We’ve already talked at length about Bill Walton, but here’s a bit of funny trivia: “ESPN’s play-by-play man and analyst are not in Las Vegas. They are calling the game action from a studio in Bristol, Conn., a continent away.” Have they disclosed this at all on the air? Do they need to? It seems deceiving. (via AA)
Archive for August, 2007
Most of Detroit’s core players are locked up to long-term deals: Chauncey Billups and Tayshaun Prince are signed through 2011 while Rip Hamilton is signed through 2010. That’s a good thing, as all three are vital to the team’s continued success. Rasheed Wallace, on the other hand, is only signed through 2009, which means that next summer he’ll be an attractive trade target for a lot of teams looking to acquire salary cap relief via an expiring contract. And considering he’s set to make $13.6 million in 2008-09, he could provide a team a lot of relief. Might the Pistons be willing to trade him?
It’s certainly possible. While Wallace is still an important member of team right now, he’s also one of the most replaceable, at least in terms of having adequate backups waiting in reserve. For example, if Billups went down, there would be a lot of questions as to whether rookie Rodney Stuckey or Flip Murray could handle the starting point guard duties. But if Wallace were lost for any amount of time, the team could still get solid production out of Antonio McDyess (whose contract is also up in 2009), Jason Maxiell or even Amir Johnson.
Rasheed is somewhat of a polarizing figure in Detroit sports, so I’m curious how this idea will be received. Read the rest of it and tell me, am I off-base or might I be onto something?
USA faces off against Argentina tonight at midnight (Detroit time) on ESPN2. I’m not sure if I’m going to stay up to watch but I’m definitely setting the DVR — not only am I excited to see what Carlos Delfino can do in a starring role (single tear …), I’m also interested in getting a good look at Luis Scola, who you may not be familiar with now but probably will be after this season. Henry Abbott of TrueHoop had a chance to watch a scouting DVD with footage of Scola and he had nothing but good things to say:
– He’s an active big man with size and strength to hang around in the lane, and he’s not slow.
– People leave him open a lot at the free throw line. They shouldn’t do that, because at least in these video highlights, he’ll nail that jumper.
– He will catch the ball in the lane and spin into an array of finishing maneuvers.
– In watching highlights of his teammates, it’s very often Scola who ends up starring. He sets people up to score a bunch of different ways: Wrap-around passes, dumping out of the double team to a cutter in stride, at one point he even attacks the basket on the dribble, draws an extra defender, and makes a perfect shovel pass to an open teammate for a layup.
If you watch the game, consider this your open thread.
Just in case you care about these types of things so far in advance, the Pistons released their local television schedule today.
Remember how Alex Acker got dumped by his new Spanish team when they discovered a hidden knee injury? According to Keith Langlois, Acker has reached a new deal with Barcelona and will play in Spain after all. And yes, the Pistons still own his NBA rights.
It’s not my cup of tea, but some people will get excited for this: the Shock have advanced to the WNBA’s Eastern Conference Finals.
If you were starting an NBA team from scratch, who would you pick to be the cornerstone? You can choose anyone, ignoring pesky things like salaries and contracts but taking into consideration age and long-term potential.
It’s a tough question, but Bethlehem Shoals, Tom Ziller and I have come up with our top 10 picks at FanHouse. (We put up 6-10 yesterday, and 1-5 will be posted throughout today.)
I was originally going to throw that link on the side in the Alley-Oop section, but I’m putting it here because I’m guessing this could turn into a pretty lively discussion. So who would it be?
Yesterday, A. Sherrod Blakely posted this on MLive.com:
Because Chauncey Billups and Tayshaun Prince are Team USA role players, being worn down when the season starts in a couple of months shouldn’t be an issue with either.
Still, even with limited minutes, the chances of getting hurt remain the same.
That’s why you can bet there was a collective sigh of relief among the Pistons brass when they learned that Tayshaun Prince’s sprained ankle injury wasn’t that serious.
He was right — the injury forced Tayshaun to miss one game (against Mexico) but he was able to return last night against Puerto Rico. In 19 minutes, he scored seven points with six boards.
