Joe Dumars spoke with a couple of hundred Pistons season ticket holders on the phone today. He answered (pre-submitted) questions, and fortunately for those of us who weren't on the call, Natalie Sitto from Need4Sheed provides a transcription of some of the more interesting questions. Here's a sample:
Q: Will Amir Johnson be playing more?
A: "Yes, it's a long season and they are going to try to find minutes for Amir." They think Amir has an incredible upside and they want to get him on the floor more this year.
Eh, I'll believe it when I see it.
Q: Do you believe Chauncey is a max salary player?
A: "What a guys number is, is whatever you negotiate. Whether he's a max or not it's irrelevant."" We are committed to keeping Chauncey here."
I hope so, but again, I'll believe it when I see it.
Q: What's wrong with Rasheed, why won't they give him the ball in the post?
A: "That's a two way street. Sometimes he has to get there and call for it. Sometimes Rasheed doesn't get there and demand the ball in the post. So sometimes that is the issue as much as the guys not getting him the ball in the post. Rasheed is not a guy that you're are going to get the ball and throw it in the post for 48 minutes. He's not that type of guy, he is going to float out to the three point line, he's going to pick and roll, he's going to pick and pop he's going to do all those things. He is going to move around a lot on the floor. Me personally, I would love to see him down on the block a whole lot more, but I also understand that you have to allow a player to play and feel comfortable on the floor. Usually what you see is when the game gets tight in the fourth quarter or when it's tight and we really need a basket you can rest assured that he goes down there then. He understands how good he is in the post, he just doesn't want to have to play that position the entire 48 minutes. He usually gets down there when things are really tight though."
It's always good to hear from the man in charge, but I beg to differ about Rasheed's play in the low post: far, far too often I find myself cringing when he takes random three-pointers late in tight games. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don't, but I'm amazed that a guy who's shot 51.4% for his career on two-point field goals and just 33.9% on threes has such a green light.In all fairness, his two-point percentage is down this year (.462) while his three-point percentage is up (.395), but that I'll just say "sample size." Maybe it wouldn't annoy me so much if his little turnaround jumper from the block (you know what I'm talking about, where his arms are fully extended before he even releases the ball) wasn't so freaking devastating and impossible to defend -- I don't think I've ever seen that shot blocked.