Amir will help us in the playoffs, this season, if we play him, this season. You can't learn the NBA game sitting on the bench. Without him, we will not win it all, as we will be too thin up front.

I never said he would be sitting on the bench.

I just said that at this time he isn't good enough to be in the regular rotation.

They are two totally different things.

PISTONS CORNER: Unlike past years, starters not overworked; Herrmann plays

Please explain the difference then. Meanwhile, let me make it clear. Amir Johnson must be in our regular rotation, pretty much immediately, for us to be able to win a championship this season. It does not matter if he is good enough right now. What matters is how good he is when the playoffs start. Right now, with way too little experience, of course his defense is lacking in some areas, as defense is largely a matter of experience. Yet, he is our best rebounder, shotblocker, and a very good transition D player. He also gets to a very high percentage of plays due to his quickness. Further, with all that height and ups, he ain't so easy to shoot over.

Also, this has to be in the regular rotation, not just garbage time. Amir has to see situations that will occur in games while they are still undecided. Garbage time is a different game, a different set of opponents, a different set of teammates, different roles, different priorities. While garbage time helps some, I'd say its about a 4 to 1 ratio better if you are playing in the regular rotation.

The difference is simple

Regular rotation players play in the regular rotation
Non-regular rotation players do not play in the regular rotation.

To know the difference between what is considered regular rotation time and non regular rotation time, you may want to re-read this thread from the beginning.

As far as your other point about a player having to play in the regular rotation for a winning team when they are not good enough or experienced enough I totally disagree with you on this. In fact I couldn't disagree with you more if I wanted to.

Take someone like Durant. His game is primarily offense, specifically the ability to get his shot off and score. So on a scoring challenged team like Seattle he will play.

Murray is in street clothes not primarily because he doesn't pass the ball, because he did pass the ball when he started. As I recall he even had one game with 13 assists as a starter. Murray is in street clothes because he can't play defense.

As a Pistons player, if you can't play defense better than the guys on the depth chart who are ahead of you, you just don't play ahead of them.

Playing defense is not just a matter of blocking shots or rebounding. In fact a lot of time guys who block a lot of shots get burned by good offensive players, like AJ did last night when they attempt to go for a block.

Playing defense is about being able to stay between your man and the basket at all times unless in a particular team defensive set you are required to front him. Playing defense is about moving your feet to stay between him and the basket. Playing defense is about keeping your opponent off of his sweet spot, which requires, skill, strength and experience. Playing defense is about not letting the offensive player seal you off. Playing defense is first and foremost a team thing. It mean making the proper switchers, knowing when to step out, covering the weak side when needed, etc, etc. These things are learned in practice or in basketball camps and then reinforced in game situations.

If a player doesn't make the proper defensive plays it messes up the entire team defense.

In addition AJ is still not strong enough to hold his position against most PF and Centers.

You keep countering, why not play AJ at the #3? There are a number of valid reasons for not playing him at the #3 and almost none for playing him at the #3

The Pistons unlike almost all NBA teams are first and foremost about defense. Barring injury, AJ will have to earn his spot in the regular rotation when by playing Pistons type defense. If he can't get strong enough and learn to do that he will be traded.

However, I am confident he will based upon his skill set and attitude.

If I thought Amir Johnson could not play good D by this playoffs after getting a lot of playing time in our rotation, I would not be calling for him to get many minutes right now. But that is not the case. I believe he would be one of our best defenders by that time, if given the playing time now.

The next question is, would it cost us wins if Amir played now to gain the experience? So far, the answer is no. Sure our bench has given up leads here and there, but that is not from Amir's play. Like a game I just reviewed yesterday, maybe you remember it. Murray turned the ball over. Maxiell turned the ball over twice. All the sudden, the lead had shrunk. Amir had contributed a bit, fouling a guy and sending him to the line. But Amir in the same stretch got rebounds, blocks, and showed up on transition D to prevent scoring. Pretty much neutral.

