Posts tagged ‘Amir’

by Ray Stone

The drafting miscues haven’t been the only soft spot for the Pistons under Joe Dumars.

Amir Johnson shines as a good example of how the Detroit Pistons do not do a good job of developing players.

A 6-foot-9 kid out of high school is a blank canvas in the NBA. The Pistons drafted this broad-shouldered young man from LA and had an opportunity to develop him however they wanted.

Johnson is very quick off of the floor, has a nose for the ball, and he effortlessly flies up and down the basketball court as fast as anyone his size in the NBA.

The Pistons were the elite team in the Eastern Conference when AJ got to town. He saw virtually NO playing time during his first couple seasons. No development.

Funny thing is, the team was supposedly ‘running out of gas’ in the post-seasons, after the starters logged heavy minutes during the regular season.

It’s really odd.

Very strange to watch a team supposedly run out of gas, when they have a bouncy 19-year-old kid who would love to get on the floor and hustle for them. He was in street clothes a lot of games.

They were the best team in the conference, but why not start to groom the young guy right away?

It would have cost you some leads and games perhaps, but the Eastern Conference was hideous back then. It wouldn’t have mattered much at all. He would gain experience. Plus most importantly, its saves gas for the games that count.

But there he sat.

Suddenly this year the Pistons announced that they would start Amir Johnson at the power forward position. What? (Had they planned on this being a rebuilding year from the very beginning?)

He was clearly not ready to start. He hadn’t even been giving any consistent playing time at all in his career, now he’s going to be a starter in the NBA? WTH?

That’s not how it works.

After being thrown to the wolves and chewed up, Johnson was eventually benched again. Amir finished this campaign in a familiar fashion, glued to the Detroit bench.

It is too bad for the young guy. I really hope he is moved in a deal this summer for his sake. He needs a real opportunity to develop his basketball game.

He certainly has the talent to play at a high level in this league.

Too bad he didn’t land of a club like the Atlanta Hawks, or the 76ers, whose style of play is perfect for young athletic guys.

They both play a more up-tempo, attacking style game. Full court pressing after made baskets, Amir would fit quite well into a system like that.

I think it would benefit Amir to work on his offensive game facing the basket. Develop more of a small forward’s game as opposed to a power forward’s.

Despite the slow start to his career, he still has years to iron out his game.

He should aspire to be far more than just the rebounding, shot-blocking, hustle player role that this team carved out for him. The sky is the limit for the young man if he has a chance to learn the game.

There was little opportunity to do so in Detroit.

If he is dealt this summer, he should smile as he packs his bags. If he’s put in a good situation, I think we will hear a lot from Amir Johnson in years to come.

-Ray Stone

Got a question for Pistonscast.com? Send it to John W. Davis. And for Pistonscast news and updates follow John on Twitter.

Whats Going On World?

John W. Davis here.  I thought since the regular season is winding down that it would be cool to look at the Most Important Pistons since the February All-Star break.

I’m going to just count it down for you 13 to 1.  Well honestly we only have 12 guys now but we will go 13 to 1 just to be correct.

13. Allen Iverson- He has to be last right now.  The guy is done as a Piston.  Thank God his contract comes of the books this year…

12. Walter Sharpe(Check out the exclusive Pistonscast interview)- The kid hasn’t played much but when he does, he takes it to the hoop STRONG! Look for him to contribute next year.

11. Amir Johnson- I honestly wish I could rank him higher but I can’t.  We are talking Most Important and right now he is hardly in the mix.  I thought this was going to be your year Amir!

10. Kwame Brown-  With this guy, “It Is What It Is“.  Nothing more, nothing less. At least he is 6′11, 270…

9. Walter Herrmann- If his 3 point shot isn’t clicking, whats the point?

8. Jason Maxiell(I MISS THIS VERSION OF MAX)- Another victim of the Coach Michael Curry PLAYING TIME BUG aka DNP-CD Disease…

7…  The Rest of the Most Important Pistons: Post All-Star Break will be published later this week.

Who are your Most Important Post All-Star Break Pistons…  Leave your list in the comment section!

Peace,

John W. Davis

www.twitter.com/johnwdavis

What’s Going on World?

John W. Davis here. I have something I want to get off my chest. See I’m mad. You want to know why? Of course you do, that’s why you are reading this.

I’m not mad at the players anymore. I think the trade deadline will bring them closure and comfort in knowing that they are Pistons for rest of the 2009 season.

