Well boys. Hate to be negative but I am disappointed. I may be in the minority with this view but I think we probably lost this ship to the Spurs by doing nothing about this trade deadline. We love our little fellas too much to part with them. To get a Gasol, Bibby, etc, you have to be willing to give up something. I think a trade would have helped both teams. The other team could start over and we could have our ship. Instead, we didn't learn from our previous last few years and now we are destined to repeat the same mistake. We are heading into the playoffs again with a great starting five and a bench full of inexperienced babes. We could have had another seasoned vet or two and we would be having another ship this year. This is the one area where I would have to disagree with Dumars. He's a great GM. I just wish he would have learned from our ship three years ago when we had a deep bench. Even Dumars admitted we ran out of gas last year. Rip already looks tanked. Again, we are stuck with many guys still cutting their teeth going up against some seasoned warriors. We should have played our youngsters more minutes to increase their trade value. Then we clean house by stealing a seasoned vet some poor desperate team is trying to unload. Man. Almost another championship.

Don't call it negative Buckyes, just call it pessimistic. The Pistons are still one of the top five teams in the league...but more than likely they probably will be watching the finals with two of the other top five teams and the blame will fall on the sholders of Dumars and Flipper. Dumars for standing pat the whole season and watching other teams improve themselves and Flip for just being Flip "can't get past game 6 conf finals" Sanders

If you go all the way back to the summer, eight teams, Celtics, Lakers, Cavs, Spurs, Suns, Magic, Hornets and Mavs have made at least one major or mini upgrade that improves what they ended the season with.
Celtics > KG & Ray
Lakers with Gasol

Magic with Rashard Lewis
Cavs with Ben, Joe and Wally/West

Sours with Kurt Thomas and Stoudamire

Mavs with Kidd

Suns with Shaq & Grant Hill

Hornets with bonzi and MJ

Pistons >Hayes and Dixon

In comparison the only improvement we have done is increase the play of our youth and the jury is out if they are ready to step up in the post season if our core guys decide to take the night off...

A winning west coast road trip will turn my current pessimistic attitude back to optimistic

I disagree ... to go for the vets every year leads to the rebirth of the teal era..

what Dumars is trying to do is to maintain a competitive squad for years to come..

and besides.. I honestly think that the Pistons DO have a deeper bench this year.. and tell me.. what better time is there to play the rooks then in the playoffs..

I betcha STuck, AAron, mAxy, and Amir grow up before our eyes this year.. at least 3 of the 4.

I think that sometimes people want there to be a big trade just for the sake of the trade happening.. not even caring about if the particular player brought in would be a good fit. Good trades aren't easy to come by.

bad thing is, people rely on emotions too much (here too, I'm too) and therefore overreact...so i'll support maverick's post.

Guaransheed!!! Especially if you have the 2nd best record in the league! Teams are not exactly looking to help us out with killer trades!

I hated Joe when he went after all those veterans. It wasn't veterans that helped us when we upset the Lakers guys. It was hard work, hunger and a deep bench. Memo was not a veteran IMO at that time, Mike James as well. They were in the middle between rookie and veteran. Granted we had Corliss and Elden and Lindsey. But the acquiring of these vets paved the way for the flameouts as well.

We didn't groom young talent. We didn't have that hunger anymore. Vets played because they were given the time because of their tenure.

I say no. Groom AJ, Aff, and Stuckey.

I say I don't think so, that a championship this season is lost.

I say that the starters haven't had this much rest since winning it all in that 5-game sweep.

I say maybe you are right, that we might not win it all this season, that we will be watching at Lebron dunk in our face again, Boston's Three or Superman flying through the Palace but, have these Pistons thrown in the towel?

Should we?

It's the job of fans to take things out of context, overreact, spread rumors, expect the best, see the worst and get worked up over very small things.

Now knowing that, I can safely say, the rest of the season and playoffs should be "interesting".

No more, no less.

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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."

although your spacing and readablity could use a little work.

I agree with the tone of your post.

We have again built a team that has as much chance of losing in the 2nd round as making the finals, let alone winning it.

In boxing terms we are a pretend contender and really more of a gatekeeper/fringe contender than a pound for pound guy.


15% chance of losing in the 2nd round or making the finals

60% chances of losing in the ecf.

5% chance of losing in the first round or winning it all.


Stuckey is going to have to step WAY WAY the hell up, and Hayes is going to have to find consistency for the first time in his career or we are cooked.




I would have done Dyess and parts for Zach Randolf

parts and Maxiell and Dyess for Ron Artest and Brad Miller

parts and possibly Max for Mike Miller and Hakim Warrick

parts and give them their pick back for gerald green.

Flip should pretend that the Pistons got the #2 draft pick this year and selected Amir Johnson, who dominated in the ACC for the last 2 years as he led NC to the National Championship.

Amir, JMax, Stuckey, and Afflalo can all be playoff ready. But they need to go through some serious battles from now until the end of the season. They all need to feel like they have personally won and lost games. Hayes will do his thing.

I'd personally like to see continued mixing of the starters and the bench players. That CB/Rip/Tay/Amir/Sheed combo looked golden. Throw Rip in with the bench and let Afflalo spend some time with the starters again like when Rip was out. Just keep mixing it up to keep the starters interested and the bench challenged.

Also, I sincerely believe that Dale Davis can restore some interior toughness, both with the starters and the bench.

Other teams have definitely gotten better. The good news for us is that the recent trades have mostly been out West, and we only need to worry about 1 of them. It's going to be a 4 team battle in the East between Det, Bos, Cle, and Orl.

I really hope that our players feel like they are the underdogs now.

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

Agree strongly. Cb/Rip/Tay/Amir/Sheed should start, Dyess should ANCHOR the bench and provide veteran stability for the youngsters.

As I said before, he could still be the closer if Amir is overwhelmed, it's who finished not who starts that matters anyways.

The energy he injects while on the floor with the vets takes them to a whole nother level and Sheed can cover up some of the 'green' mistakes he makes.