What to do with TMac?

The only real loser here is Rodney Stuckey, he won’t find many minutes behind Tracy or at the 2-guard behind Gordon and Hamilton. Yeah, it’s a total dickhead thing to do to Rodney in a contract year— it’d seriously piss on his value…

…which is a good thing for Detroit if we’re looking to re-sign him.

(however, this would only be for the next month and a half, because trading mcgrady should be top priority for deadline value)

I’d use him at PG exclusively. The only downside of McGrady continues to be the possibility of stealing minutes from Daye at the 3. If we play him at PG, either starting or backup, this is no longer an issue.

If they want to bring Stuckey off the bench behind him, fine, whatever. A lot of this will have to do with what Dumars thinks about Stuckey. If he still thinks Stuckey is The Point Guard of the Future ™, then he’s not going to bench him for T-Mac. If he’s still making up his mind, he might let T-Mac run the point as the primary backup. If he’s leaning toward letting Stuckey walk, he might as well start T-Mac.

I’m honestly still more concerned about the future of this team than I am with winning right now. If T-Mac as 3-4 more good productive seasons in him at a reasonable (read: mid-level exception or so) price, then I’m comfortable he can be part of the Piston’s future. If either his health fails him, or he wants too much money, they need to trade his ass ASAP while he’s looking as good as he has in recent memory.

The best possible outcome is to trade Tmac and get some nice value for him. Considering he just damn near put up a triple-double finding takers shouldn’t be a problem. However, if like many here have speculated Dumars hands are tied, then how can he move him? I still believe this to be the case and don’t foresee tmac being moved. unless its something very simple, like t-mac for draft picks. KDIAFI might have given him the greenlight to trade tmac at the time of tmac being signed, thinking that the most we could get is a draft pick and that alone wouldn’t be enough to mess up numbers on a sale. However as he preforms better and better each night, his value is rising exponentially and personally a draft pick alone no longer seems like fair value, considering he will be moved to a contender with a late to mid draft pick.

in short, we are SO screwed its not even funny.

I would start him at point guard. The reason for this is because we could maximize his trade value by the time the deadline comes around.

I voted to start him at PG, but I worry that his bones might be reduced to a fine powder after 10 games or so.

Whether he starts or comes off the bench that’s up to the coach, but the PG minutes should go to TMac and Stuckey.

Starting him is good because I think showcases him more but like GE I’m afraid of his body being able to sustain going against what’s supposed to be a teams best players (starters) for sustained minutes. So I think whether he starts or comes off the bench his minutes have to still be monitored and the coaching staff has to pay close attention to this body.

Then when the opportunity presents himself trade him for value, whether that is sweetening the pot to move Rip’s contract (crosses fingers) or for picks. I do not believe TMac will resign past this season, if he keeps playing good and his body continues to heal I think he will come off the bench for a contender if given the opportunity. Besides that, as well as he has done as as magical as our witch doctor is, I still don’t trust Tracy’s body.

My random thoughts, built on this assumption: TMac is unlikely to re-sign here. More likely, assuming he stays healthy and doesn’t get traded, he’ll sign with this year’s Boston or SA on a 2-year deal for around the MLE.

I would vote for a trade … in spite of Dallas looking at Kevin Martin, I’d offer something like this to them:

I’ve expressed skepticism that Cuban would take on Rip, and that may be the case. But, TMac provides a one-year rental, and he’s not afraid of spending money if he has to. Perhaps he could be persuaded that TMac could lead Dallas’ second unit for a title push.

If my assumption is wrong, and TMac isn’t committed to going elsewhere for a title push already:

Then I would vote to start him at PG, and let the chips fall where they may. Stuckey’s getting outplayed, and I think minutes should go where they’re earned.

TMac
Gordon
Prince
Charlie
Big Ben

Gives us our best chance of being competitive night in, night out. Not sure it helps the future, though.

