Dba - This is a very good article. Really puts things in perspective. Individually if you look at each starters mins they rank somewhere between 30-50 in total mins played amoung league leaders for that stat. But for some reason they looked tired and beat. Injuries did not help but even the players said they were tired.

Perhaps its knowing that nobody on the bench has your back if you have an off-night. That stress can were on you. Poor bench production seemed to mount as the playoffs progressed adding that much more pressure on the starters to produce. Ben got almost no help at all against Shaq.

Bottom line - Pistons peaked in Feb and Miami peaked in late May. Whatever happened there Flip needs to figure it out.

Great research and analysis, DBA.

I truly think we played the starters way too much in the regular season.
Nice article dba.

Did the starters play too much or did the bench not play enough?

dba - I'm wondering if a sprocket points vs. minutes played would reveal anything. I didn't look to see if SP includes minutes already....

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They are the archetype for dominance. They are the gatekeepers of the conference. They are the Detroit Pistons.

Both unfortunantly.

Minutes are not included. I sometimes do a points per minute played to try and evaluate players who play unequal numbers of minutes. I'll look at that if I can get around to the playoff recap today.

So Mo may have been the biggest fader of all.
But early on he was scoring at about 1 pt. per 2 min. Then he lost min. to Lenz, mostly. Is this guy a keeper. At $1.5mil. sure but do you trust him enough to keep him envolved? Does he represent everything bad about JD and Mr.D?
My personal option is: keep, and don't mess with his head i.e. minutes.

If Mo could be a decent trade component I'm o.k. with his departure. If he stays, then he needs to earn minutes by defensive intensity first, then rebounding intensity, and then scoring - not the other way around.

Yes we complained about his D, but he seemed a natural rebounder.
Not with you on the order of needs, give me:
OFFENSE !!!

I'm with you on the team need for offense, just not sure Mo is the guy I want trying to bring it. How about he can take one shot for every two defensive stops or any two rebounds? The team can hire some guy with one of those little clicker / counter things to keep track. Maybe Ron Harper can do that.