..and of course you have it right more than anyone on the panel, right Lee? LMAO!

I do appreciate the feedback though.

I will prefix this response by saying that the views expressed in this rebuttal do not reflect the opinions of PF.com and blah..blah..blah..blah..blah..

One, how can you think Arroyo can have that many bad games and still be a league leader in his assist numbers? What, he has totally brilliant games too? They sure must be brilliant beyound belief.

I would guess that this comment is not directed toward me based on my analysis, but it is important to say that grabbing a stat out of your arse does not tell the entire story. Besides, the fact that your entire arguement is predicated on "look at his assists to turnover ratio" is pretty lame and probably does not deserve a response. Here's one anyway. Carlos has been inconsistent and we've watched Flip's confidence in him waiver back and forth all season. Right now his minutes have mysteriously begun to dissipate again. Arroyo has times where he is absolutely brilliant. His court awareness and passing ability inspire oohs and awes, but then he will follow that up with a game where his inability to finish at the rim, make the outside jumper, play effective defense and initiate the offense expeditiously hurt our team. Up and down season. "C+" is an accurate grade in my humble opinion.

Two, Darko had 6 five minutes shifts over 14 games before being taken out of the rotation. Not much of any kind of chance.

Darko was given time initially and lost it based on his lack of heart and determination. He is the antithesis of Maxiell. The effort has not been there the entire season and as a result he has recieved a poor grade from the panel. That simple. I gave Darko a C- because I do believe that he has had at least some memorable moments during his limited time this season, but I think I was very liberal with that grade.

Three) Tay and Ben win games for us. It may not be flashy, but anything but an A grade for these two in the midst of a 37-5 run is way out of line.

You obviously have a right to your own opinion. Ben's "B+" grade came from me due to his slow start. I think most who graded Ben said that his mark is on the rise. To give him a perfect grade, in my opinion, would be to completely neglect his poor start.

I think that although Tay has been invaluable to our team, his defensive effectiveness has gone down a notch from previous years. I think we have also seen many situations this year where he has vanished and his offensive aggresiveness has been questioned. I think that giving Tayshaun a "B" is a very fair grade as it does not take away from his contribution while expressing that there is room for him to improve in the second half of the season.

4) I am as high on Maxiell as anyone. But any grade other than incomplete for a player who has zero seconds of game time when the game still counts is unacceptable.

I disagree. You seem to be suffering from Darkoitis as well. Any playing time a young player is fortunate to get is valuable and useful for evaluation. If you are a player with star potential your goal should be to dominate whatever second tier competition that might be on the court with you. When Maxiell is in the game you see that passion to be the best. I reward that effort with a "B".

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Well, I guess the whole thing was a big fat stupid failure.

LEE doesn't agree with it.

Looks like we wasted our time again everybody.

Piston grades:
Big shot...A+
Rip.........A
Sheed.....A
Ben........A-
Tay........B
Dice.......B
Mo.........B-
Arroyo....B-
Delf........C
Darko......C-
Rookies....A

Thanks for the props out to most of you. I know its not the best you will see but I think its pretty good for a bunch of amateures trying their best. This basically was a nice prop thrown to us for volunteering our time helping with this site. Other members are of course free to post their own here.

I pretty much gave the starters nothing less than an A- since the team was 36-5 because of them. Bench players had a rough start but have been getting better. Actually were the reason we won a couple of the recent ones.

On Darko. He lost his spot so to me that is failure. Its up to the player to figure out what the coach wants to see. I could understand with LB but Flip is a players coach. Flip came in here with every intention of playing Darko and something happened to disconnect with what the coach wanted of him. Its still not too late though.

Other than that Its just hard to knock this team now.

You tell'em Lee.

Starting 5 all "A"s. No one has played better.
Dyess - "C"; his shot, burr
Mayhem - "B+"; D and ball handling
TDrib - "B-" ; Two completely diff coaches gotta mess with your head.
Fino - "B+" ; getting his groove on.
Darko - "C-" ; Keeps DD company.
DD - "C+" ; Keeps Darko company.
everybody else incomplete
Flip - "A-" ; Doesn't play bench as a unit.

not much to say with regards to whether i agree with the grades or not, i just wanna say that these new article ideas are sweet and that this was a fantastic read

Good job with the grading it is pretty much on point. This team will get better and there is always room for improvement no matter what.

This team is just wining games in the process of improving everyday. The question is will all these guys reach there potential at the right moment? that being the Playoffs as the goal. With the mid season grades till the playoffs i think the answer will be yes!!!

Agree wholeheartedly.

Agreed. Flip publicly rebuked Darko for a lack of effort earlier this season, and Joe D. has stressed that Darko's continuing "mistakes" are keeping him on the bench:

"We don't have the luxury of putting him out there and saying, 'Oh, we'll just let him play through his mistakes for 15-20 minutes.' We're too good a team, and his mistakes are too high right now."

I don't think that Flip and Joe D. would have talked so unflatteringly about Darko in public unless they had strong feelings on this subject. Joe and Flip are plainly disappointed with both Darko's attitude and his lack of progress, and I suspect that they think the former is contributing to the latter.