I think most of us would agree that drafting Darko was a mistake. I think Dumars made a second mistake by waiting too long to trade him. Not bashing Dumars here. I still have him as one of the top GM's in all of sports. But my question is, who got the better end of the trade? Orlando or Detroit? I realize our answer may change down the road after we find out who we get. As of right now, I think Detroit got the better end of the deal.

If it were me, I would package a player or two and move up in the draft as far as I could. When it comes to bb, I worry more about quality than quantity. A followup question would be, if Darko was in this years draft, where do you think he would have been drafted? Assuming we did not know now what we know about Darko of course. Just trying to compare our loss. I think he would probably have gone third this year. So our loss would be dropping 12 places, not counting the loss of Arroyo of course.

Probably Detroit. Even with Orlando making the playoffs. Namely since Orlando does not seem so hot in re-signing Darko so they will have nothing to show for it if that happends.

The capspace we gained with that trade will be very important this offseason as we lock up our own guys. You have to factor that into the equation. Is re-signing Billups, re-negotiating McDyess' deal, locking up Amir long term and the pick worth Darko and Arroyo?

I truly do not believe so.

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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."

Sorry Roscoe, I'm feeling really tired tonight and am confused. It's the end of a school year and my brain is on E. Are you saying you think Detroit or Orlando got the better end of the deal?

Yeah, that is confusing. I will go back and fix the post.

I think Detroit did well on the deal. Orlando, it remains to be seen if they can re-sign the dark one.

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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."

Detroit got the best end of this deal hands down. Darko would barely beat out Dupree while Arroyo might beat out Blalock for spots on the 15. That puts both of em on the inactive list with a late first rounder on the horizon.

This was addition by subtraction. Ask Orlando.

It's a tough question, because Detroit hasn't gotten anything out of the deal yet, and Orlando has almost used up what they got.

If Detroit drafts some kid with the 15th pick and sits him for the next 2.5 years because he's not better than our starters, then I would say we didn't do very well. If we trade up or get a solid player who can contribute next year, then we are looking good.

Meanwhile, Orlando would probably not have made the playoffs without Darko and Arroyo's contributions. Also, they have the inside track for resigning Darko, which everyone down there thinks will happen. They freed up salary and are going to be one of the biggest free agent players in the off season. They could realistically make a run at Billups.

I am still of the opinion that we could have kept Darko, used him as our starting C this year and not needed to sign Nazr Mohammed. To me, we traded the 2 things we need, a young defensive minded center and a backup true point guard. Since we are not using Nazr at all, then I don't know how you can argue that we wouldn't be a better team with Darko + Arroyo coming off the bench (now that we have Webber too).

Both teams traded hard.

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"Will was rolling, wasn't he? I roll with the guy that's hot." MC

I suspect that both sides expected more out of the deal.

The 2003 NBA draft was on June 26, 2003

2003 NBA Draft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joe D. hired Larry Brown on June 03, 2003 before the draft took place

SI.com - Pro Basketball - Pistons fire Carlisle, will hire Brown - Sunday June 01, 2003 11:45 AM


The mistake that Joe D. made was in not checking Brown's history of not playing European players. Up until Brown's first year as coach of the Pistons he had only played two European players any significant minutes in his 20 years as a professional coach.

Rik Smits started for Brown when Brown coached Indiana and Tony Kukoc played for Brown for a couple of years at Philadelphia. That was it.

Brown never liked or felt comfortable coaching European players and he didn't like playing inexperienced players.

Larry Brown Coaching Record - Basketball-Reference.com

Joe D. should have researched Brown's coaching propensities further before drafting Darko. I will always belief that if Popovich was the Piston coach when the Piston's drafted Darko, he would now be an all star.

An 18 year old kid by himself in a foreign country, America no less with its temptations, lots of money in his pocket and can't speak the language. With a coach like Brown the odds were stacked against DMC right from the beginning.

A kid with a lot of talent, but messed up by an old inflexible coach with no regard for his players' feelings in the plural. Two primary examples of this in addition to DMC are AI and Memo.

AI has been no where near the problem child since he no longer has had to play for the rigid dictatorial coach L. Brown.

I am amazed that DMC has become as good a player that he has given how much Brown messed his head up. Joe D. saved his NBA career by trading him. As we know DMC was ready to leave the NBA and the U.S. if he wasn't traded away from all those bad memories that Flip couldn't fix. Flip may be good with Xs and Os. But it seems to me that Flip is not the greatest in handling difficult personnel situations and could do nothing to correct the bad DMC situation that Brown had created.

Yes Joe D. should not have drafted him knowing who DMC was going to coached by in the beginning of his NBA career.

If the question is Darko now vs the current prospects in the draft at #15... I'd have to go with Darko... he has made strides in a positive direction... It's not easy for locals to forgive and forget but from a pure talent perspective DMC has more to offer than the bigs available... I believe you can find good swingman & PG's without a lotto pick but quality bigs after the lotto are a rare breed.
I'd gladly accept his numbers and defense on our current squad (talent over history).