Quang: deeeee-troit baaaasketball. loooooost in the fiiiirst round. to leeeee-bron jaaaaamesketball. well, you get the idea. for the second straight season, the pistons were the best team in the east despite losing ben wallace. but similarly, for the second straight season the pistons lost in the eastern conference finals, despite losing ben wallace. this has led to discussion on top of discussion about the pistons' window closing. well i have some news for you, not only is the pistons' window open, but they put an apple pie on the window sill and have the air conditioning on full blast. what on earth does this analogy mean? no clue! but the plodding pistons are still, at least for this year, a top-two team in the east even if their electric bill is through the roof.
if you can't tell, i think the aging pistons storyline is overblown. lindsey hunter is the eldest piston. this year he isn't going to be asked to do much other than occasionally bother the ball handler and then smile when the ref calls him for a foul. antonio mcdyess and rasheed wallace both celebrated their 33rd birthdays 10 days apart from each other in september. but mcdyess played very well in a reserve role last season and though rasheed had a down year offensively, he's still a few years away from reaching olajuwon on the raptors territory. plus, he still led the league in technicals, so apparently he still cares. chauncey billups is 31 but still plays at a high level and also recently signed a contract extension that all but ensures it will be a few more years before he's overpaid. the only other player who is 30 years old on the pistons is nazr mohammed, who by the end of the season could only be found on the side of detroit milk cartons. i assume flip saunders' new years resolutions were to "lose weight" and "stop playing nazr mohammed" because in the final 53 games of the season a slimmer flip saunders only gave nazr mohammed 196 total minutes. the playoffs were no different and in 16 games, nazr played five minutes. five minutes is so few minutes that grammatically i have to spell it out. although he did score five points in those five playoff minutes, i don't think the fact that nazr mohammed is on the wrong side of 30 is going to make a difference unless flip saunders actually thinks he is capable of averaging 48 points per game. and if flip saunders believes that then he should know that one time i made two free throws with the clock stopped. i'd have to think my infinity points per game average would have helped the pistons beat the cavs last year.
since, we already have a good idea of what we can expect from rip hamilton and tayshaun prince, namely hard-nosed, solid basketball, i'm more interested to see a few other of the pistons' non-thirtysomethings. jason maxiell plays like a wrecking ball would play if wrecking balls could dunk and block shots. i assume with more minutes and an expanded role he'll be a pleasant surprise. amir johnson, in addition to being the last player ever drafted out of high school, oozes potential according to pistons fans who ooze optimism. as for the newcomers, the pistons took rodney stuckey and arron afflalo in the draft. afflalo always struck me as slightly little overrated so i'm skeptical he'll make any impact on this veteran team. stuckey, however, should be one of the first guard options off the bench. lastly, the pistons signed jarvis hayes who i like despite being a wizards fan. he got a raw deal in washington, but i hope he does well in a new environment. unless his environment is against the wizads. in which case i hope jarvis hayes accidentally locks the entire team in their locker room.
Dhivy: No one ever expected Chauncey Billups to sign somewhere else so when he re-upped in Detroit, so it wasn’t a big story. I think it should’ve been, because the Detroit Pistons are going to regret giving him $60M over 5 years. He’s 31 years old and over the past five seasons, he’s played 480 games, not including international play. At some point he has to start breaking down and I’d wager it’s going to happen sooner than later. Something tells me Billups is going to leave many Pistons supporters pissed off. 
The good news if you’re a Pistons fan is that the rest of their roster is outstanding. The bad news if you’re a Pistons fan is that you probably live in Detroit and there’s a 1 in 4 chance you’ve been shot while reading this. I don’t like Rasheed Wallace because of his constant complaining, but even I have to admit he’s a great player. Once he stopped settling for the threes and started abusing people in the post, he became the Pistons most reliable weapon. Also, he bought a championship belt when they won the NBA title, which made no sense. Richard Hamilton is almost impossible to guard one-on-one because of his constant movement off the ball, and because looking at his mask terrifies me. But the player that scares me the most on this team is Tayshaun Prince, because he’s their best defender and always seems to find open shots. He too is proficient at backing down smaller players.
