Tales from the dark side.... - Detroit Pistons Fan Community

G-man · #1 (**permalink**) 03-03-2006, 08:06 PM

“In Detroit, it was horrible for me, a nightmare.”

That’s the scary sound emanating from the trembling lips of the big Serbian formerly known as a Piston big. Thank god, the nightmare's over, his words not mine. But I had a bad dream too.

My dream was full of floating decimal points and I kept seeing this ham like fist wrapping itself around wads of my cash. In my dream the room is hazy with stale cigarette smoke and I’m dressed up like a human cigar, a big tasty Macanudo. My ears are burning and faintly, ever so faintly I can hear Larry Brown’s voice, “Sit down you stupid bastard!”

Then I woke up, drenched in cheap sweat, and I remembered I’m not getting 50k a night to play professional b-ball.

It’s 2:45 in the morning. I’m sucking down my third Bavarian beer in an hour, it’s a Heineken knock-off. Looking out the window I can see my used Ford with the re-built tranny in the driveway. The remaining few hairs on my head are standing straight up at attention, each weak-kneed strand lying to me, pretending it’ll still be up there in the morning. My eyes are watery and red, real damn red. The calculator on my lap is pissing me off. It won’t give me the answer I want, the one that makes sense. I’m trying to rationalize the cost of a nightmare in today’s world.

Here’s the gist of my late night angst, back in September of 2003, Joe Dumars inked the young Darko to a four year deal worth $16,815,062. Leaving the playoff games on the cutting room floor, my calculator says Blondie suited up for 223 games as a Piston. His contract was weighted, meaning each successive year he earned more than the previous one. My late night math indicates the big mans contract for 82 regular games this season was $4,135,200 or $50,429 per game. I’m a little queasy.

Since last October he tugged those shorts over his big unmotivated ass in 59 games, he ham fisted $2,975,326. Let’s carry this spooky story a little further, over the roughly 30 months he was in Detroit, his 223 games cost the Pistons $10,436,556. He took home an average check of $46,800 after each game. That scares the hell out of me.

In my world of cheap beer and used Fords I either give it my all or someone else comes and gets it. When I took my job I sat across from one serious cat, he said “The job pays this and you got to do that.” I wanted the money, I said yes. That’s the deal. It’s a simple one. Nightmare in Detroit? At $60 grand a year it would take me 166 years to earn what they paid him before his 21st birthday. What can’t be grasped about that basic concept?

I pry the sticking Barco-loungers pleather off the bottom of my thigh and head back to the kitchen for one last beer. The big mans words, “horrible nightmare” is reverberating in my head. I’ve watched him in Orlando in the last couple games and its clear to me he sandbagged us. He ripped us off. He was pulling a Vince Carter job. He was working at not working for $50k a night.

All week on different blogs and forums I’ve been reading the apologists, “he never got the chance” and “I wish him well in Orlando.” You know what I say? I hope he chokes on one of those big Florida oranges because he’s nothing more than a dry-gulching piss ant. He stole our money. He lied to us. We paid for his “A” game and he gave us a sandbag filled with stinking cat litter. We gave him 10 million bucks and he gave us the shaft. He flat out rim rolled us. Wish him luck?

Personally, I don’t care about the damn ’03 draft. I don’t care about Carmello Anthony or Chris Bosh. I don’t care that Joe was blindsided by our less than stellar scouts or that his drafting capability rivals Anna Kournikova’s tennis career. The guy in the uniform cashing that big check still owed us something, an honest effort. A hard night’s work for a good nights pay, instead we were slow ladled stinking Serbian fish head soup.

Its 3:10 in the morning and my sheets are still damp. Crawling back into bed, I’m going to try visualizing my dreams, good dreams that aren’t adorned in thick white political correctness. Solid mid-western blue collar dreams about new trucks and hair so thick it has to be combed with a sawed off yard rake. I’m going to dream about snaps and pops and ankles. I’m going to dream about 10 million rusty lead bone screws and a national anesthesia shortage….

16 Mile · #2 (**permalink**) 03-03-2006, 10:27 PM

Uh G, you've been smoking something. What you wrote is so far from the truth, I don't know where to begin.

First, how did Darko shaft us? We never played him. VC was getting 35 mpg and blew it off. Are you going to compare Darko blowing off garbage time to that? I cant recall one person, not even LB, saying Darko blew off practice. From what I can tell, he practiced hard, he worked hard, he just got upset during games when he couldn't play, and blew off garbage time.

Are you telling me you'd prefer a guy that was getting paid, and was happy he never got into the game?

