting Keith to be saying that Joe signed the two players he signed because he believes that Stuckey is the “center” of the Pistons franchise moving forward. In order for Joe to believe that, he must think that Stuckey can be better than he currently he, because as he is, he’s not the “center” of an NBA franchise (I think we all pretty much agree on that point).
So, Joe signed two guys that he thinks complement the game that Stuckey will eventually have. That’s the very definition of a gamble, isn’t it?
Fair Enough
However, I think you are a pretty smart guy. Significantly smarter than Keith Langlois, probably. This just seems like a reach for you.
Sure, the skill set of CV and BG do seem to complement Stuck. Their skillsets might complement some other hypothetical point guard’s skill set better or worse. So, imagine Stuckey spontaneously combusts (i.e. ceases to exist) this year. Does that mean that Joe lost all 95 million dollars that he “gambled”? That would imply that no other point guard could step in and be compatible with these two players. When you say he made a $95 million dollar gamble that implies (to me, at least) that if Stuckey doesn’t work out then your return on investment is guaranteed to be less than $95. Qualitatively, I think it implies that you lose all of the $95 million, but not all gambles are structured that way.
If you think of your return on investment as wins (since wins generate revenue) that means that you think that it’s unlikely to win more games with CV and BG, but with a pg other than Stuckey, than with Stuckey and his “sidekicks”. IMO it would be feasible to replace Stuckey with an average PG who has an ability to get in the lane and yield a positive return from our investment in BG and CV. In other words, I don’t think that the ability of BG and CV to produce wins is conditional on Rodney Stuckey’s success. So basically, I think your statement was hyperbolic and misleading.
So basically, I think your statement was hyperbolic and misleading.
It was absolutely hyperbolic and exaggerated. I wouldn’t dispute that for a second. I’m not sure it’s misleading, though.
Let me state what I think without hyperbole, maybe that will help. I think Joe’s plan depends on Rodney developing into a borderline All Star player (because that seems to be what Joe sees in him). He’s signed FA’s and drafted players that he believes will fit into a system that Stuckey is running (up-tempo, versatility at the 3-4-5 positions). If Stuckey does become that player, then Joe’s plan works out (I don’t particularly like the plan, but that’s an aside), and what Joe envisioned will come to fruition. If Stuckey doesn’t become that player, then what Joe envisioned doesn’t come to fruition — we don’t get to see the end result that Joe intended for this franchise when he made the last several big moves.
So this is the question: is it an all or nothing proposition (which is how you’re reading my gamble statement, right?)?
When you say he made a $95 million dollar gamble that implies (to me, at least) that if Stuckey doesn’t work out then your return on investment is guaranteed to be less than $95. Qualitatively, I think it implies that you lose all of the $95 million, but not all gambles are structured that way.
Jod’s plan depends more on Rodney improving than it does on any of the other major moves he made this summer — that’s what I mean. CV is young, but a veteran. BG is young, but a veteran. Wilcox is young, but a veteran. Those guys are who they are, and we won’t see enormous changes in their games over the next 2 seasons.
Joe is banking (literally, figuratively) on Stuckey becoming a top-tier player. If that doesn’t happen, Rodney will still be young, still have trade value, and be easy to move for an asset in return. Charlie is also movable. So it’s not an all or nothing proposition (as my hyperbole might suggest) — I agree with you there. I would also add to your statement about replacing Stuckey: I think just about any pass-first PG makes more sense with BG and CV than Stuckey.
In short, I don’t think it’s all or nothing. With the exception of Rip and BG, I think just about anyone on the roster can be moved, and I don’t think Joe would hesitate to do so if things don’t work out.
In other words, I don’t think that the ability of BG and CV to produce wins is conditional on Rodney Stuckey’s success.
All is not lost if Stuckey doesn’t develop; we agree on that. I would also agree that the ability of BG and CV to produce wins is not entirely conditional on Stuckey. But in my OP, I wasn’t trying to argue for what I think (or what anyone else might think); I was trying to get at what Joe Dumars thinks — and for better or worse, I often think that Langlois is one of the better sources for that type of info. Obviously, Joe perceives independent, unconditional value in CV and BG, but from the quotes above, it seems pretty clear that at least one of the motivating factors for signing them was their conditional value (how well they complement Stuck).
P.S. I understand hyperbole to mean intentional exaggeration to prove a point. My “gamble” statement certainly is hyperbole, but I think it’s fair, not misleading.
