Amir Johnson - Detroit Piston Tracker

Buddha, the rule changed this year about declaring a playoff roster. You don't have to do it. It works like the regular season. You announce for each game which 12 players you want active. So, the Pistons could, for example, dress Amir for some games and Nazr for other games. You may dress different players for each game/series depending on the matchups, injuries, etc.

Yup. It took until the 21st post for someone to point that out. Everybody will be on the 15-man roster, and who gets to dress is game to game. This is from an ESPN article about the rule:

Thanks Miami. Now Flip can use Amir against non-Shaq teams, and still have both DD and Nazr against the Heat.

After running down that second Dalembert block and getting the assist to Rip, Amir should have slapped Chauncey on top of the head and told him, "This isn't the Old Folks Home. Up here, we hustle for loose balls."

NBA.com NBA Board of Governors Approves Rule Changes

Darko who? Is that who that 7' white dude in the shower was?

You mean my teammate last year who assisted on my first NBA basket (the windmill dunk)?

Propaganda.

He can't be serious. Amir didn't know who Darko was taken ahead of?

My thoughts exactly. I remember Darko being very un-Darko and using his speed to intercept a pass and throw it down to Amir for the cherry pick. I liked Darko more for that one play than anything else he ever did as a Piston, because it was obvious he was trying to get the kid a basket.

I'm going to assume that Amir played dumb to avoid stirring anything up. That works with Sharp, whose grasp of detail ain't great - as witnessed by his calling Amir a center just a few words into the column.

I was just thinking given how that AJ is starting to look more and more like the best Piston rebounder why not put him into the rotation thus.

When Billups or Rip and Sheed or C-Webb go out. Put AJ and Dyess in move Prince to the shooting guard and with either C-Bill or Rip as the point guard. When Prince goes out Delfino can play the off guard.

I think that having Dyess and AJ in there at the same time gives the second unit some excellent rebounding ability as well as up front scoring. Prince and Delfino can play the off guard more than adequately for the second unit, as they have done so in the past.

I really like this this substitution pattern.

Flip senior has become a believer and it looks like an official AJ groupie.

ESPN.com - NBA - Recap - Pistons at Celtics

I'm in. Call me a member of the AJHOF- Club. Sky is the limit for this young guy. Alright, it may have been the Celtics only, but at the same time one must think that he is only 20 years old with only little NBA experience. I mean, he led the team in 4 categories yesterday!
Now I really wonder why he hasn't played more in the regular season- he seems ready to contribute at least 5 mins per.
Maybe my dreams of him becoming a playoff surprise will become true.
Only disadvantage is that his prize is rising.

Why are we showing the world Amir's upside just before he becomes a free agent? I know we need to see what he can do against NBA talent to see how much we want to invest in him, but can't we tell from practices, scrimages against our own All-Star line-up what he can do? I mean, have Joe just tell the guys to go all out in a practice against him a couple of times and see what he can do.

I fear that this is a great miscalculation.

I'll never bet against Joe. I might have mild reservations about some of his actions, though. The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that they think he really could be the x-factor in the playoffs, as several people have mentioned, ala Prince 2004. Also, Last year Sheed got hurt and that cost us, so another big body could be crucial. If Amir is ready to produce, it is brilliant to spring him on unsuspecting foes in the playoffs. But I think most people would agree that he is too green to make a huge difference.

Probably some of it is keeping Amir happy and making him want to sign a contract this summer. He doesn't seem like someone who would be too thrilled about being hidden from other teams.

If AJ is that good, then you have to question Joe's handling of him this year.

If the goal is to win now, then shouldn't we have been playing AJ the whole year, so that he would be ready to help us this year in the playoffs? It's not like Ben was playing ahead of him.

Instead, Joe chose to sandbag him, so we could resign him cheap. Hopefully, we won't be wishing we had AJ ready for this years playoffs, but you have to wonder how much someone will be willing to pay for a 19 year old that would have been a lottery pick this year. And if the sandbagging really worked.

I think it's going a bit overboard to call this sandbagging. I'm a great believer in the sandbagging theory in general...but I don't think it holds water in this case. We all knew Amir was drafted as a "project"..Joe has brought him along perfectly.

Let's make sure we don't raise his value by saying good things about him here. I'm sure those other GM's are going to snoop on this board.

Keep calling him a project and point out all his faults.

It's hard work hiding a 6'11" power forward who puts up gaudy numbers at all levels.

Is he 6'11" or 6'9"? All the articles I've been reading lately keep saying Amir is 6'9". I thought he was 6'11"