Different Paths, Same Truth: Lost Love for Rodney Stuckey

I’m the last one on this bandwagon, I guess. I have no reason to be as you’ve documented, nice job btw. All I know was I looked at box scores down the stretch convincing myself he was improving, getting ready to make the leap. Also, he scored 30 in the last game, which Philly was trying to win. That counts for something, right?

sigh

What’s the line, something about BG being better at the 2 and mistakes and trading? Or something like that.

Key thing to look at here is the fact that Stuckey is still growing as a player. If we surrounded him with a better cast, perhaps we could get a huge return on investing in Stuckey again. I say resign him and draft BISMACK. Can you say return of Detroit basketball?

change the team around him considerably…
get him a coach with some experience, get him another big man he can pass to INSIDE the paint, that will score the ball and complement Greg Monroe. (Buyombo, Jonas, or Enes). And his breakout games of last year become less of a fluke.
OR
Draft Irving or Brandon Knight, and he becomes a large defensivly strong sg who can slash and will make your team better as a role player.

I’m cool with either route, but don’t just get rid of him. Whether he’s a star pg or a star-neutralizing sg, he’s valuable to the Pistons – as long as they don’t overpay him – that’s the key.

look at the entire roster, maxiell cant get any better than he is, energy off the bench, ben gordon has psychological problems he hesitates for .5 seconds and the opening is no longer there, rip is better than him, rip is still 99% there, but will be gone soon from the team, charlie v has zero defense, austin daye has no defense and will never improve, we’ve seen enough to know where he’s at, tmac still has skills but is much slower than he used to be, summers belongs in the d league, bynum is great off the bench, ben wallace got old this year, and should retire with dignity, wilcox is only able to play for his “contract year” for about 6 games, resign him and watch him loaf for 2 and 7/8ths of a year, greg monroe is the single best pick of the draft, amazing development, jerebko is unknown he lost a year, terrico white will probably go to the D league too. Prince played legitimate pro basketball all year.

in summary our best player is greg monroe. Our second best player is Rodney stuckey. Prince, Rip and T-Mac round out our players who can start, everyone else is a bench player. We have a team made almost entirely out of bench players and 2 leftovers from 2004, except for Stuckey, Jerebko and Monroe.

We have to keep Stuckey. I dont care if he improves or not, he will be a starter in the nba whichever team has him, and I hope the pistons can keep him, he’s not very smart which is why he probably wont be the best point guard, and he has no 3 point shot, but he has excellent defense, can drive to the basket, is not injury prone (this is important!), has endurance, strength, he belongs on our team. What we need to do is add to this trio of stuckey monroe and jerebko add a true point guard from the draft and be willing to give up rip, gordon, maxiell, prince, summers, charlie v, white and wilcox for a tree.

Joe D built this team to play exactly how it plays now. We have a bunch of guys unable to defend well because they lack foot speed, but they are ‘stretch’ players who can go out to the perimeter or in the paint, however, even though we are long, our guys do not play with the back to the basket, so it is essentially a team of spot up shooters, and Joe D thought this would work. When the league changed the rules so that there was no more hand check and it seemed they were cracking down on harder fouls, it seemed (to joe) that it was time for a new style of play, a team that is not built on defense but built on players able to shoot the rock from any position on the floor. That is why we have this team. Why do you think we have Daye (great 3 shooter), charlie v (makes buckets from anywhere), and ben gordon (once one of the best shooters from anywhere on the floor, including this great floater we never see anymore) on our team? It was part of his master plan, make a team all of offense and no defense.

What joe d didnt understand it is not shooting accuracy that makes a great offensive team, something dantoni has known for a while. It is use of speed on offense, getting back before the defense is set, increasing the tempo, it’s not the use of this very slow half court paced style of play with sharp shooters, you want to take advantage of the new rules you want to play fast.

When we have played an uptempo game we have done much better, I think we are about 50% when both teams scored above 100 points. Stuckey by the way has been insistent on trying to get the team to go up tempo but we have these guys on the team that cant run the floor, they just cant, and Prince hates an uptempo game he refuses to play it.

Joe’s experiment failed. So we need to throw out the vets. We need to drop any of the bench players if that gives a legitimate starter. We need to build a team around not shooters, who are a dime a dozen, not ball handlers, but on players who can play with their backs to the basket in the paint and generate assists when they drive in from the perimeter.

But keep stuckey he’s our 2nd best player. I suppose Ben Gordon might be good again some day, but he’ll never be a point guard, the ball seems to be awfully slippery when it’s in his hands.

and not Chauncey.

Rodney Stuckey is never going to be Chauncey Billups as Billups was in 2004 (of course Chauncey Billups is not that player any more and resembles Stuckey much more than himself in those days, but that’s another issues entirely). But the Pistons have a lot of issues and Stuckey is not only not at the top of the list, he is way down at the bottom. If you were to let Stuckey go along with Prince and probably McGrady and Wallace retiring, this team has lost most of its talent. Then what do you do? Hope Hamilton starts to care again? Even that wouldn’t cause this team not to go backwards in a big way. I don’t believe in tanking but not building with what you have to work with (Stuckey) is the equivalent of tanking the whole season.

we already did it once, and some people here think we should give him one more year, no sir had enough of wilcox wontcoxing it