Human Victory Cigar

From Luke Slippywalker @ Pistonforum.com

After last years disappointing loss, the Pistons organization declared three goals for this season: reduce the starters minutes, develop its youth, and find a scoring option off the bench. As the starters stayed in games many fans thought they shouldn’t have, it was easy to get the feeling that this was business as usual all over again. Fellow forumite BillLaimbeer compared the minutes per game versus other championship teams so this time we’re going to step back and take a look at the total minutes played and see how we did.

Aside from McDyess who went from sub to starter, we’ve got a general reduction in minutes. Rasheed’s minutes are roughly the same but we see roughly 10% reduction in overall minutes for Rip and Tayshaun. Chauncey had the same total minutes but sat out eight more games in ’06-’07. Is this enough? If you even believed the tired legs reasoning for last year’s collapse, Bill’s piece highlighted that we’re in line with other championship teams. So for goal #1, reducing the starters minutes, we’re going to check that off.

Rookies Afflalo and Stuckey got significantly more minutes than any other doughnut fetching first year player of the Going to work era…except for Mehmet Okur. Aside from Okur, no rookie got more that 450 minutes - that includes Prince and Delfino. Milicic’s career minutes for the Pistons doesn’t even come close to Afflalo’s first year total. If you add in Amir’s 764 minutes which is comparable to a Delfino and Maxiell’s developing seasons, it’s a wonder they were able to find the time for all three. While you can argue that more time would have been more beneficial, the team is trying to balance winning and development. This year, over all previous years, the staff has managed to do just that. Goal #2. Check.

Dumars spent the offseason looking for a scoring punch to come off the bench to keep the team from bogging down while the starters sat. The answer was the affordable Jarvis Hayes. Hayes is your typical Dumars’ diamond in the rough player. He’s got the college/ lottery pedigree. He’s gone through some unfortunate events and hasn’t lived up to his potential and he’s cheap. Sure he can’t shut down Yi Jianlian any better than a sofa recliner but after watching uber athlete Mo Evans spot up for three and Delfino spot up for nothing, you had to figure our expectations were roughly the same. Ok so he’s better than Carlos but so is like 90% of the NBA and probably 75% of the NBDL. I like Hayes but, by the numbers, we’re going to have to say: Goal #3….brrrrt.

Well there it is. With Maxiell emerging as a bona fide bench presence, we’re in as good a position as we’ve been in years. Will it be enough to git er done? That’s what the playoffs are all about.

From BillLaimbeer @ Pistonforum.com

Much has been made this year about the reduction in minutes for the Piston starters. That got me to thinking… “I wonder how many minutes the starters on recent NBA Championship teams have played?” So, here you have it, the average minutes played for the core guys of the last 10 Champs:

Well, the minutes played over the last 6 seasons have been around 29-31 minutes. The exception to that was the 2004 Pistons, where starters averaged 34.4 minutes. The 2001 Lakers played the heaviest minutes over the last decade, averaging 35.0 mpg.

Okay, the Pistons played 34.4 mpg and still won the ‘Ship in 2004, but the last few seasons the minutes increased and it was these “dead legs”, of course, that cost them more titles. Well, not so fast. Let’s see how the minutes fared since the 2004 run:

In Larry Brown’s second season, the mpg spiked to an all-time high of 36.3. We all remember, of course, that team narrowly missed a repeat title. In the first two seasons of the Flip Saunders era, the mpg actually dropped an average of one minute per game, resulting in back-to-back ECF losses. Last season the mpg were back down to the exact same level as the ’04 Championship season.

In 2008, the starter minutes dropped significantly. The 31.7 mpg is eerily close to the 31.9 mpg average of the last 10 NBA Championship teams. What does it all mean? Who knows? Ask me again in 2 months.

This is from Pistonsforum.com, and is a post by webz, a long time Australian member who has been traveling the world, and took in the 2008 Detroit Pistons season ender in Cleveland. His first NBA road game, following his first NBA home game the night before against Minnesota.

The following is my account of one of the best Pistons experiences I’ve ever had. It will contain little to no analysis about the game, so if you aren’t interested in hearing the excited ramblings of a Pistons fan you might want to skip this. I’ll leave the game analysis to the Lee, Dre, D4E and company.

My first Pistons game last night against Minny at home was pretty special. But I think this tops that.

