Can agree either way with Iverson starting for the win NOW, or letting him come off the bench as the 3/4 year short term player. I liken it to Artest coming to Houston. Yeah Artest is overall more talented than Battier, but he's the newcomer that really can't tell his team, that'd contend with or without him, what to do. High volume shooting wing players with their entitlement attitudes, couldnt be the NBA without it.
What a bunch of divas. Ron Artest comes off the bench with no problems. And that is suppose to be the Crazy, team cancer guy. These two girls are b****ing about coming off the bench.
Well Rip and Artest are in two different situations. Rip has been in detroit for a long time. Artest is trying to be on his best behavior on a new team.
Fair enough. Rip should start since AI is the new guy. Anyways, who ended up starting? I saw them put a lineup of AI, Stuck, Rip, Prince and Sheed in there. Talk about small ball.
I agree on AI should be the one to come off the bench out of the 3 of them. I think RIP came off the bench tonight, saw him in warmup in the highlights at the beginning of the game.
all of your points are valid, and may turn out to be true... i just dont agree with them lol i'm sorry but as bad as iverson has been, he's still been better than stuckey. they have almost identical numbers across the board, except iverson is scoring 18ppg rather than 13. sure stuckey has the better fg% but that shouldn't get him into the starting lineup over iverson IMO. also, i'm not 100% convinced that stuckey is a star. seriously, he's looking like a very promising young player but lebron, wade, johnson... he is not, at least not yet. so why not let all 3 guys split 32mpg each in the back court. keep the stars happy and give the team a chance to win something this year rather than blow up due to chemistry issues.
If your premise that starting AI over Stuckey made the Pistons better, maybe so. But it isn't. The Pistons need a PG in the starting lineup. Also, when it comes to chemistry issues, I think the players other than AI will be REALLY disappointed if Stuckey is benched in favor of AI. I'm not a close follower of the Pistons, but I think this is true. I'll stand corrected if a Pistons' follower disagrees.
They started Stuckey, AI, Rip, Prince and Sheed. These are also the same guys that played in crunch time. They lost. To the Bobcats. AI coming off the bench with a second unit would be nice but it's not gonna happen. They need to ditch either Rip or AI bad.
Unless you forgot to post a link to one of the box scores, they were only 5-3 in those games. And they were against really awful competition, including Washington twice and OKC once. Also, do you actually have numbers to back up your claim that the offense is worse when AI and Rip aren't both on the floor, or are you just assuming it's true because they're both known as offensive players?
make AI the sixth man. he's can be a deadly scorer and can totally affect the energy of the game. i agree that Rip should start since he's the veteran in this scenario. stuckey for sure is the man to run this team. he's grown a lot since chauncey left and i'm very impressed.
If Dumars thought Iverson would make them better than Billups, then he was dead wrong. If Dumars took Iverson as an expiring contract, then just let him rot on the bench. Iverson ain't helping the team win.
After last nights game I'm all for putting Iverson on the bench. I hadn't watched a Pistons game in a while - they're terrible.
Iverson needs two things to be successful. He needs the ball and he needs to run. That ain't happening in Detroit. He's gone from one of the fastest teams to one of the slowest and he doesn't get to dominate the ball like he used to. This is just a bad fit. But, everyone know he was just brought in as an expiring contract. So, there's no point in trying to accommodate a one year rental. As Iverson gets older i wonder how he'll adjust to his diminished role on a team. He's not a spot up shooter, he's not a PG, he's not a defensive stopper. I just don't see him ever being comfortable or effective as a role player. Maybe he'll just retire.
The Pistons aren't terrible. They are in transition and their effort is uneven. Every now and then they put together a good game. This is the first time in several years everyone agrees they aren't a contender. AI has good games where it's clear they would have lost without him and bad games where he kills them. Curry has to put him on the bench so the starters can jell together and become a unit. AI can give them big minutes off the bench.