I’m mad that guys don’t know when they are going to play. I’m also mad that guys who are obviously not cutting it (Stuckey), get all the playing time in the world and guys like Afflalo get DNP-CD’s for no apparent reason.

See I thought it could happen and would happen to my boy Amir and it did. But Afflalo not one minute of the game when you have guys on San Antonio like Mike Finley and George Hill (a rookie!) are making us look silly.

1. What do you think is up with Coach Curry?

2. What would you do to fix it?

Peace,

John W. Davis

www.pistonscast.com

Pistons coach Michael Curry has moved veteran forward Antonio McDyess into the team’s starting lineup for the final stretch of the season.

“I just think it makes us more stable starting games off,” Curry said. “It makes us more solid defensively, especially when we have to help.”

McDyess will replace Amir Johnson, who has struggled as of late.

“Our hope is that Amir will play better against the second-line guys,” Curry said.

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What do you think about this move?  

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Peace, 

John W. Davis

www.pistonscast.com

The Pistons are taking on the New York 2010 Free Agent Class Knicks tonight at the Palace of Auburn Hills.  A nice Pre Turkey day game that should be much better than the Detroit Lions game this week…

Anyway, I hope all the Piston players get out there and play some tough defense to burn off some extra calories for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving feast.

Coming into today, the Pistons are 8-5 and the Knicks are 7-7.  These are not Marbury’s Knicks anymore, they can actually score and most nights put up and very good fight regardless of their opponent.  If the Pistons don’t play defense this might be a run&gun shootout well above the 110 point mark for both teams.

Good News for all Amir Johnson fans from the True Blue Pistons blog:  AMIR MIGHT START! YAH!  About freaking time.  Seriously though,  Amir can only start against teams without a true center.  I.E. The Knicks with David Lee at center and Wilson “Benton Harbor, Mi” Chandler at power forward.  Putting Amir up against Shaq, Big Z or even guys like big baby Andrew Bynum is just asking for trouble.  I dont think he should start against true centers but he should still be used of the bench alot more than he is being used recently.

Every game it shouldn’t be that hard to find 15 solid minutes for Amir.

WHAT’S YOUR PREDICTION FOR THE FINAL SCORE?

Peace,

Pistonscast

www.pistonscast.com

Whats Going on World?

I thought this was great so I wanted to share it with you.

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FROM THE DET NEWS:

About Amir

George David , the Pistons director of player personnel, tells the story about the first time he saw Amir Johnson play and block 11 shots. It was 2005 and David was scouting the Los Angeles-area district of the California state prep tournament. The team Johnson played on, Westchester, had five players being recruited by Division I schools.

“Joe (Dumars , Pistons president) was coming out in a couple of days to watch the Pac-10 tournament,” David said. “I told Joe, ‘Look, forget about the Pac-10 tournament, you need to come out here and see this high school kid. Don’t even worry about the Pac-10 tournament.”

As it turned out, Johnson’s team won and advanced outside the city before Dumars arrived, but the point was made — there was nothing Dumars was going to see in the Pac-10 tournament better than what David had seen.

“What struck me was, here he was with all these other D-1 prospects, but he was the guy instrumental in them winning,” David said. “There are a lot of talented high school kids who aren’t necessarily instrumental in their team winning. Amir was, in every one of those tournament games.”

Starting Amir

The 2008 playoffs ended for the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals.  Again.  For the past three seasons the Pistons have advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals, only to lose in six games.

After seeing the Pistons lose to the Celtics last May, Joe Dumars appeared to promise major changes.  He was quoted as saying “everybody’s in play. There are no sacred cows here.” As noted at True Blue Pistons: “the message is clear: If Dumars has his way, the Pistons are going to look significantly different by the time they convene for training camp in October.”

Joe’s Big Changes

When the summer ended, though, significant differences were hard to find.  Here are the changes made to the roster:

• Kwame Brown - the first player taken in the 2001 draft - was added via free agency. Brown has never lived up to his lofty draft status and is expected to be a back-up center with the Pistons
• Walter Sharpe — as second round draft choice of the team formally known as the Seattle Supersonics - was acquired on draft night. Sharpe might become the primary back-up at the small forward position. Then again he might not.
• Trent Plaisted - another second round draft choice by the team formally known as the Seattle Supersonics - was also acquired on draft night. Plaisted currently plays for Angelico Biella (in the Italian Serie A).
• Deron Washington was selected by the Pistons with the 59^th choice in the draft. It’s not clear where he is playing. He is listed on Detroit’s current roster but has yet to log any playing time in the pre-season.
• The Pistons also gave two-year contracts to Alex Acker (the team’s second round draft choice from 2005) and Will Bynum (an undrafted player). Each player appeared briefly in 2005-06. Acker played 35 minutes with the Pistons while Bynum played 162 minutes. Each player might occasionally be seen off the bench for the Pistons in 2008-09.

