Negativity seems to hanging over Pistons fans like a wet blanket, so here’s something to lighten the mood: trainer Arnie Kander and Rip Hamilton are apparently planning on racing this summer. Chris Silva first mentioned this over the weekend in the Detroit Free Press:
Hamilton has challenged Pistons strength and conditioning coach Arnie Kander to a mile run that the Pistons’ guard started hyping after Saturday’s practice.
“After the season, me and Arnie Kander are going to go race a mile,” Hamilton said as he left the practice facility. “Out here in the parking lot — old school. I’m going to be coached by Michael (Spud) Hamilton, my cousin. Arnie (Kander) is going to be coached by Mr. Chest, Super Dave (Boyer).”
Boyer is an assistant to Kander.
Today, the Freep followed up on the “story,” getting Kander’s take:
The shooting guard randomly said Saturday he wants to take on Kander, whose self-reported mile time is 4:52.
“He doesn’t have a chance,” said Kander, 47. “He can juice, hang upside down, whatever.”
Hamilton said he’s a 4:50 miler himself. He clocks himself about once every summer, when his workouts often involve distance running.
Chances of this actually happening? I’m guessing slim. But what would the awesome factor be if this actually did go down and Kander won? Totally, completely off the charts. (On a side note, knowing Kander’s homeopathic ways, I wouldn’t be surprised if his “juice” reference referred to, you know, actual juice.)
yes i read about this. planning on taking summer vacation early ehh????? despite of game 1 result, hopefully not.
So Skiles to the Bucks. Say what you will about the Chicago meltdown, and Skiles inability to manage young talent, I personally feel he’s one of the better coaches in the league.
If the Bucks can develop Ramon Sessions, who I noticed after the April 2nd game against Washington, they could have a premier pass-first point guard… worst case Brevin Knight, best case– who knows. With Hammond at the helm, if the Bucks take a step back on Jianlian, develop sessions, get some consistency out of Villanueva– they could be a big surprise in the coming season or two.
I’ll take Rip. I’ve been a fan of his since his UConn days and I seem to recall him getting positive press back in the day for his standout performance in Coach Jim Calhoun’s hellacious distance running drills.
It seems Skiles should be perfect for Milwaukee. On paper they look at least .500, and they’ve spent a lot of money (Redd, Simmons, Williams, Bell) and have three recent lottery picks in Yi, Villanueva, and Bogut, but they seem to be godawful on defense. A lack of offense shouldn’t be a problem like it was in Chicago.
wow, bfd.
If Rip loses, Joe D. should trade him… better yet, trade him anyway while his value is still high.
Haha. After talking smack, Rip will probably get himself disqualified for running half of it outside the lines (like the 3 point contest)…
With Arnie brewing up all those potions and Six-Demon Bags and such, there’s no telling what he can do. I wouldn’t bet against him.
rip needs to worry more about running during games in the playoffs.
wonder if arnie uses an inversion table when players get their heads jammed in their own arses?
wonder what uniform rip will be wearing when he and arnie actually get to racing this summer?
Wednesday still feels like forever away…
For those of you that are calling for him to be traded, what are you thinking in terms of equal/desired value back for Rip?
LawyerBoy, I’d take a lottery pick and a couple of scratch off lottery tickets, and maybe one of those family 4 packs to a game and the game could be their choice.
My money is on the witch/warlock, Arnie!! All he’ll have to do is slightly bump Rip a few times and he’ll fly off course.
Looking forward to Wednesday. Any PDX fans, I’ll be hosting at my pad and will have the game on DVR starting at 5:30 local…
Q Dog
LB, I can’t see any better value in a shooting guard that we could get for Rip. I’ve thought about this pretty hard, and I cannot think of an upgrade we could actually afford. Its tough to get a near 50% shooter in a shooting guard, one who fits so well into a team offense/defense, and one with a height advantage and defensive capability over most other SGs.
But if you forced me to move him for another player, and I’ve mentioned this on DBB before I think, I’d go for Monta Ellis or Kevin Martin.
i’m not calling for him to be traded. i just think he’ll be the first to go. i don’t think joe’ll trade sheed, considering what he’s said about him being exactly what he wants a detroit piston to be. chauncey’s the face of the franchise. tay is the feather in joe d’s drafting hat. dyess could go, but what are you going to get for him? rip has value as a scorer who’s still only 30 years old and only has a couple years left on his deal. he’s the best bargaining chip we got. and we haven’t exactly suffered with rip out of the lineup.
as far as what we get in return, i have no idea.
I would’ve pulled the trigger on Rip/Tay/Amir for Kobe at the beginning of the year.
I remember being well in favor of trading for Kobe Bryant.
I’m just wondering what Rip Hamilton did to Boney and his family.
it’s probably more what boney did to his family after watching rip shoot 30% in a home playoff loss to a sub-.500 team.
i hate kobe bryant.
“i hate kobe bryant.”
music to my ears.
I left off the sarcasm so people wouldn’t have a reason to get mad at me. I asked the question wanting to know what others thought, but feeling very firm in my position. I haven’t changed my position either.
I agree 100% w/Mike Payne, it’s a lateral move (at best) and a downgrade (to what degree?) at worst. His contract is reasonable, he specializes in consistency (as much as an NBA can), he’s extremely well-conditioned, and he’s not particularly old. I’m not saying he’s the savior, the glue that holds us together or anything, I just don’t think sending him packing does us any favors.
When one guy has a bad night, the other bunch usually hold the fort, while one guy has the hot hand and makes up for it.
Game 1 . . . Billups had a bad game. Rip had a horrible game. Tayshaun had a horrible game. Rasheed had a great game. McDyess had a horrible game. That’s a lot of awful. Rasheed couldn’t make up more than one guy. And the bench can make up a couple of guys, but they were not used much nor did they show much (outside of Maxiell).
They can’t all expect the next guy to make up the difference. Maybe that’s where Flip fails, historically. He claims to know when a guy doesn’t have it right off the bat . . . guys were failing too long out there. Maybe he has a preference on when to use timeouts, but when your team stinks it up a bit, sometimes a coach has to burn one early and when they don’t want to do it.
I didn’t do anything my family because of Rip. When I watch games with my Dad, in true Bill Simmons’ fashion, I usually curse and talk about how Detroit would be so much better going back to the 4 on 5 offense that used to make them so tough to play against at both ends of the floor.
Detroit needs it’s Bruce Bowen… Tay doesn’t do it 100% of the time, plus he’s a scorer.
You take Rip out of the lineup, Tay gets better. It’s a foregone conclusion, we’ve seen it over the course of this season. Rip isn’t untouchable.
Dyess is a free agent after this year, and is likely headed the Grant Hill route to the next team he can win a title with before he turns into a 37 year old Dale Davis or Antonio Davis and everyone talks about signing him to a half a season contract because they have no room while they have the youngins on the squad before the real playoff push starts. He’s perfect to take Juwan’s job in Dallas next season…
(Dyess is not a free agent — I know HoopsHype and some of those other sites have been slow to update their lists, but he signed a two-year extension last summer. He’s here through 2010.)
Its funny Matt, a few weeks ago I was looking at the free agency, just mulling over any possible pickups Detroit might be able to make over the summer. I was trying to get an idea of Detroit cap space and our own free agents, and DBB was the ONLY site I found with accurate info on McDyess’ deal. I searched google through the DBB domain to find the news after no one else had accurate info.
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