In 2004, a certain team played 11 guys in the playoffs. And this certain group just happened to win a Championship.

1989. Three man guard rotation. Johnson, Thomas, Dumars. Aguirre and Rodman at small forward. Salley, Mahorn, Laimbeer, and Edwards rotating as our bigs. Thats a nine man rotation.

Why do you play a ten man rotation in the regular season? If you have two injuries, you are down to an 8 man rotation that can still win it all.

A team that goes with an 8 man rotation during the regular season, and then cries about an injury at playoff time, is nothing but a loser. Loser mentality. Detroit should not accept loser mentality. The goal is to win a championship. Win, not make excuses.

With this 10 man rotation (Billups, Stuckey, Rip, Afflalo, Tay, Hayes, Dyess, Johnson, Sheed, Maxiell) losing any two players will not seriously hinder our chances to win it all, unless those two injuries came at the same position. (like losing Billups and Stuckey, or losing Maxiell and Sheed.)

To really do it right, we sign Mejia as soon as his ankle heals, and play Samb in the rotation some. Now if we lost both Billups and Stuckey, we could go with a point guard rotation of Prince and Mejia (with Rip and Afflalo actually guarding the point guards, while Prince and Mejia played the point on offense.) If we lost Maxiell and Sheed, we would still have Samb, a real center, starting at center, with Amir and Dyess rounding out a sound 3 man rotation. (And Mohammed would have a role here as a 5th big. Hayes would be the 4th big)

It does not matter how many guys you use in the regular season. When the playoffs come along, its about winning. Series by series. You play your best for each series. That might mean someone sits out a series. Shorten it up, just like hockey. But if you play too short a rotation in the regular season, you are done if an injury hits you. (See Detroit after losing Zelly just before the Boston series in Carlisle's first year. Carlisle had no backup plans at all for an injury to one of our bigs, despite Dumars having the talent on the roster - like he always does)

Lee, I agree with your basic concept, but I don't think I'll ever be convinced that the Pistons/ Spurs/ Suns, etc could win a Championship with a player like Billups/ Parker/ Nash out with an injury.

The point would be to sustain injuries to non-starters (or someone like Dyess or Rip) and also develop the non-starters so that when the playoffs come around, we have full information on what they can provide. At that point, you eliminate the 1 or 2 weakest of the bunch and let them stand by in case they are needed.

Billups/ Sheed/ and Tay are the rudder, sail, and mast to our 2008 Ship.

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"I’ll just say this: We’re not talking to teams about their second- or third-best players." Joe Dumars talking about his plan to get other teams' 4th best players.

Rip makes the whole team better.

There are two Pistons whipping boys on this forum

Flipper and Rip. When things go a little south for us one or both get blamed based upon whatever seems to be the whim at the moment.

Flipper I can understand because there has been a great disappointment among many on the forum that we haven't won a ring since Brown was coach and Brown was very popular among many posters here.

Rip I can understand because there are a lot of posters here who were and are still ticked off that Joe D. traded Stackhouse, a big favorite, for Rip.

I imagine that when Broken Hand starts playing and making rookie mistakes that a lot of posters will start bashing him simply because he wears #3. Again understandable.

Cheers

I don`t totally disagree with what you are saying, however, IMO, coaches don`t go into the playoffs looking to play a 10 man rotation. Injuries, foul trouble and other situations arise during a game that may dictate going deeper into the bench than one might have anticipated.

During the Pistons championship run, 10 players were indeed seeing action on a consistent basis. Our starters still avg about 36 mpg, and the only reserves that saw double digit minutes were Okur and Mike James (just under 12 mpg).

Larry Brown understood when to play his bench during that run, for example, in the ECF against the physical Pacers, Williamson played an avg of 16 mpg, while only playing 10 mpg in the Finals.

Mike James on the other hand played about 10 mpg in the early rounds, but barely played at all in the Finals.

If you are talking about the regular season, the current Pistons are playing 9 and 10 men, perhaps, because of blowouts, injuries etc.......

The 10 players you would like to see out on the floor aren`t playing.

I think that`s the problem!!

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"I`m shocked" The Low, on the Pistons game 2 win in the ECF at Boston.

I see no real disagreement from you with me here. I am not suggesting a 10 man rotation for the playoffs. I am suggesting having 10 guys minimum prepared to step in as needed. Twelve is the ideal. Larry Brown had 11 guys ready to play the year we won it all. The next year, he took that down to 8, and it burnt him bad in the championship series. He simply did not have the right players ready to contribute.

In reality Lee if you look at the players we lost, Memo, James, and Corliss, it wasn't LB that cut the roatation that year it was Joe D. He did not do a very good job in replacing the things those guys brought to the table; because he (LB) did not trust either of the Carlos' or Darko.