When it comes to player acquisitions, this is about all the Pistons did.  From this list it appears Dumars has concluded that the Pistons primary problem in 2007-08 was the players sitting on the bench.  Apparently Dumars believes that a better cheering section on the bench will be enough to push the Pistons past the Celtics and Lakers in 2008-09.

In all seriousness, Dumars did more than just change Detroit’s cheering section.  Dumars fired head coach Flip Saunders (who I think is a good coach).  And the Pistons have indicated the following two changes to the team’s rotation.

• First, Amir Johnson has been inserted into the starting line-up.
• And secondly, there are indications that a more concerted effort will be made to give additional minutes to Rodney Stuckey.

Are these moves, though, going to be enough to push the Pistons to the top?

Can Amir Really Make Detroit Fans Happy?

To answer this question, let’s start with the Amir Johnson story.  It was only a few days ago that the Pistons announced that Johnson will be inserted into the starting line-up.   Here is how John W. Davis of Pistonscast responded to this news: I am so freakin happy.  I am excited.  I feel stupendous.  I feel like going for a 7 miles run in Amir’s honor.  Okay, IM HAPPY.

John was not the only one to have this reaction.  In general, fans of the Pistons see Amir starting as a reason to be optimistic about the 2008-09 season.

At first glance, it’s hard to see why the decision to start Johnson would generate such a sentiment.  Johnson was only a second round draft choice in 2005 and has played fewer than 1,o00 minutes in the first three years of his NBA career.

But as detailed last February (see Meet Amir Johnson), what we have seen in these minutes has been quite impressive.  To illustrate, here is how the Pistons returning to the team in 2008-09 (who played at least 500 minutes last season in Detroit)  rank in terms of WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] from 2007-08.

• 1. Chauncey Billups: 0.304 WP48
• 2. Amir Johnson: 0.244 WP48
• 3. Antonio McDyess: 0.172 WP48
• 4. Tayshaun Prince: 0.143 WP48
• 5. Rasheed Wallace: 0.142 WP48
• 6. Jason Maxiell: 0.141 WP48
• 7. Richard Hamilton: 0.131 WP48
• 8. Arron Afflalo: 0.079 WP48
• 9. Rodney Stuckey: 0.069 WP48

When we look at this list we see that the Pistons return seven players who were above average last season (average WP48 is o.100).  So this is an impressive roster.  And in terms of WP48, only Chauncey Billups was more impressive than Amir.

Amir only played 764 minutes last season.  So this list - at first glance - suggests that giving more minutes to Amir will lead to many additional wins in 2008-09.  I am not sure, though, that this first glance is really accurate.

To see the source of my doubts, let’s first consider how Detroit allocated minutes at the center and power forward positions last season:

• The primary rotation players - Antonio McDyess, Rasheed Wallace, Jason Maxiell, and Amir Johnson - played 7,168 and produced 24.2 wins.
• The bench players - Theo Ratliff, Nazr Mohammed, Primoz Brezec, Cheik Samb, and Walter Hermann - played 729 minutes and produced 0.9 wins.

Last season McDyess and Wallace played about 30 minutes per contest.  Even with McDyess moving to the bench, it’s hard to see how his minutes are going to decline substantially.  Therefore for Johnson to get many more minutes - assuming Brown gets the 729 minutes from the bench players (he probably gets more) — the team is going to have to transfer minutes from Maxiell.

Maxiell was above average last season, but not nearly as productive - on a per-minute basis - as Johnson.  Let’s imagine that the Pistons simply switched the minutes these two players played.  Specifically, let’s say Johnson played 1,768 minutes in 2008-09 (what Maxiell played last season) and Maxiell plays 764 minutes (again, what Johnson played last season).

Last year Johnson produced 3.9 wins last season while Maxiell produced 5.2.  If we reverse the minutes the players play -and production per minute doesn’t change - then Johnson will produce 9.0 wins and Maxiell will offer 2.2.  In sum, the combined wins from these two players will increase from 9.1 to 11.2.  Yes, the move to Johnson might be worth about two more victories.

