Posts tagged ‘Rodney Stuckey’

That’s way I need you to play every night!

39 Points. No Rip, No Stuckey No Problem!

Seriously though, this proves why the Pistons need to trade Rip.

Stuckey and Gordon every night, that’s going to be a problem!

Ben Gordon is a volume shooter, and a go-to player.

But you can’t go to him off the bench!

Free Ben Gordon, Sorry Rip!

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Why do the Pacers own us?

I know he’s practically untouchable but every GM has their price.

Who would you trade Rodney Stuckey for?

No NBA Player is off limits!!!

WE’RE BACK!!!

Give us your impressions of Rodney Stuckey and the rest of the Pistons so far this season!!!

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Listen to our predictions on which players we think will represent the Detroit Pistons in the 2010 NBA All-Star game!!

Leadership is one of those words that can be difficult to nail down a concrete definition for. In terms of basketball, I believe a leader is the one who takes on the responsibility of successfully accomplishing the specific goal set by the team.

I think the question of leadership is the only difference between Rodney Stuckey and some of the NBA’s great young point guards like Chris Paul, Deron Williams, and Derrick Rose. All three are  proven leaders who’s play determines the outcome of games every night.

In only his rookie season, Derrick Rose was clearly the leader of the Chicago Bulls and the heart and soul of the team. So far, Stuckey hasn’t impacted his team quite as much as Rose has in Chicago, but he has shown signs of greatness.

In Stuckey’s defense, unlike the other guards previously mentioned, he hasn’t really had the same opportunity to be a leader. As a rookie, his job for Detroit was to be back-up to Chauncey Billups. The following season he had more opportunities but with the constant line-up changes, it still was some time before his role was clearly defined

Now, with the dawning of a new day in Detroit, is this the season for Rodney Stuckey or will another player step up and become the leader of the Detroit Pistons?

Join Pistonscast LIVE on blogtalkradio Monday, July 27^th at 6:00pm, when we discuss who the Detroit Pistons next number one guy will be.

By Deven Khrucell (aka Pimp Scwalla)

When the Detroit Pistons go on the clock June 25th, it’ll be anybody’s guess who Joe Dumars might draft at number 15 and even more of a mystery is what position. One thing’s for sure, with the current state of the Detroit Pistons, he had better choose carefully.

The Piston’s main concern right now is trying to pick up impact players from the free agent market or by trading for them. Most of the big name free agents are big men like; Bosh, Okur, Boozer, etc… Players like those won’t come cheap. In order to make this possible, there’s a good chance they will lose Rip Hamilton and/or Tayshaun Prince.

The draft pick that I see fitting best in this mix is Louisville Cardinal, Terrence Williams. Williams is a lock-down defender with plenty of explosiveness and is able to knock down three point shots when needed. I also like the fact that he is a four year guy who can guard both the two and the three.

While Williams won’t quickly replace Rip or Tay, drafting a guy like Williams could help soften the blow of losing one or two of Detroit’s cornerstone players. His versatility makes it easy to slide him into either the shooting guard or the small forward position. He also gives the Pistons some leverage when decide which players are going to be here in the future.

Many believe Rodney Stuckey is a better fit at shooting guard and the Piston’s should draft a point guard. That definitely makes sense, but let’s look at the whole picture. Drafting and working with another young point guard (at this point) will be too daunting and could be disastrous for an inexperienced Michael Curry. Besides that, we still don’t know for sure that Rodney’s late season woes were because of the position he plays or the fact that being a great NBA point guard can’t be achieved over night.

Either way we look at it, in order for Detroit to get better, it’s going to cost them at the shooting guard or small forward position–leaving a big hole in the line-up. Why not fill in that hole with someone that can play both - it just makes sense.

What do you think?

Via Freep’s 15th pick analysis:

One of the more interesting points from Joe Dumars’ season-ending news conference was the evaluation that Rodney Stuckey is not a true point guard.  

“Playing the point can take your aggression away because you’re worried about the other four guys,” the Pistons president of basketball operations said. “What this year confirmed is he’s a combo guard. We have to play him on the ball and off the ball.”

How Rodney Stuckey will impact the 2009 NBA Draft.

“Start your discussion!”

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Episode 110: The Combo Guard Episode!

I want to comment on that you guys say that Rodney doesn’t play defense. As many faults I see with Stuckey, I actually disagree here to some extent - outside of that period where he just couldn’t get anything going.

Look at some games at the start of the year such as the first time they lost to Atlanta. He was their offensive and defensive spark plug in those games. He was rebounding, blocking dribble penetration, and forcing his way to the rim.

Perhaps you guys are correct that he became complacent after scoring 40 - I personally think its an issue between him and the vets, but that’s for another time. But regardless of why, we both agree that something just was not clicking in the middle of the season.

However you look at the second half of the season around the time that Rip went out again, he was actually doing a good job of staying in front of his defender.

The issue was that without athletic bigs to step into the lane, whenever people would run the pick and roll you’d see players run in between Stuckey and Sheed (which really isn’t Stuckey’s fault since he’s fighting through a screen). And the biggest thing to me is that he’s much bigger than Tayshaun - I can’t see why Curry was too stupid to notice this - but whenever they put Stuckey on LeBron, James’ numbers were much lower than his average.

Don’t believe me, look at game 3 third period, the only time they put Stuckey on LeBron for the entire quarter with Kwame in for Rasheed. The Cavs were held to a total of 9 points for the quarter, LeBron with only 4 points through the first 10 minutes. The way they were able to do this was by having Stuckey prevent LeBron from getting into the lane until there was under 5 in the shot clock, which forced a bad shot and allowed Kwame to get his 3 blocks in the quarter.

And of course, as soon as something works, Curry has to change it up, putting Bynum in for Stuckey. I like Bynum, but that was just a bad match up to put him in their, and the score reflected it.

Also don’t forget that Mo Williams couldn’t get going until the 3rd or 4th quarters of most of the games, and ended up shooting below his season averages (especially the from 3 and the free throw line, given that he was one of the best in the regular season, the only reason - since he was not injured - is because he could not get into rhythm).

I personally think that Stuckey does have a lot of qualities that are overlooked because he was struggling a lot in the middle of the season. Look back at some of the playoff games and you’ll notice that he also did a much better job of setting people up than his assist numbers reflected, people missed a good number of wide open shots.

Give him a guy like Chris Bosh and a good 3 point shooter and you’ll see 10 assists nightly in 2 to 3 years.

I’m only bringing this up because I feel that people often grade Stuckey a bit too hard, most likely because of his flashes of brilliance earlier in the season as you guys pointed out. That and you guys both understand that I take a third party view when I comment on players instead of just raving about them.

And as for his struggles, I still feel that a good part of them were because of leadership discrepancies between him and the vets, but once again I’ll bring that up another time when the occasion calls for it (you can only cause so much madness in one sitting :p) .

Peace,

Ali H.

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by Mike Watson

Let’s just remember the good times! LOL

Seriously, where did the 40 point Rodney Stuckey go??????

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-Special thanks to Mike Watson for the great video!