Which players will make the biggest impact on the Detroit Pistons next championship run?

OMG Pistonscast is live now!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great move guys. This will make it a ton easier to call in; its very strange talking with no one else on the other line. I’ll be sure to call in if I can

Ali what the hell! U 16 going to MIT??? Man you get a whole lot more respect in my book now.

This is the live show i was talkin bout devev

I know Richard I was holding out on you.

Happy B-Day Ali!!!!!

Oh and Mike thanks for the lyrics. I didn’t know what the hell J- Dubb was singing.

Thanks Mike, but I still have to apply first.

I said that I intend on going there, I’ve already talked with representatives from Harvard, MIT and Yale and they all said that I’ve got a very good shot of getting in. On top of getting near perfect scores on my standardized tests and having a 4.0 (which includes skipping a grade of math and taking all advanced placement courses), to list a few things I happen to be an Eagle Scout, I’m in my school’s symphony band (which has is known for winning grammies), am a varsity wrestler and voluntarily teach advanced math on the weekends.

Something around only 5% of the nation, from there only 2% become Eagle Scouts. To add that I set a record for largest project and second most achievements for my troop history, puts in me in a very very very small group. I would be willing to bet $100 that I’m the only persian eagle scout that wrestles, plays the saxophone and got my test scores in the entire country.

Also I’ve spoken with a U of M admissions officer, and she essentially said I’m in, I just have to apply. So for college, I’m pretty much set, at worst I go to the U of M, good position to be in lol.

But enough about me. Lets wait until February and I let you guys know where I end up.

Back to the pistons.

Last I heard, Boston intends to match any offer below the MLE for big baby.

My bet is on Drew Gooden. He’s the best rebounder out of the group, and even if he does have problems with not giving his best, I’ll take that over what’s left. Also Gooden does have a decent post game; it’s not anything you can rely on, but it does mean you can take CV31 off the court and still get a few points from your front line.

More importantly, if you sign Ben for the veterans minimum, you just gave yourself an actual front line.

Without those guys, this is a lottery team waiting to happen. No frontline = no defense. But if Dumars can pull off those moves, and Summers + Jerebko do a decent job at the 4, I think this team could get 45 wins. Perhaps even 50 if Kuester can help Stuckey run the offense.

Guys Steph Curry just earned a lot of character points.

“At the conclusion of the Warriors/Hornets game, a crowd of kids gathers to try and get an autograph from Morrow. Morrow finishes with media and throws his jersey into the throng of kids, only to have them lunge at it and break the security barricade fighting for it. A younger fan desperately clutches the jersey while another fan struggles to rip it away from him.

While this scene is unfolding, I am interviewing Steph Curry and the two of us stop to watch what’s going on. We are both a little unsure of what to do to comfort the boy who is about to cry. Curry then stops the interview, goes over and gives the boy who lost out on the jersey his game-worn shoe.”

Talk about a nice thing to do. I’m sure the shoes were meaningless to Curry, but they meant the world to the kid.

I agree, As much as a dislike Drew Gooden’s game, he’s always been very active on the boards.

Exactly. Also I think we could sign Dwayne Jones of the dleague to play some time at center. He’s already on the summer league roster, so I think Joe was thinking along the same lines. The reason why he hasn’t gotten much playing time was so Daye, Summers and Jerebko could play together.

Also with the monster that Anthony Randolph is turning into, I’d like to make a play at Richard Hendrix. He’s a bit smaller, but is also a very rebounding big that plays defense. I bet that GS would probably be willing to trade him for 2 second round picks for the reason I stated above.

So you could gamble and take on a few younger players that are better defenders, or you could take Gooden and deal with his problems. Either way you shore up the front line.

Hey Deven check out ya boy Antoine Walker…

http://www.slamonline.com/online/nba/2009/07/antoine-walker-was-arrested/

Just sad

Man I must say, I way underestimated how talented Daye is. He’s been much more dominant in the summer league (minus the first game) than even Amir. I guess 2 out of 3 isn’t bad. Once Daye puts on the pounds, boy does he have some massive potential.

Dayumm…Antoine!

Yeah, I’m excited about Daye and Dajuan too! Hell, we might have are own version of Hedo and Lewis.

Do your thing Joe D!

Well, if you’re talking about shooting ability, maybe. But to compare either of them to Lewis is a bit unfair because of how athletic Lewis is and also that Summers is considerably stronger (at least appears to be based off muscle size).

But I can see a Turkoglu Daye comparison; remember Daye has always looked up to Tayshaun.

I’d like to see how they do in the actual NBA before I can truly judge whether they can start down the road. Right now Summers is looking like a solid first big off the bench, tough call on Daye. He’s much tougher than I anticipated due to his poor combine and mediocre college numbers. But he still is very turnover and foul prone, in fact one game he nearly had a quintuple double counting (turnovers, points,, rebounds, fouls and assists).

Pistons just signed Chris Wilcox, whooped de doo.

If Dumars wasn’t stubborn enough to trade DJ White to get Sharpe, we could have kept Afflalo and had a solid big man. Not to mention, Afflalo would have been a fine SG back up and that Gordon money should have been put towards a legit big man in the first place.

