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Originally Posted by max  Off hand I would say no. Going back to Dumars original vision for this season. It was to develop a bench so the starters can be fresh for the post-season. So when the post season starts guess what? The starters are going to play more mins and whoever is the top 3 or 4 reserve guys at the last game of the season will spot them. At least thats the way I interperated it. They can help but the Pistons fate rests on the starters.
Onto the guys. In the future I see Afflalo as nothing more than another Eric Snow type of player. Solid D but offensivly challenged at times. He will be a solid bench addition to any contending team and can double as a starter on teams who are guard challenged.
Amir I see great things for but at 6'9" he is not our answer at the Center spot. His future job on this team is going to be McDyess's starting PF spot. Right now is Amir better than Dyess? Is he going to help up more than McDyess right now? |
Afflalo is not in any way offensively challenged. Some may perceive this, not understanding basketball well enough to know that you got to let a guy shoot the ball before you can judge him. When Afflalo gets shots to take on a regular basis (which has been extremely rare this season), he hits his shots. When any player, with a tiny few exceptions, does not get to shoot very often, he does not shoot well. Afflalo can also drive in, and use all that height of his to score the ball.
On defense, I see Afflalo as every bit as talented as Snow, but having the height to also guard a lot of small forwards, giving him more versatility than Snow. Not to mention, it is of course a lot harder to shoot over the 6-5 Afflalo vs. the barely 6 foot tall Snow.
There are some players we can use Dyess to guard, but for the most part, Amir can do the job while also providing some spectacular help out defense that Dyess can't. Amir also provides transition D completely lacking from Dyess. If anyone wants to know if starting Amir right now in this year's playoffs, instead of Dyess, would help us the answer is absolutely. No doubt. Not even close. Amir will make us a better team if he starts instead of Dyess. Note, Sheed would be the center, and Amir the power forward.
Starting Amir would help our transition D and interior defense to start games. You would go from our current situation, starting 4 good defenders who are not quite good enough to overcome how slow Dyess is at the start of games, to having 5 good defenders. We would be starting out games with major defensive based runs, vs. as it stands now, starting out games giving up big leads.