A great vid of Vinnie "The Microwave" Johnson over at www.need4sheed.com

Man, we really need a microwave off the bench again!

I'd hate to see a guy with his talent rot away on Flip's bench while he watched Mole Evans **cough** light it up. **cough**

Good point.

The great thing about Vinnie was that he provided instant O as soon as he entered.

Its a catch 22. Flip doesn't play the bench because he doesn't trust them. But the bench can't impress him, develop any confidence in themselves or find a rythem if they aren't playing.

Hopefully someone from the bench (or a couple of guys) will step up right from the beginning next season and play themselves into the rotation. That might be the only way Flip will give them a chance.

Eh. Billups and Hamilton aren't Zeke and Dumars. Different players, different coach, different league, different situation.

Delk should do unless somebody better is available.

The difference is that Vinnie played 25-30 minutes a night. Could you ever see a bench player on this team getting those minutes? That's why a part of me thinks the "starting 5" is a bad thing. Even if you have good players on the bench that can come in and give you a different look, they wouldn't play because the "all-stars" are getting their quota of minutes. 5-10 minutes isn't enough for anyone which is what Flip seems to expect from bench players. Can't expect much more than effort in those kinds of minutes, and I think our current group brings that. Anyone looking for a 10-15ppg guy is delusional. We won't ever have one with this starting lineup seemingly locked into 36+ mpg each.

Great video. And trust me, Vinnie would have gotten minutes. If he was on the court two minutes, he had at least one basket. Almost every time. Boy, he is exactly what we could use right now.

When he got hot, like in 1984 against the Celtics, you couldn't foul him hard enough to stop him. He was built low and strong like a coiled spring, with this permanent forward lean that kept players from getting really close to him before he elevated. And the video was right about his offensive rebounding - I never saw a guy better at making his second shot. It always went in.

Sigh ...

Vinnie was magical at times the way he came in seemingly cold of the bench.Not easy to do.But for next years team hopefully Flip isn't caught up in giving the all-stars heavy minutes and the players aren't trying to get homecourt while slacking off for half the game making it harder to win and get bench guys minutes.

The talks Joe.D had with Flip better have been taken to heart and I hope he rattled the players cages to.I think we have some pretty good talent on the bench it just needs a consistent chance.So we lose 10 more games and come into next years playoffs better prepared.We at all costs CANNOT see Pat Riley dancing next year at a parade,I had nightmares it was awful.

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Nov 13 LW Milan Lucic had an active night. He scored his first goal in eight games since his Oct. 25 hat trick and also pounded Michael Komisarek in a third-period fight. Lucic cut his hand in a fight with Michael Komisarek. "I'll be fine," he said. "(X-rays are) negative, but there's so many broken bones in there from before you can't really tell."

Woohoo!!

The wmv file will have to wait a bit (thanks JTime), but I watched the avi and it was fantastic (thanks micro).

Having a guy like VJ as the third guard seems almost unfair! Great memories....

I'm trying to remember if Vinnie played any at the 3 spot. As I recall it was basically a three guard rotation that gave you mid 30s for Isiah and Joe, and 25-30 for Vinnie. (At least in the late 80s.) And that worked because any two of them on the court at once gave you enough ball handling.

As long as current Pistons are thinking about a sub for CB and a sub for Rip, neither is going to get those kind of minutes. Maybe those combo guards just don't exist anymore.