Perhaps I’m biased because Arron was the only one not named Will Bynum or Antonio McDyess that played with heart last year, but I think he has a lot of upside in him. He showed that he works hard night in and night out, plays defense (something Wilcox doesn’t do) and also drastically improved over his rookie year.

You wait, Afflalo will start for Denver by the end of the year and will make Dumars look like an idiot.

Hopefully Wilcox will surprise me - I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about him - but I’m still steamed for the loss of Afflalo; Denver must love stealing our assets.

I’m going by what I’ve read from draftexpress because I’ve never actually seen Wilcox play before. Also feel free to ignore half of what I said above; I was just mad that Villanueva promised a big move for Afflalo and we got another project.

His combine numbers were good, good leaping ability, great sprint time for a big man, and he’s strong (20 reps at the bench press). I would like to see how much he can squat, all your power comes from the legs (which is what Amir lacked).

However this guy plays no defense and it shows. His rebound rate is 10 per 48, his opponents at a rate of 18 per 48. Those numbers are especially bad because he played in the super-number-inflated D’Antoni system and that he played under 20 minutes a game.

According to Keith Langlois’ numbers, we had $3.5 mil from the Afflalo give away. After this we still have approximately $.5 mil, meaning we could still sign Wallace (you need at least $.3 mil because of the roster spot cap hold). Also you could in theory sign Dwayne Jones of the D-League with the remaining amount to a 1 year deal to let him prove himself. He’s a monster rebounding big that is solely about defense.

Perhaps Ben could teach him about defense and rebounding, this guy has the potential. But up until now, he hasn’t played with much intensity and it shows.

IF this is our roster (including Daye, Washington, Jerebko, and Summers) I will have to find Joe Dumars to personally smack him in the face

deron washington has MVP potential…call me crazy but its true

Wilcox isn’t a project. Wilcox can be a very good addition as long as he gives consistent effort, which has always been his problem.

I don’t know why , but I think Deron Washington will be a big asset.

Big scorer? Maybe not. But I do see him making a huge impact on the court in the near future.

He’s like Rip in that he’s very active. But his abilities are very different from Rip’s. He does everything that Rip doesn’t do.

He’s very explosive! (i love typing that word). He also gets his hands on a lot of rebounds for a guy his size. And pimpscwalla believes that Mr. Washington he has the tools to be a big time defender. With his two year contract, he’ll definitely get the opportunity to show it.

But MVP Nate? I don’t know about that one homie!

Finally! We agree on something Richard.

I just don’t get why Dumars refuses to deal Tayshaun to Portland when we already have all these smallforwards.

Washington has the tools to be a big time defender. Afflalo already was a big time defender; he was even put on DWade a few times. Not a shot blocker, but he also had a much better shooting touch.

i am happy that we agree but to disagree idk if i wanna trade tay to portland

Haha, Ali!

DWade’s nothing in comparison. Afflalo guarded the current MVP, and he did it probably better than anyone on the team.

LeBron? He couldn’t get to the rim against Afflalo but instead he just shot over him. The best combination the pistons had to guard him was putting Stuckey on him (to match his strength) and then Kwame as a shot blocker.

LeBron scored only 2 points during that 10 minute stretch including several turnovers and getting his shot blocked 3 times.

LeBron could of easily shot over Stuckey also; that’s more LeBron’s poor choice to drive on Stuckey with Kwame filling the lane.

Live show today! imma be at work but imma try to catch it

Live Pistonscast tonight 6-6:30pm EST http://www.blogtalkradio.com/pistonscast/2009/07/20/WWWPISTONSCASTCOM Call in! (718) 664-6124

totally would been there…….. but yahh…

@Ali: Im calling you out Mr. MIT. Do you even listen to Pistonscast anymore?

If you did you would have called in for the Guest Host Contest.

@ Darian! You too! Didnt even call in… SAD!!!!

Sorry for not calling, my friends took me to see the 6th Harry Potter movie as part of my birthday gift.

Also I apologize for not listening, however I do have another legitimate reason.

My main computer’s hard drive had died 3 weeks ago. So as of late I’ve been using my laptop, and for some reason the built in player on the site doesn’t work with it (my guess is some vista codec compatibility, had the same issue for a long time even with my main computer).

The new hard drive arrived a few days ago and today I’m making an effort to recover all the data I can and then reinstall windows. Once that’s done I’ll finally have use of my real computer.

I suppose I probably should have said this a while ago, but I didn’t expect anyone would really have cared whether I called in during that 3 week span.

http://www.pistonscast.com/podcasts/pistonscast%20114%20%28June%2021st%202009%29.mp3

One-Take Davis takes no excuses.

You have itunes. We all know the show works on itunes.

Where are your internet street smarts!

@ Ryan Thank you for posting Ali a link!

I Really dont understand why Detroit has not look at Richard Hendrix he is a walking double-double player who can start in the NBA someone check out his stats from High School until know he is a beast what’s wrong with Dumars also a great team player, He led the NBDL in rebounding and this what they need.

@Clyde what’s up man!