I guess it’s true that Prince is a “role player,” but only three other players (LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Michael Redd) played more minutes than he did last night. That’s been the trend the entire tournament: Prince led the team with 24 minutes against Venezuela, tied for the team lead with 19 against the Virgin Islands and was fourth on the team with 19 against Canada. In fact, the only game he’s played fewer minutes was against Brazil, when he sprained his ankle and finished with four minutes.
This team is so deep that everyone is basically a role player — LeBron is leading the team in minutes with just 20.8 per game. But it’s not just the games that wear players out but the whole experience — all of the practices, scrimmages, living out of a hotel, etc. So with that in mind, I’m still worried about Tayshaun and Chauncey getting worn out, or at the very least, not re-charging their batteries enough.
Like many of you, I saw this AP article pop up in a few places about how some people wanted to send the Pistons to compete in the 2004 Olympics. It’s a cool idea, I guess, and I remember sportswriters talking about it at the time, but I don’t know why it’s being discussed now as something that was seriously considered.
Even if it was, though, Detroit’s lineup wouldn’t have been the same as the one that beat the Lakers. For one, Rasheed Wallace was a free agent, so he wouldn’t have played. Neither would have Mehmet Okur, who was also a free agent, and more importantly, Turkish. That would have left Detroit with Corliss Williamson or Darvin Ham at the power forward spot. Ouch.
Some individual members of that title-winning team were in fact invited, but only after every other NBA star turned down their invitation:
Billups may have considered the invitation, had it been extended sooner.
“It was really the way and the manner that they asked me,” said Billups, the MVP of the ‘04 finals. “They asked like 12, 14 other guards, and then they couldn’t get none of them, and they were like, ‘How about Chauncey?’
“I felt that was a disrespect to me for what I’ve done, what I had been through and what I had showed on the court and what I could do. So I said I didn’t really want to be a part of that. Obviously this time around it’s a lot different.”
It’s different this year not just because Chauncey was highly-recruited but also because the U.S. is back to winning all of their games. All of those blowouts have left Bill Walton with more room than usual to deviate from the action on the floor and wax poetic about, well, whatever he wants to. From Ross Siler of the Salt Lake Tribune:
The story of the tournament, if anyone wants to write it, has to be the opportunity these blowouts have presented for Walton to detail the cultural and political history of the U.S. opponents, as well as their major geographical landmarks.
Who would have guessed, for example, that one man knew so much about the Sea of Cortez? It’s like Walton’s playing Trivial Pursuit against himself from behind the microphone. He is his own Wikipedia.
We learned Monday that Mexico City is home to the world’s second-largest public square and that Latinos in America have a purchasing power of some $800 billion. We learned that Walton used to cross the border growing up in San Diego to play basketball in Tijuana.
We heard about the devastation of Hurricane Dean, about the Baja Peninsula being the world’s third-longest peninsula (not to mention that the main road wasn’t paved until the 1970s) and one man controls 14 percent of Mexico’s entire economy.
Just imagine what Walton will come up with for the Uruguay game on Wednesday. And imagine how great it would have been to lock Walton and Chavez in a room somewhere in Caracas this summer.
I don’t know of any announcers more divisive than Walton — people seem to love him or hate him with little room in between. Personally, I enjoy him, as does my colleague Ian. As a writer, I can appreciate a healthy dose of hyperbole now and then, especially when it’s coming from the best announcer in the history of televised sports.
File this one under “well that kind of sucks:”
Tayshaun Prince sprained his left ankle in the first quarter of the United States’ game with Brazil on Sunday night in the FIBA Americas tournament.
The 6-foot-9 forward for the Detroit Pistons fell and stayed on the floor after going for a defensive rebound late in the first quarter. He was attended to for about a minute and then helped off the court. He gingerly walked to the locker room and a team spokesman said a decision on his returning to the game would be made at halftime.
I didn’t see it happen, but some of your fellow readers did — here’s joejoejoe’s reaction from the comments in the post below:
I was watching live when it happened. It looked bad enough that you went ‘I hope that’s not serious’. Here’s hoping it’s not serious.
I second that. Hopefully we’ll get a more substantive update soon.
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