Right on
Dude….you are fair and honest, if nothing else. I think what I meant by misleading is that you were conflating the 95 million risked on BG and CV and the fact that Stuckey is (possibly) our future centerpiece (I hope not). Anyways, misleading implies deliberate deception and I don’t think you were doing that. Anyways – I hear you, you acknowledged me, no need to go any farther into the semantics. I agree that the current plan is risky.
There's huge reason for worry.
If we knew exactly what Dumars has planned, things would be alot easier to deal with right now I think.
To me, the positive in all this is that Stuckey looked at the (11 at the time?) huge streak of losses and decided he needed to try to take an offensive leadership role.
People can say whatever they like about Rodney’s game but at least he felt it was incumbent upon him to try to spark some change in how this squad was playing. I know his statement rubbed people the wrong way, but at the very least, he is not complacent with losing like that.
"We’re going to turn this team around 360 degrees." –Jason Kidd
I just wonder why it took 11 games
before someone spoke up. Hell, they already had a 7 game losing streak earlier in the year.
Detroit Bad Boys- SB Nation's Detroit Pistons Blog
New Langlois
Some semi-interesting stuff in his latest mailbag:
Glan (Grand Rapids, Mich.): I’m sure you’re getting inundated with Al Jefferson questions, but there is a trade floating around that I’d like to get your opinion on. How about Al Jefferson and Ramon Sessions for Prince, Stuckey, Daye and Kwame?
Langlois: Not a fan, Glan. Stuckey and Daye have the potential to be the Pistons’ two best players and they’re 23 and 21. Jefferson also has a lot of good years ahead of him – if he’s healthy. He’s coming off a major knee injury that would make me a little nervous – especially because of the bulk he carries – about trading away a huge chunk of your future. It’s something to consider if you think Sessions can be at least an average starting point guard, but the jury is out on that score.
Huh. Couple strange things there- though, first of all, I should say; I understand Keith hedged by inserting the word “potential” where he did. But still, damn. Are we really counting on Stuckey and Daye to be our two best players in the future? That seems… risky.
Also Jerebko and Daye play the same position and it’s within the realm of possibility that JJ is (/will be) the better player.
And if “the jury is still out” on the question of whether Sessions can be just an “average” PG, then has Stuckey’s trial even started yet?
At least I'm not going crazy
I read that today and noticed the exact same things.
The first is a huge overstatement, and it makes me very uncomfortable. Both those guys have potential, absolutely, but to say they’ll be/could be our “best” players? Wow. The Kool Aid is strong with that one.
I really like Daye … I think if he can develop physically, he’ll surprass Jerebko eventually. But right now? Gotta agree and say JJ.
And the Sessions comment? Good grief. I don’t know how it’s even a debate — Sessions is a far better PG than Stuckey. It’s not even close.
Jerebko is the best thing to come out of the 2009 draft for Detroit as of January 2010.
Daye & Summers are just question marks, they are not impressing anybody, regardless of how much playing time they’re getting, Jerebko has had an immediate impact.
"We’re going to turn this team around 360 degrees." –Jason Kidd
Another new Langois nugget
From today’s article: Home Stretch
12. (tie) Detroit – The Pistons, 12-25, have 24 home games among their 45 remaining. Of their five road games left against Western Conference teams, only one – Feb. 26 at Denver – comes against a team with a winning record and the others (LA Clippers, Sacramento, Golden State and Minnesota) come against the last four teams in the conference standings. While the Pistons are unlikely to make any moves at the trade deadline that would bolster the present at the expense of the future, they could be active in trades that don’t substantially alter their makeup now but help future payroll flexibility.
Is Jod basically admitting that we have very limited flexibility as currently constructed? And all this time I thought flexibility was the reason for the Billups trade…
The Pistons go into tonight’s games with a 12-25 record that has them tied with Washington for 12th in the Eastern Conference, yet they’re only five games in the loss column behind current No. 8 seed Chicago and only seven back of No. 5 seed Miami. Here’s a quick look at the 10 teams with a shot at the final four playoff seeds in the East …
5 wins is 42% of our current win total. 7 wins 58% of our current win total.
Maybe he’s just trying to be optimistic, and maybe I’m just being too pessimistic, but to say “We’re only five games out in the loss column…” seems to understate how far away we really are.
Is Jod basically admitting that we have very limited flexibility as currently constructed? And all this time I thought flexibility was the reason for the Billups trade…
I read that too. He must’ve forgot that was what he was supposed to be going for. Dude blew the wad on the newbloods.
"We’re going to turn this team around 360 degrees." –Jason Kidd
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