Some may say that this was just a meaningless game. Some who watched it from the comfort of their couches may say LeBron and Z weren’t playing so there was no feeling. These people are probably right. But to me it wasn’t a meaningless game…

• Maybe it’s because I’m still pumped about watching the game live…
• Maybe it’s because I watched the entire 2nd half 6 rows back right behind the Pistons bench…
• Maybe it’s because I went into a hostile environment and went home a smug winner…
• Maybe it’s all of those things. But to me, this game was every fans dream. (or maybe just mine ).

So I ended up getting into the game. I still hadn’t decided about going and it was 5:30pm, but ended up getting the bus into town anyway. Tashawn kinda convinced me that if I couldn’t get a cheap Cavs ticket I could always check out some baseball (Tigers-Indians).

I watched the first quarter from a Sports Bar & Grill on 4th St about 2 blocks from the arena while eating my dinner and having a beer. No LeBron. I decided I could try and use this to help get a discount from the scalpers I was to meet in a few minutes time.

Talked to a few scalpers who waved me off when I said I only wanted to spend $20-30. They were peddling courtside seats. Walked a bit further and found a couple more guys. They were trying to sell me a nosebleed ticket on the end of the court for $40. I was feeling pretty cocky cos I really wasn’t bothered if I saw the game or not. (The stein of beer I had probably helped too )

I bargained one down to $25 using my ‘But LeBron isn’t playing, I ain’t paying THAT much!’ The guy was starting to get sick of me and he said, ‘Look, you’re just one person. All you need is to get in the door and you could just sneak down to a better seat.’

I thought, ‘You know, you’re right. Let’s try that.’

Got inside and went to my allocated seat. It was rubbish. But I decided to stay there for the 2nd Quarter and scope out some kick-ass seats down lower. I kept my eye on a few that were never filled during the whole Q. At half time I went down. If I got stopped I was going to use my line of ‘I just want to take some photos’. It was half time after all, it should seem innocent enough. Well, it was not necessary. Security was non-existent and I just walked on down and sat myself 6 rows from the court, directly behind the Pistons bench. Sweeeeeeet. It was a few minutes into the start of the 2nd half before I relaxed and knew I was safe. From then on it was just fantastic.

I took some photos which I will post a bit later on. I could see all the guys on the bench. It was interesting to watch them interacting with each other. I noticed the whole time I was there I did not see anyone say one word to Cheik Samb (or vice versa). He truly looked like a loner at the end of the bench and I felt a bit sorry for him that he was invisible to the rest of his teammates. Nice suit though.

Meanwhile Sheed was being Sheed, throwing things at Maxiell while Flip was addressing them during a timeout, then hiding behind Terry Porter. Playing with the fans, making funny gestures to the camera when he appeared on the big screen.

Side note: Hayes went to the bench in the 2nd half and Arnie Kander was working on his left shoulder. He didn’t look too bothered about it and he checked back into the game later on, but remember - you heard your Pistons injury report here first! Tay also appeared to be limping slightly when he walked off at the end of the game.

So, the game itself was a gem from the Zoo crew. All game we were just hanging around 5-7 points down, the crowd seemed pretty confident of a victory. Whenever we made a sweet play, all these people were saying, ‘Who the hell was that?’ (Stuckey), or ‘Who keeps hitting that baseline jumper?’ (Afflalo)

But to see that mental change in the Zoo crew during the 4th quarter was pretty special. You could just see the intensity pick up. Herrmann was a bundle of lightning caught in a Gatorade cup. Stuckey was a hot knife scything through Cavalier butter. Dixon was nailing cold-blooded dagger after dagger…

Then when Walter nailed that 3pt bomb from 40 feet out I just couldn’t hold back a loud ‘Whaaaaa-ha-hoooooooooo!!!! Oh MYYY!!’ Up until that point I had disguised pretty well to anyone around me that I was a Piston fan. I thought they might alert security or something about my stolen seat. Haha.

After that, they knew. And I didn’t care. I was too busy enjoying it.

The crowd were stunned. All of a sudden they were down. A lot… and then it was all over. I hung around after the game for a bit to let the crowd leave and watched Afflalo give his interview to George and Special K. Then walked through downtown Cleveland with a big smile on my face and went home.

It was a pretty special night. If you bothered to read this far, thanks. I’m happy to share my Pistons experiences with some of you guys. I’ll be back at the Palace on Sunday for Game 1. Only a Pistons win there might be able to top this.