Are you saying Darko pretended to be bad just to get out of Detroit? Huh? All he asked for is PT. I cant imagine a #2 overall pick that just wants to play.

Now as far as not busting his ass, and this is the most important point. PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT I'M ABOUT TO SAY!!!!!!

If Darko was not busting his ass day in and day out for 3 years, and never played any meaningful minutes in a game, explain how after only a few games, he's become Orlando's best player? (Don't believe me, check out 82 games). Or are you suggesting, his natural talent is so high, he could blow off 3 years at Detroit, and just step into Orlando and turn it up? He aint no long time Vet, who's already developed his game and shut down to get out of a bad situation, he was a 17 yo rook, with no real game experience that came to Detroit.

So once again, if he wasn't busting his ass the past 3 years, how is he doing so well now?

Total bs. How bout LB stealing his paycheck with Knicks? You don't seem to upset about that. Ran out on Detroit, where's you paycheck stealing post then?

This is the reality, LB hated Darko, didn't play him out of spite. Flip has the ghost of Minnesota on him, and has no time for anyone but the 5 and 1, Joe gave up trying to get his coaches to play his guy, and Darko and his agent realized that Darko deserved a Max level contract, but was never going to get the chance to show it in Detroit.

Speaking of money, by forcing the trade, Darko has probably doubled the size of his next contract. I guess you'd work for half pay for a boss that treats you like crap, just because it was in the D. I know I wouldnt.

roscoe36 · #3 (**permalink**) 03-03-2006, 10:37 PM

Nice piece G. Exactly how I feel. This cat held out in Summer League (look at his turnaround at Eurobasket), and held out most of this season.

His teammates endorsed him, and he tanked to escape.

Joe and Bill D. got tired subsidizing a kid with a money grubbing agent (see Samuel Dalembert negotiations).

With the paycheck comes an obligation. You gotta play and play hard (even in garbage time), or you shouldn't be taking the check. Bottom line, he didn't. But he kept cashing the checks.

Like 16 said, he's doubled his money by leaving, a smooth financial move, paid for by the fans of the Pistons.

I wish him many losses and a max deal. There is a Raef LaFrentz future awaiting him. Reap the whirlwind.

bricalz · #4 (**permalink**) 03-03-2006, 10:46 PM

A well written piece on how G hates Darko so much. Nice G nice, I respect your opinion.

And yes, I too am not paid that much to play pro ball.

My thoughts are that back then, if fortune would have it that I was in Joe Dumars' shoes, I would have made the same draft choice -- Darko Milicic, a raw, young big from Serbia -- over his contemporaries Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

The thing is, Darko, like most immature young guys drafted at such a high position feel like they are entitled to something (example is Kwame Brown) LeBron of course is mature enough to know how to work. Darko was given a chance to show that he had the work ethic to devote himself to his profession. But sadly he did not show it.

After his first season under Larry Brown, he understandably pouted a lot but that should have changed under Flip Saunders when he was given a shot at playing time.

But I don't think he changed. And like most of us here read, it seemed like he was biding his time when he would be out of Detroit, away from the pressure of living up to his draft status, and the dwindling excuses for not putting in the time and effort.

Joe did the right thing in trading him. For the team and for the player.

He had to get something for Darko. His best mistake brought us a championship because there was no way of knowing anybody in that draft would have made the (non)impact Darko had.

So off goes Darko to the Magic, his chance for redemption.

I feel that Joe saw right in Darko as evidenced by his better performances in Orlando. He will be a good player in the coming years.

Unfortunately, he will see formidable opposition in the Detroit Pistons, the team he quit on. Which I hope will always kick his big Serbian behind.

G-man · #5 (**permalink**) 03-03-2006, 11:52 PM

16 & Bric,

Altruism starts at home. If you believe that, you should be upset with what your witnessing. You're willing to hold everyone accountable for his 30 months of performance except him, whats wrong this picture?

You can't have your cake and eat it too. We're either witnessing a miracle or we got sandbagged, there is no in-between cause the "lack of performance Vs sudden performance" is indicative in and of itself.

I like the idea of toothfairys but I don't believe in them. I like the happiness the Easter Bunny brings to a childs life, but I know the whole easter bunny gig was created by the egg lobby.

I don't fall for the smoke and mirrors and I'd advise ya'll need to stay away from poker tables.

The DMC guy shanked the org. It's plain as the fogged lenses on your rose colored glasses. You can shoot the messenger but the message stays the same..

