ESPN: Chauncey Billups, the disposable superstar

The first time he went into aggressive rebuilding mode, he built a title winner. The problem the first time was not the building; it was the maintenance. Maintaining a title contender is where I don't trust him.

Good point [STRIKE]guard[/STRIKE]

Roscoe is not alone in that respect. I truly don't believe that Roscoe doesn't like CB as a person, however, I think that like myself, he did not like him as a player and the leader of the pistons team because of his cavalier attitude.

It took me this long to saunter into this thread because my perception was everyone posting here would be hanging on to Cb's jock strap.

I just couldn't stomach it, but after reading a lot of the posts, there was some really good reads.

Thank you to those who posted about the bandwagon fans who for the past seasons called for CB's head, now all of a sudden are questioning why Joe D traded CB in the first place.

That short-term memory is a MF.

No, what's crazy is when folks develop "Dakar" mentality in say about 1, 2 or 3 years from now when the pistons are back on top. Hence, if you say the Pistons will not be back on top, then it's time to turn around, clap your heals together 3 times and turn in your homer card.

Somehow Roscoe needs to come up with a data base where archival info can be stored in order to compare and contrast forum members statements then and now. Better yet a red light would come on everytime a contradictory statement is made, matter of fact, when you hit that enter button a person would get an electric shot everytime they make bull.... statements that are in direct contradiction to the one they made earlier.

Being the straight guy that I am, I must say this visual is pretty gross. But hanging around forums for the last 8 years, I have read it on many occassions where people use it to try to discredit someone elses view.

My view has nothing to do with how he turned the Nuggets around this year. In fact I have a thread lying around here somewhere, where I called him the most underrated Piston, that was written right before the trade I beleive. Anyways. in my view, Billups graduated from the Larry Brown Institute For Point Guards. Chauncey got it. He graduated with honors. He is so unselfish on the court. All he cares about is winning, getting others involved, and playing the right way. He even has George Karl talking that way now. He is a terrific leader. One of the greatest things he has brought to the Nuggets is his philosophy on defense. Last nights game was incredible, the tenacity they played with. There is a reason why he is now in his seventh straight conference finals. You may call my admiration for what he has done whatever you want. As for me, I call it respect.

Buckeyes, being in the military has taught me a thing or two about leadership.

When I see CB, if the tables were different, I would hate to be with him in the heat of battle and here are the reasons why.

#1. A leader leads from the front
#2. A leader leads regardless of his supporting cast, he puts 150% effort all the time and in any situation in which he may find himself.
#3. If he led the Pistons consistently as he did in his first two years in Detroit, I would be more apt to follow him (he gave up)
#4. A leader does not give up, CB gave up
#5. A leader does not base his leadership on the quality of his surroundings, rather he works with the hand that he has been dealt. In saying this, you don't just start chucking balls, losing focus, i.e.)
#6. There is no such thing as selective leadership
#7. If CB was my battle buddy and based on his attitude in the last season of the pistons, I would ask myself before going out on that tree-line, "what type of leader will I have today"?, will he exhibit the same characteristics that he had the last couple of season in detroit, or would he be the type of leader that he has been in Denver this season.

I am happy for CB in Denver, but I am also proud of moving forward with a new floor general along the lines of an Isiah Thomas who led for his entire tenure with the Pistons. PG's will come along that will be 10 times better than Billups (by the way he is not that high on my list of favorite pg's.)

As far as my comment on contradictory statements, I was only being comical, but it goes on ALL the time here.

I can truly say that I was really, really impressed with Billups his first couple of season in Detroit, then I began to see unhealthy cockiness that was not conducive to good order and team esprit d corps.

I have to run so I will get back to this later. But very quickly, I will say this. You cannot give more than 100%. If yoiu give everything you have, the most it can be is 100%. And it is humanly impossible to give 100% of yourself 100% of the time. Nobody can do it. I can't. You can't. Billups can't. Your military leaders can't. It is commonly said in the NFL, a qb gets too much credit when things are going good and too much blame when things are going bad. You give too much blame for Billups. Accusing him of giving up is just unproveable. It's not even in his nature. There is a reason why we went to 6 straught conference finals. If that is not consistency, I do not know what consistency is. If you doubt the impact of Billups, you don't have to look any farther than this year. Denver is now playing like the Pistons, and our Pistons are now playing worse than Denver did. Yes there are other factors as well. Most notably Curry. But you are giving way too much blame on Billups. I fault Dumars more than anyone for the Piston problems.

