Dumars comfortable with Dupree and rookies backing up Prince - Detroit Pistons Full-Court Press - MLive.com
According to Pistons.com Joe doesn't want to bring any free agents using the exception. How they expect to get an adequate play from undersized rookies and guy that didn't get off the bench last year is beyond me. I guess we'll have to wait and see how it all plays out.

You have to think that Joe is looking hard on the trade front. I'm not against signing a guy like Woods for the minimum, but you have to think that Joe's trying to swing something for Flip jr. and change.

I like one of the comments after this MLive article by DD2k "that Davison is being cheap SOB"

I am all in favor of Samjia and Alf making the 15 man roster, but the question is who will be street clothes, Samjia or Dupree and will Flip even play the one that is dressed?? If all fail at the position or don't live up to expectations, then there's Tay burning 40 minutes again..

Amir should play SF. If not him Maxiell should. Dice will be a starter or the first man off the bench.

Starters: CB, Rip, Tay, Dice, Sheed

Bench: Stuckey, Afflalo, Amir, Maxiell, C Webb/Dale Davis

i think as good as our 15 pick has looked in the summer league you could see hamiltion getting some time at the 3 also.... aka the 3 guard play of the bad boys... that will get him more game time and get prince some more time on the bench resting for the playoffs. If both our first rounders can make contributions this year i think the 1-3 slot will get enough rest to keep fresh for money time next spring.

Tay's minutes must get down to 32 minutes on avg, I believe. His body is too stringy to withstand the pounding of a 100-game season. Any idiot (except for Flip) can see this.

Dice doesn't want to start. The way it looks, unless Joe brings in someone else we may have starting five of CB, Rip, Tay, Nazr, and Sheed. Also, will they find a place on the bench for Mejia?

No Nazr man. I don't mind him. In fact he is solid, but if Nazr starts the bench looks like this.

PG: Stuckey
SG: Flip/Stuckey/Afflalo
SF: Afflalo/Amir/J Max/Mejia
PF: J Max/Amir/Webber/Dice
C: Webber(not even a C)/Dale

How does the PF minutes get distributed? Sheed and one of the four bolded names starts. I think Dice should start. This leaves Webber, Amir, and J Max. The Pistons should bring Webber off the bench to create points for the young guys. Amir or J Max goes to the 3 and the other plays the 4.

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"That's the end, man." Rasheed Wallace

Here's an interesting piece from SI:

SI.com - Writers - Ian Thomsen: Young reserves will be key for Pistons - Thursday July 12, 2007 2:31PM

Quote:

Joe Dumars understands. "If you've ever walked that championship road, you know how hard it is, how fortunate you have to be to get there,'' the Pistons' president said. "You never hear champions talk casually about what it takes, and when you miss an opportunity, it's devastating because you never know when that opportunity will come again.'' Dumars considered making a major trade to improve his starting lineup after Detroit ceded its 2-0 lead to Cleveland in the conference finals. "If the right opportunity had presented itself, I wouldn't have hesitated,'' he said. But he was never going to tear down his lineup and start over. Instead, he is planning to make another run with the 2003-04 championship core that has reached the last five Eastern finals. For all of the talk that the Pistons are yesterday's news, Dumars notes that his team lost three games to Cleveland by a total of 12 points. Instead of a makeover, maybe all Detroit needs is a little extra push to get through its conference and back to the Finals. That's why he is presenting coach Flip Saunders with four young players off the bench -- Jason Maxiell, Amir Johnson and first-round rookies Rodney Stuckey (No. 15 overall) and Arron Afflalo (No. 27) -- to provide jolts of caffeine to a team that has seen and done everything already. The Pistons have played 99 postseason games over the last five years, and Dumars is empathetic.

There's more in the article.

My take, Joe doesn't believe that Detroit's problems relate to talent, but are because of attitude. He had a starting group complacent with their roles, and a bench upset about a lack of PT.

His solution, dump the bench guys for rooks, who will be happy with any PT that they get. And hope that rooks push the starters for PT, which causes them not to be so complacent.

Serious, serious problems with this logic. Joe is over emphasizing attitude, and under emphasizing talent.

Neither Stuckey, Dupree, Affalo, nor Meija will better than Delfino or Flip by this time next year. Maybe two years from now, but not in a year. They are still rooks, and will make mistakes.

The only potential upgrade for the bench will be Amir and JMax, but they are competing for the same position. We still don't have a center, or even a back up center.

And the biggest problem, is Joe is assuming Flip will be a teacher and allow the youngsters to play through their mistakes. Something I've never seen him do.

This could get ugly.

As it is we have a depth chart of:
PG CB, Stuckey
SG Rip, Stuckey, Affalo
SF Tay, Super Dupe, Meija
PF Sheed, Amir, JMax
C Nazr, Sheed, JMax

And a core bench of Stuckey, Super Dupe, Amir and JMax. Not an improvement.

Good news, Joe got something good for Darko, and if we're as bad as I think we will be next year, we'll be like the future baby bulls, get some good picks next year, and the rebuilding won't be so bad with Stuckey and Amir as a base.

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