You may be right. I wouldn't feel 100% confident betting against that, but I would definitely feel > 50% confident. You seem to be going to an extreme to emphasize the point that he isn't as good as others claim. I've seen the opposite tactic when certain people state that a player will end up in the HOF. But imagine if you had to put real money on a prediction like that. Odds are that no matter how badly he plays this year, he will get another contract and he will get another chance. Look at Stromile Swift or Darko. Big men tend to stick around.
When I heard Curry saying that he had to pull Amir for forgetting plays I knew something was wrong. Especially with how simple and basic Curry's strategy was.
I voted minor bench player in the first poll as either I never saw what the others saw in him, or I just knew that he wasn't going to get the PT to be any better than what he was showing us. With that being said, I hope he moves up the ladder, but not that many players who jumped from high school to the NBA and who were taken near the end of the second round ever turn out to be career superstars. I abstained from the second question...
I never had confidence in Amir as a regular player. He had just signed a 3 year contract and I just figured he'd last that long with no new contract. That's why I said 3 and out. Actually, I thought Hermann would last more than three years.
sheed had to go. We need to move Rip, too, as he doesn't want to be here, and we got Ben Jordan now. If we don't figure out the log jam we win 30 games MAX. if we turn Rip into a big we might go .500. We have no starting or backup center. We have Ben Wallace. We have a rookie coach. Again. we have no PG. get your puke bags ready.
What do you mean by better? Will they try harder than last year? Probably yes. Will they sometimes play Ben Wallace style defense? Maybe yes. Will they get better as the season goes on or fade away like last year? Probably better. If they sneak into the first round of the playoffs will they put up a fight or roll over? Probably fight. Will they be fun to watch or will I have to turn the sound off to even make it through the game? I'm guessing fun. Could this Octobers team beat last Octobers team? Probably not. Do they have enough experience together to get deep in the playoffs? No, and last year they did. For me, I'll take a team getting better over a team getting worse anytime.
Just something I was thinking of... Will Bynum was a nobody at the start of last season. By that I mean that we didn't draft him, he had no hype, he wasn't getting paid much, and he wasn't expected to get any playing time at all. Yet, he actually performed at a surprisingly high level when given a chance and ended up becoming our primary backup PG forecasted for this season. In many ways, he outplayed Stuckey in long stretches last season. Who was the last guy to pull something like this off in the Pistons' system?
Ben Wallace: BW started in 81 games for Orlando the year prior. He was their top rebounder, 3rd in blocks, 3rd in steals, 2nd in FG%, and got more playing time than all but 2 other players on that team. We traded Grant Hill + Atkins for him. So there is some hype right there. When he came to Detroit, he went straight into the starting lineup on day one, with 38 minutes. He started in 80 games out of 80 appearances that year with 34.5 mpg. Mike James: Pistons press release: "James, 28, appeared in 55 games (all as a starter) for the Celtics this season, averaging 10.7 points, 3.2 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.27 steals in 30.6 minutes. The third-year guard comes to Detroit with career averages of 8.4 points, 2.3 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 23.8 minutes in 148 career NBA games (63 as a starter)." We traded Terry Mills, Rebraca, Sura, Atkins, Hunter, and the picks that turned into Tony Allen and Josh Smith in order to complete that trade for him and Sheed. My only point is that as far as I can tell, Bynum is the only player in recent memory to crack our rotation out of nowhere. He had only played in a handful of NBA games and then had a 3-year gap. After his first breakout game, here was Curry's quote: Found money. That should be Joe's nickname for WB.
Gotcha TaS. I was going with the "undrafted" angle but I see what you're saying. ...Didn't Michael Curry (the binary player, not the tablecloth clad coach) sorta come outta nowhere?