How about this last game. There was no problem with Amir playing center for us. He gathered in 9 rebounds in his first 8 minutes. The lead was holding well enough. Brezec came in at center, and wow, the lead got dangerously close. Not quite too close to where we had to put starters back in, but maybe just one bucket from it. Brezec, in 8 minutes of play, got no rebounds.

I'll go at this another way. We had all kinds of time to showcase Murray. That costs us games. Ditto for Mohammed. And Hunter cost us games while getting up to speed. We certainly can find time to play Amir Johnson, one of the future stars of this team, and one that can help us this year, in the playoffs, where we will need him.

If you don't envision Amir playing in the regular rotation in the playoffs, then who would you have as the 4th big? I certainly see no better options.

Well, playing in garbage time is kind of like playing in NBDL - most players just trying to pad their stats, and not much defense is being played, unless you have someone like AA on the floor.

I wonder if there is someone in a Boston Celtics forum right now saying "The Celtics have to get Leon Powe integrated into the regular rotation immediately or Boston has absolutely no chance to win it all."

In case you may have forgotten AJ is one of my favorite players so I would love to see him starting, but not at the expense of the team or his long term development.

Where I think we disagree at this point.

Is that you are saying we should play AJ now because this experience he will get will help us now and in the playoffs because he is good enough now to help us at this time by taking away minutes from guys in the regular rotation.

I can see your perspective and understand where you are coming from.

However, I am sorry but I don't agree with you.

1. I don't believe that by putting him in the regular rotation of 9 or even 10 will help us now.

2. I don't believe that by playing him in the regular rotation at this point it will help us in the playoffs.

The reasons I don't see it that way are.

1. AJ is not just in my opinion, but also I believe in the opinion of the Detroit brass not strong enough at this point to defend the low post. Players rarely if ever get stronger during the regular season. Bulk up work is done in the off season.

2. I don't see him at the #3 because he doesn't have an outside shot. If you post him then it takes away Sheed's low post game, otherwise if we try and post both of them we will wind up with horrible spacing and lousy ball movement. Also, at this time his footwork is not good enough to defend against most starting #3s and experienced backup #3.

3. Playing him now in the regular rotation would lead to unnecessary team fouls and give our opponents penalty free throws quicker than we would like and is good for us.

4. Playing him now in the regular rotation would adversely affect our team defense because he is just not at that level at this time.

5. All of the above will lead to a negative experience for him and make him frustrated. This will slow his growth curve. He will not be 21 until next May so he is still very young and needs in my opinion to be put into on court situations with a high probability of success for him and the team. This will reinforce a positive mental attitude on his part and also of his teammates towards him. It seems to me that he will get more of those at this time by playing as many minutes as possible in situations where the game is not on the line, which means out of the regular rotation.

Bottom line is I think I understand where you are coming from but I just don't agree with the conclusions that you arrive at if we were to put AJ into the regular rotation at this point.

One final comment: Bynum is also only 20, but

1. He has and continues to work full time with Kareem.
2. Bynum also got substantial minutes last year with the Lakers instead of sitting on the bench or playing in the D league. I believe that we are good enough that AJ can get substantial minutes this year even if he isn't in the regular rotation.
3. Bynum is substantially stronger than AJ and is in fact stronger than most of the centers in the league, whereas AJ is at this point weaker than most power forwards in the league.

I don't agree. Because even though he is playing garbage time he will be getting almost immediate feedback from Sheed, Flipper and the other guys on both his offense and defense. Whereas in the D league he will get none of that. He is also benefiting tremendously by practicing with us which means against our starters.

If he was sitting and not playing for us then yes I would agree, but since he is playing for us I think it substantially better for him to play garbage time for us then play in the D league. In fact that is my major complaint of how they have handled him. He never should have gone to the D league at all but played garbage time for us two years ago spent the summers bulking up and some regular rotation minutes last year. If he had done that then he would in my opinion be a lot further along today than he currently is.

Very very few players that go through the D league ever become stars in the NBA. There are of course exceptions but that is exactly what they are.