Now it’s possible that the Pistons could give even more minutes to Johnson.  And that could lead to more wins.  But to take this step the Pistons would have to take minutes from McDyess or Wallace (and don’t forget Kwame Brown who is also going to see some playing time).  And I just can’t see the minutes of McDyess and Wallace falling far below 30 minutes per contest.

So let me summarize how I see the move to start Amir:

• Although Amir is the most productive big man on the Pistons (on a per-minute basis) most of the other big man are above average players. So the gain from switching minutes is less than what we would see if Amir was given the minutes of a truly below average player.
• In addition, I just can’t see the Pistons substantially reducing the playing time of McDyess and Wallace. Therefore the minutes Johnson will play - even as starter - will be limited.

Given these two points, the gains the Pistons will see from starting Amir will probably be quite small.

Can Stuckey Help?

Although these gains are small, at least the movement to Amir will likely take the Pistons in a positive direction.  The plan to play Stuckey more may actually hold this team back.

As we saw in the Amir story, minutes are finite.  If Stuckey is going to play more, someone else has to play less.  When we look back at the WP48 list - and see that Stuckey is the least productive returning Piston - it’s hard to conclude that giving more minutes to Stuckey will make this team better.

Before Stuckey fans get to angry about that last statement, let me note that although Stuckey was below average for an NBA player last season, he was above average for a rookie (rookies tend to post a WP48 that’s below 0.050). Furthermore, young players tend to get better. All that being said, Stuckey is going to have to get substantially better before an increase in his playing time is justified. As the above list indicates, Chauncey Billups is the most productive player on the team and the fifth most productive point guard in the league.  Although Stuckey will probably get better, it’s unlikely that he will start posting a WP48 in excess of 0.300.

Of course the Pistons could take minutes from Rip Hamilton.  Hamilton does offer more than Stuckey, but the difference is much smaller.  One should remember, though, that Hamilton didn’t seem happy that his minutes were cut by Flip Saunders. It may make Hamilton quite unhappy if Michael Curry - the team’s new head coach -cuts Rip’s minutes even more.

Getting Better?

When the off-season began, Detroit fans were promised substantial changes.  When we look at all that has happened, though, it’s hard to see how this team has closed the gap on the teams they must defeat to win a title.   Certainly the two big moves - regarding Amir and Stuckey - are unlikely to add much to the team’s victory totals.

All of this means that the Pistons are unlikely to win a title in 2000. Although I am a fan of Detroit (having been born there); I just can’t see this team catching the Celtics.  And I certainly can’t see this team catching the Lakers.

So the Pistons’ 2009 season - unlike the Detroit Shock’s 2008 WNBA season - will end with a loss.  And when that happens, I hope fans of the Pistons tune in to see the Shock try and defend their WNBA title.  If the Shock are successful, it will be their fourth title in seven years.  And that should help ease any pain the Detroit basketball fans feel from yet another Pistons failure.

- DJ

My name is Rasheed Amir Wade! Really it is!

Whats Going on World?

John W. Davis here.   Just had to share this story with you from Pistons.com.  No this is not Rasheed’s child or Amir’s.  It just a die hard Pistons fans infant child.   Just read the story. LOL

Clifford Wade and Latanya Bussell had an agreement about the naming of their first child. If Latanya had a boy, Clifford would name him; a girl, and Latanya would have the honor. Clifford, a lifelong Detroiter who says he comes to five Pistons games a season on average, knew precisely which name he wanted to go with. And it definitely wasn’t Dwyane.

“Rasheed is my favorite [Piston] and I also wanted as the middle name somebody off the bench so I chose Amir Johnson,” said Clifford, who named his son Rasheed Amir Wade.

Coincidentally, Clifford’s son has the same initials as Rasheed Abdul Wallace - and that’s where the similarities end for now. Fortunately for Clifford and Latanya, the four-month-old hasn’t exhibited any technical foul-worthy tantrums just yet. “He’s a great baby, nice, handsome little boy,” the proud papa gushed. “He’s very good. I just love him.”

Rasheed Amir Wade was born the morning of April 27, 2008. That night, the Pistons defeated the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 4 of their first-round series. The 93-84 victory sparked a five-game winning streak and signaled the end of the Sixers’ season. Wallace had one of his best performances of the playoffs, 20 points and 10 rebounds.

“Hopefully that can rub off on my mine and we can be watching him in the future, because I do want him to be one,” Clifford said. “Not just a basketball player but a Piston.”

What Piston would you name your child after?  Haha. Leave a Comment. 

Peace,

John W. Davis

www.pistonscast.com