16 Mile · #6 (**permalink**) 03-04-2006, 12:30 AM

Sandbagged? WTF? At what point did he sand bag? All of the Pistons said he was the real deal. That means he wasn't sand bagging in practice. In what little real game time he got at the beginning of the season, he did OK. He had one real bad game and never played again. <br><br>How do you sandbag in garbage time? JMax has done nothing but jack up shots in garbage time. No rebounds, no defense, just catch and shoot. Is that sandbagging.

Give me an example fellas. Saying something over and over again doesnt make it true.

Face facts. Our coaches choose to play lesser talent over better talent.

If you guys were the hot shot new hire for a lawfirm, top law school credentials, and some idiot who happened to be the brother in law of the president made partner before you, do you think you'd keep trying hard?

This is why we lost Darko, and will lose Delfino, and probably will lose Acker and Johnson. As far as JMax, he sucks, so we'll probably keep him.

max · #7 (**permalink**) 03-04-2006, 03:04 AM

Main thing I will not miss is all the guessing. Obviously the coach is not going to bench a player for one bad game. Something happened in practice. Darko lost his 5-10MPG off the court somehow. I don't know how. All I know is Dumars proclaimed Darko needed to go someplace where he could play 20 MPG.

All we need is one more year for Orlando to flounder. Then we can get hopefully get a 6th or 7th pick in the projected deep 07 draft. That would not be so bad.

It is a good piece. Pistons did spend a lot of resources on the kid. Not only financially with all the coaching hours put in. I am sure they had better things to do with their time. Pistons were Orlando's farm system.

TheeTFD · #8 (**permalink**) 03-04-2006, 06:32 AM

Good work G-, but I think I know where your nitemares come from...
They come from trying to make sentences from these words, " instead we were slow ladled stinking Serbian fish head soup"

I didn't see much of Darkos play. But if he was a team player , when he got double teamed at NY and no teammate looked for his pass, it would seem they abandoned him. Maybe they were trying to get him to finish, whatever, but if you got a 7 ft. rockin' body you don't need to take any
CRAP !

MotownPride · #9 (**permalink**) 03-04-2006, 09:00 AM

So, I take it all of you "Darko got shafted" people honestly believe that Darko had a right to play uninspired when he got in the game. The paycheck was not enough incentive for him to play hard all the time? Again, had Darko dominated his competition while he was in the game we wouldn't even be having this discussion. At Darko's best, he played mediocre for us during the regular season....period. That angers me.

Zoso · #10 (**permalink**) 03-04-2006, 09:57 AM

You've got to be kidding me! Some of you guys are beyond unbelievable.

Sandbagging!?! Sandbagging? Is that what you guys are resorting to now? How in the heck can any of you people claim that Darko was sandbagging? That is totally preposterous. The problem with you guys, is that you just weren't paying attention, and even the times you did, you just dismissed what you saw.

The simple fact is, Darko showed that he could play like this plenty of times this year, as well as last.

He took the preseason by storm, even led the entire preseason in blocked shots, from the bench! He showed he could play then, but the nonbelievers wrote it off as "it's just the preseason, it doesn't count."

Then went on to say, "let's see him do it in the regular season." Which he did a few times early on, even Flip Saunders went so far as to say how well Darko had played and that he has to find him some minutes. His words, not mine. (Go look it up in the article section in the archives) Only for Saunders not to follow through, and instead he just left Darko glued to the bench.

The same thing Larry Brown did last year more than once. The exact same scenario, so much so that it's almost like déjà vu. Darko plays well/Saunders-Brown acknowledge it and say they've got to find him minutes to reward him/only not to follow through. The previous is all true, and all in the archives in the articles. For those that claim they don't remember or can't recall it.

Then the players have been on record since day one, claiming that Darko can indeed play. But you guys wrote them off too, saying "of course that's what they're going to say...they're his teammates, they're not going to drive down his value...Etc."

It's always something isn't it fellas? You never wanted to believe he could play. Even Micro went so far as to post comments about what John Thompson said. Which of course was "If he could play, they would play him." And I posted then, what a fool Thompson is.

The simple truth is Darko has always shown he can play like this, all he needed was extended minutes on the floor to show it. You'd think the haters/nonbelievers who've just simply been so wrong about him and dogged him over the past few years crying "bust, lazy, unmotivated, talentless etc." would just simply acknowledge that they were dead wrong on Darko and just eat their serving of crow. Instead of that though, we now get that he was "sandbagging."

Unbelievable.

Who you people need to be mad at is the Pistons head coaches that wouldn't play him, even when he clearly showed that he deserved playing time. Or you could even blame Joe for not forcing the issue. But to go so far as to claim that Darko was sandbagging is a far reach people, and frankly I don't know where you get the nerve.

He's shown these talents plenty of times while in the Pistons uniform. It's a shame that you missed out on it.

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