Ian suggested last week that Carlos Delfino needs a nickname, and based on all of the suggestions in the comments, it appears a lot of our readers were thinking the same thing. After selecting some of our favorites, we’re putting it up to vote — go pick your favorite in the poll on the right!
You might also be interested in checking out this sweet Delfino highlight film from the first half of the season. The only catch is that the video is hosted at PistonsForum.com, and in order to view it you’ll need to register for a free PistonsForum.com account if you don’t have one already. But it’s quick and painless, and worth it just to see the free-throw put-back against the Heat around the two-minute mark. I’d read about that play back in October but this is my first time seeing it live — and as soon as I saw it I knew exactly what it was. I’ll give you odds that Flip Saunders unveils that little trick in the playoffs.
We’ve been calling him “Playstation”. One of our members cooked it up during the Vegas Summer League Games. I like that one, as well as Thumbs and Skipper.
CARLITO!!!
The other named nicks don’t have anything to do with his name or are just boring (you can make a nickname like that one with any name).
I’m partial to D-Lite.
It’s a clever play on words and its fun to say. The other names seem to be a bit on the corny side to me.
Discalimer- Del-Fine-o was not meant to be taken seriously:) I actually think I’m writing in for Playstation!
Actually, that rule’s now up for change, I’m assuming because of that play.
Got approved by the competition committee a little bit ago, up for approval later this year:
• Players who are not lined up along the lane would be prohibited from standing anywhere beneath the foul line extended when free throws are being shot. This would end the practice of a player dashing in from the corner to try to tip in a missed free throw.
That game was the ONLY time I’ve ever seen this tried.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2334673
tedwick: thanks for the link, I think most of us would have missed that.
I don’t get why it needs to be changed — that one play in the preason was the only time I’ve ever seen it happen. Oh, well; hopefully we’ll pull it out for a key basket in the playoffs so when the rule is changed for 06-07 everyone will just call it the Carlos Delfino Rule.
‘Playstation’ WAS a mocking term for Delfino after hearing summer league reports of his seeming indifference to the job at hand. Since Carlos has elevated his game so far this season, I view the moniker more fondly
I think it’s up for change because it seems more like Flip bending the rules than straight up basketball. I mean, imagine this situation:
Game 7, Eastern Conference Finals, 0:14 left. Pistons up 1. Ball goes in to shaq in the post. Instead of letting him have the dunk, ben fouls him on the way up. Shaq misses the first freebie. He intentionally bounces the second one, wade comes in and puts it back. Heat win, simply because they were able to work around shaq’s inability to shoot free throws. Now, the same thing could happen with the pistons, but the whole concept has this aura of being “cheap.” As in throwing bowls of popcorn, punching your friend on the arm, playstation “cheap.” It was a great idea by Flip, and could come in handy, but I wouldn’t want the Pistons to win on a play that invokes the argument “Well, technically, that’s legal.”
tedwick: I’m still not convinced it would be considered cheap. For one, I doubt there are many players that have the ability to miss on purpose and still put the ball where it needs to go for the guy dashing in to get it — and I can’t imagine many coaches would take the risk, considering the opposition still has their best two rebounders closest to the basket.
To me, it’s no different than when someone races in from behind the free throw shooter, which happens now and again. To modify the rule just so that it bans having players beyond the free-throw extended just seems arbitrary, and pointless since there are no teams doing this on a frequent basis.
What I think this really boils down to is the NBA not wanting to put their refs in a position where they blow a call — the first two times the Pistons tried this in the preseason, they were whistled for lane violations, and it wasn’t until Flip warned the refs before the third game that it might happen and explained why it was legal that they were able to successfully pull it off. If that’s in fact the real motivation behind the rule change, I think it’s lame.