The contrast to me is when people say we are spoiled by our success and don't realize how difficult it is to maintain that level of success, but then turn around and say it's no big deal to give it all away to try again.

Chauncey = quitter? I thought he was traded without any words of thanks from management, and then his jersey number was assigned to the new guy.

Seeing how Joe Dumars was able to predict the collapse of the economy long before most economists and position the Pistons so well to take advantage of that, does anyone think he might be wasting his talents by being a GM?

Couldn't he do more good working for the government?

Yes it is a reality that you can give 100%. I can't even imagine trying to complete a task saying to myself al the time, well duh, I think I will just give 70% no I think I can at least squeeze 80%. I don't handle my business like that Buckeyes, I am hoping that you don't conduct your business as such either.

Yes, Billups effort was noticebly missing during the playoffs. I didn't see that same desire from him as I had seen earlier, and yes he gave up, in short yes, he was a quitter, he quit on the team along with other players.

As I have said before on this same forum, he became bigger than the team, he possessed the swagger but boy was it misplaced, the I have a championship trophy, so look at me syndrome.

He's gone, good riddance and good luck. Let's see how he plays next season if he does win a championship this year.

So I guess you think that after Billups, the Pistons will not rise again, that's really, really sad if you do.

Funny you say that, last time I looked he gave Joe D major props for trading him to his home team and he was thankful to Joe for facilitating that.

You must have been reading night rider or the national enquirer lol.

Last time I checked, the NBA was a transitional sport, people come, people go and it's up to the powers to be to put the right pieces in place.

I don't agree with all of Joe's move, but it sure does beat the hell out of sitting at the Joe back in the early 70's getting the royal beat down every night.

Joe picked from the menu instead of eating at the buffet.

It's just amazing how young cats just don't understand the history of the Pistons, therefore my philosophy is and continues to be, if you don't understand where you've been, it's no way in hell you can understand where we are going.

But I can bet you one thing, wherever it's destination, I will be in the VIP section.

Secondly, you can't give away something (success) if it was crumbling anyway, I wouldn't take it. I sure do hope that you weren't talking about CB as being the success of the franchise, if you are I have one thing to say to ya "Crack Kills".

Dumars in charge of the economy!

Not the worst idea. He does live within his means, he's tight lipped, he plans ahead, he can negotiate from both sides of his mouth at the same time (on 2 phones). Also, the job doesn't require making any draft picks.

I don't think our statements were contradictory.

You keep jumping to conclusions. I never said the Pistons will not rise again. Although I think Dumars is at fault with alot of decisions lately, I still think he is a great GM, and will rebound soon.

You may be correct that Billups effort "seemed" noticebly missing during the playoffs. But it is jumping to conclusions to say you know it is because he does not care. I think he very well may have been getting tired.

And back to the 100% thing, I am not perfect, but one thing my son told me he admired in me was my work ethic. But nobody can give 100%, 100% of the time. We are humans. We are not machines. Even a machine can't work 100% of the time without giving out as well. Nobody is exempt. I've played alot of basketball over the years. I cannot imagine having an 82 game season. And on top of that, doing all those playoffs over 6 years. The greatest athletes you can think of, no doubt, you will be able to find instances where they did not hold up 100% of the time. It simply is impossible. It goes against the second law of thermodynamics.

It's funny you speak of arrogant swagger and giving up on his team.........anyone seen Sheed's championship belt lately? We won't be able to see how he'd act if he wins another ring cuz he won't. Well, MAYBE if he signs for the MLE on a team that already is on the verge of winning a 'ship. Even then, he'd be garnishment on the side, not a main fixture. I only bring Sheed up because he means much less to this team than CB did and he's still here. I understand the ins and outs and that by keeping Sheed we possess the ability to drop him like a bad habit this off-season and gain that cap space but I just think we dropped the wrong guy. I wish nothing but the best for Chauncey, there's a reason he was Finals MVP.

"They've done studies you know. 60% of the time it works, every time."

YouTube - SP by Odion

I think you may be confusing me for some of these 2nd chance, on the rebound CB fans who fawns over his Finals MVP and considers him the greatest Piston of all time because of how things have turned out since he was traded. That's not me.

My point is that looking back in hindsight I am disappointed that since losing the 05 Finals, I never felt Dumars said, 'OK, I am going all in to give this team the chance to win' instead of going the Pu Pu platter route that he chose.

I'm not talking about an individual player, but rather I am saying that it is difficult to get to the top and when you get a group that was close it seems silly to waste it. At least take a chance even if it doesn’t work out ala Malone & Payton.

CB's Finals MVP is one of the biggest farces of all time!