We as fans, along with Dumars and Kuester, all know that there is little to no semblance of defined roles on this team. In fact, the only clearly defined roles this season have been at PG and C. That is to say that Stuckey and Ben Wallace are the only two guys who could come in and know exactly what skills they needed to work on to improve themselves at their position and location in the depth chart.

But now, because Stuckey has been out with a stomach flu that has been going around the league, and McGrady understandably has been playing well, we all of a sudden want to make this team even more confusing by starting a SG/SF/PF at PG?

I’d be okay with starting T-Mac at shooting guard but that leaves our 2nd unit having to play small just to get minutes to both Rip and BG. So ultimately, I voted for thrive as 6th man…although I don’t consider that mutually exclusive from trading him. He can thrive until the deadline and then we can move him for better pieces.

I voted trading him for whatever value we can get, which I echo Kriz’s hope is to move Rip’s contract. But in the meantime, he’s killing as point and has earned the spot over Stuck. Clearly, he’s developed into the second coming of Magic Johnson in the 6’9 point guard mold and at only 31 years old has a good decade of ball left him. Combined with one of the most efficient off the ball scorers in the league, that’s a package that any smart team would go for in a heartbeat! (…just in case Mark Cuban reads DBB…)

The depressing thing is not just that even if he sticks around, Detroit won’t be a contender for the remainder of the year.

The depressing thing is how bad he has made Stuckey and Bynum look in comparison. I’ve said several times that I was willing to cut our PGs some slack because we don’t have anything resembling a traditional offense (or arguably anything resembling an offense). It’s not that T-Mac has turned us into an offensive juggernaut, but he’s shown that a smart PG who looks to pass first and understands the game can, actually, put our other players in better positions.

So we’re rebuilding but trying to deal with the fact that our two best players are probably T-Mac and Ben Wallace, old and fragile though they are.

Having said that, yeah, start T-Mac at PG. He makes Detroit better, and more fun to watch. If we can really get good value for him, trade him, but I would want more than a late-first-round draft pick. And if we can’t get good value, see if we can sign him for next year and beyond.

We would start T-Mac at the 1 and Rip at the 2, then bring BG in off the bench, and have all 3 finish the game.

Also we’d be trading Stuckey + Prince in a deal that gets us some combination of a center, young player, and/or late 1st rounder.

P.S.: Daye starts at SF.

T-Mac has obviously looked comfortable running the point and at least the past couple of games has obviously given us all second thoughts in passing the blame to someone other than Stuckey/Bynum…but isn’t T-Mac actually exactly what Kuester got used to building his offense around in Cleveland?

Of course 31 year old T-Mac is nowhere near what Lebron was, but Kuester re-designed the Cavs’ offense to put the ball in Lebron’s hands early and often and frequently had Lebron playing “point forward” with Mo Williams and other guys moving off of Lebron’s distribution/drives to the lane. And its hard not to draw comparisons between Lebron and T-Mac even with the difference in age/production.

So with that in mind, could it be that T-Mac as a player is simply better suited to the offense that Kuester is employing than a traditional point guard or even a score-first point guard would be? Without knowing for certain if the offense that Kuester employed in Cleveland runs the same as ours today, there are plenty of things that could negatively impact a player like Stuckey or Bynum (eg – passing angles may be easier to take advantage of being 6’8" vs. being 6’5"…a good example of this is the over the shoulder pass that Stuckey has actually gotten away with passing from the low post to the opposite wing beyond the arc, another example would be passing to the corner from the top of the key).

Personally, I’ve always been bothered by the passing angles that our offense forces our players to make but with a 6’8" point guard, some of those passing angles become a little more effective.

i’d like t-mac starting at sg nest to stuckey, sharing ball-handling duties with stuckey. This lets stuckey play off ball sometimes, something he can’t do very much next to rip or bg. Also, this maximizes t-mac’s potential this season, putting him back in a focal point role similar to what he was in during his prime. i’d like so start stuckey t-mac and daye together or stuckey gordon and t-mac playing the three. I’d trade prince and rip for whatever picks i can get for them, as I think that the Pistons would be the best now and in the future without Rip and Tayshaun.

