Will Bynum: Starting Point Guard?

Salaries may drop off in the future. The Pistons may have good young talent. But will Joe make the right moves???

...Yes.

in hindsight this forum knows the best.

So Stuckey came off the bench and put up major numbers in his return vs Indiana. I honestly think this is the most ideal situation for our team. In the 2nd half of the season when most of our key pieces began to filter back from the land of the IR List, one good thing began to happen, we started playing quite well in the 1st qtr of games, with just a few exceptions, and no matter who the starting PG was that held true.

The problem has come when we bring our high priced $19,000,000.00 bench into the game, they typically blow leads or put is into a big hole. That unit is defensively challenged to say the least, Will/BG/Daye/CV and Max. Max is pretty good, and has actually shown that on this team he can hold his own most nights as the starting center. Daye is OK- just gets a little lost out there sometimes. Will/CV/BG.....not so good, even though Will is pretty good on the ball, his backup D doesn't have his back.

But against Indy the Bench came through BIG TIME! Stuckey came through BIG TIME! That unit looked 100x's better with Stuckey running with it. Stuckey still stuffed the stat sheet and got major mins, he also looked a whole lot fresher down the stretch than he normally does, and he also was more sure of himself, maybe because he got a chance to see the ebb and flow of the game before entering, I don't know just a thought. Stuckey/Gordon is a much, much, much better guard combo than Will and Bengo; and since Rip will NEVER go to the bench........maybe Stuckey should........at least until we balance out this roster.

You make a lot of good points here, but I wouldn't move Stuckey to the bench until he was re-signed to a big long term contract.

Then the 2nd unit can get lots of work in digging out of double digit deficit's. The reason the team looked better with Rodney on the floor is that they were playing defense, which Bynum does not seem capable of.

I don't think you bench the 2 guards you're looking to have as featured pieces on this team for the long haul (Stuck and BG). Those are probably the 2 pieces you have the most riding on at this point. To bench them just to let Rip freelance doesn't sound like a direction for a rebuilding team.

On to next season... Move Rip, Start BG and Stuck. Ditch Charlie V, get a big who you can count on for points in the paint, and start playing the kids (Daye/Summers).

Without Stuck in the starting line up we are getting hammered to start games. Maybe the team looks so much better when Stuck comes in because unless Rip is hitting his J; the starters look awful.

Rip is the main weapon with Wil starting and Wil is not going to take any defensive pressure off of Rip. It may make more sense if we also started (I cringe) CV to help bring more offense to that first unit.

I like what Summers was able to do yesterday.

Starting your best players is an antiquated notion FP22. This isn't 2009. Next you'll be expecting all the players to have specific positions.

Something I have been saying for quite a while, I'm not entirely sure why, but not only do we look better with those two in the back court, but they play better individually. They compliment each other a lot better and Ben can drive as well, which takes some of the pressure on Stuckey and the defense has to be prepared for someone else to drive.

So... why don't we start Stuckey and Gordon and have Bynum/Hamilton coming off the bench?

Remember that Rip does not like to come off the bench. Rips team.

Ah, of course. How could I forget about Rip the prima donna and his unwillingness to come off the bench.

No idea. That is something I have advocated for a while. That's what really worked at the beginning of the year too, when we were close to .500 and battling teams to the finish.

Is it me or was he the only player on the team that didn't look happy while the team made a run to get back in the game with him on the bench?

Well, he gave the taynk his all with 0 points and his teammates almost blew it so I can see why he wasnt too happy.

Of course! how could I have overlooked the valiancy of such an effort......

from official pistons chat:

eat it, folks.

If he keeps playing like this he'll be lucky to be on the active list.

(I would assume that most of the talks in this thread refer to next season, where Rip would hopefully be gone since we're probably better off putting garbage lineups out there for these last few games)