The fun thing to watch here is how the youth will be integrated into a veteran rotation. The Pistons have two rookie guards who could contribute right away in Arron Afflalo and Rodney Stuckey. Interestingly, Afflalo’s middle name is Augustin, which makes his initials ‘AAA’. The Pistons marketing department is no doubt hard at work trying to figure out some convoluted slogan to make out of this. I kinda hope he gets pulled over for a DUI so we can just go with ‘AA’. Jason Maxiell became a bigger part of the rotation late in the season and his improvement in the off-season might relegate Antonio McDyess to a smaller role. Finally, Amir Johnson has been a popular name this off-season, and the Pistons expect big things from him. I’ve only seen him play once, but I was really impressed with his athleticism. Also, if anyone reading this is in my fantasy basketball league, I was lying. Amir Johnson is terrible.
Joe: On my one trip to Detroit, me and a couple of coworkers decided to hit up one of the downtown casinos followed by a local strip-club. After a couple of hours at the casino, I met up with my coworkers who had taken a beating at blackjack and craps. I had made a killing at poker and decided that I wanted to go get my Pac Man on - so like a true soldier went to the strip-club as they tried to win their money back. I walk up to the line for the club and all of a sudden I'm being escorted in amongst a wave of people directly into VIP. Apparently I had gotten mixed in with Jalen Rose's entourage and before I know it I'm downing Jager-bombs and getting a lap dance up in VIP alongside Jalen Rose and his boys. Not trying to bring any attention to myself I remain quiet until an obviously inebriated Jalen walks up to me, gives me a pound a says "I don't know you, but i like what you're doing!" The point of this long winded story - Jalen Rose would make this team MUCH cooler. I bet you Teyshaun Prince and Nazr Mohammed wouldn't put my drinks and lap-dances on their tabs, I bet you they've never even seen a bare breast - lames. 
As far as the Detroit Pistons go, regardless of how uncool they are they are still an extremely good basketball team. I don't know what else Chauncey Billups has to do to get mentioned in the ranks of the elite point guards he plays extremely under control at all points in the game and manages this team better than anyone could. Richard Hamilton needs to take off that silly mask at some point but that's my only gripe with him. Further, the Pistons would have to be fools not to resign Chris Webber who has made it clear that he wants to return and due to the ties with the city would probably offer a home-team discount. Hes 34 years old, 6'10 and still has offensive skills for every day of the week. Yes, seven offensive skills IS a lot in case you were wondering. Regardless of whether they re-sign Webber, Jason Maxeill has shown signs that he could fill the void and can complement Rasheed Wallace down low. This team isn't headed to the lottery any time soon.
Achilles Heel
- Nazr Mohammed (q)
- Chauncey Billups (d)
- Flip "Tuck" Murray (j)
- Jarvis Hayes (q)
- Jason Maxiell (d)
- Jason Maxiell (j)
- During a game, Rip Hamilton gets inadvertendly elbowed in the face and his mask breaks. Hamilton is forced to wear two masks for the rest of the season. (q)
- Tayshaun Price reveals that his arms are so long because his father is Dhalsim from Street Fighter II. (d)
- Chris Webber decides to pay for free but controversy arises when he admits taking money from a Pistons booster - This season and last are wiped out of the NBA record books. (j)
- In the first quarter of game 5 of the eastern conference finals, Anderson Varejao wildly drives towards the rim and Antonio McDyess collars him and gets ejected. Anderson Varejao is the worst (q)
- Rasheed Wallace hits a 75-foot shot at the buzzer to send a game to overtime. (d)
- Carlos Delfino drives baseline and throws down a WICKED one handed dunk on Emeka Okafor. (j)
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