I’m thinking of a line-up that consists of Stuckey, Rip/BG, T-Mac, CV, BW is quite good so long as T-Mac plays point on offense and then the defensive roles immediately switch back to their proper places. Bynum is the one basically getting dropped from rotations. Which is a bit sad, but o well. Everything should fit. Daye, Tay, and even Jonas should get good minutes. We just have a super glut of SG’s in the waiting for a trade box.

I’m putting Stuckey as the backup point guard, while sharing minutes at the 2. Implying that Stuckey, Rip, and BG are all up for trades depending on how other teams value them. I’ll note that I’m just not sure on BG for obvious reasons based on his lack of involvement this season.

ON trading T-Mac. It’s definitely on the table. I’d like to keep him if he feels grateful and is open to returning on a reasonable salary. But If a trade comes up the gives us a quality point guard or center and T-Mac needs to be involved. Done deal.

It’s all up to Dumars, T-Mac, and the rest of the leaugue now. But T-Macs time in Detroit seems like it’s going to be a net positive regardless. A bit less if Dumars actually does nothing and T-Mac simply walks away. We must avoid that happening.

But trade him as soon as we can. He’s a real bargain right now so I hope we can get some value for him before he walks next year.

The only market for T-Mac is among contenders where he’d be a short term cheap rental. He’d be grateful for the opportunity in Detroit, grateful for minutes of competitive basketball on a contender, and maybe open to coming back next year if the Pistons.

The Pistons are a lottery team with or without T-Mac. If he’s beating out Stuckey for a job, it says more about Stuckey’s future with the Pistons than it does about the future role of McGrady in Detroit.

thats just what i see when i watch the games. he looks much better than he did at the beginning of the season but still doesnt seem to have the quickness to guard fast players. he makes up for it with his smarts but IMO he doesnt move like a healthy player. i dont think he’s going to receive a big deal next year simply because he has a damaged goods rep. if he would go for a deal like bynum’s then i say lets keep him.

Get him to do promos for your kids’ camp.

Our offense right now is basically open gym at the Y, especially when the old man crew get on the floor. The fact that Tayshaun and T-Mac run the “offense” when Stuckey isn’t around is a sign of what we exactly expect our Point Guards to do in our “system”. I just can’t see any other team putting a SF at the point, probably because they have more stuff that they should do.

We don’t need them to execute Pick and Rolls or Pick and Pops with our big men,
We don’t require ask our PG’s to run the break and make the decision,
We don’t run plays that depend on point guards making perfect decisions in traffic.

We have lots of people on the team with enough ball handling ability to get in position to score, and the people who would need to get set up by a point guard (Big Ben, Monroe, Maxiell, Wilcox) are basically not part of our offense.

Our offense doesn’t need to have a point guard, we need someone with enough ball handling ability to get the ball up the court and deliver it to whoever wants to run the iso. T-Mac is our best Iso player, T-Mac is not our answer to Chris Paul.

As long as Queball is at the helm players aren’t going to respect the coach and this team will continue looking horrible.

Utah gets:
Rip Hamilton (Sorry to see you go:( )
Chris Wilcox

Rock City gets

Andrei Kirilenko

I know he is getting older, but his D is ten times better than Charlie’s, and he can hit the 3. Plus Utah has been trying to get rid of him for ages. That Contract is a killer though at 17 Million.

He’s played excellent but I don’t believe he’s sticking around for another year. And I’m not sure how trading works for recently signed FAs but because of his recent rise in play he should be included in a trade to get Rip Hamilton and/or Tayshaun Prince out of here. But if it is certain that he is staying after this season with a small salary raise (which I think both are doubtful) we should put him where ever he fits in (even at point) but I would like to see him off the bench as a 6th man if our roster was more balanced.