Engine Trouble? The Detroit Pistons Are Stuck in Neutral

Let's assume that the current roster holds until mid-season. I know it sounds ridiculous, but this is what we have to go on in late August.

With just a couple months before opening tip-off, here is what the Pistons roster looks like:

Guards

Rodney Stuckey

Will Bynum

Terrico White

Rip Hamilton

Ben Gordon

Tracy McGrady

Forwards

Austin Daye

Tayshaun Prince

Jason Maxiell

Jonas Jerebko

Chris Wilcox

Dajuan Summers

Greg Monroe

Charlie Villanueva

Center

Ben Wallace

When you further break down the roster, you realize that there is basically one point guard and maybe three power forwards. That leaves essentially five shooting guards and five small forwards.

Obviously, some of these players can be used interchangeably, most notably between the small forward and shooting guard spots.

Therefore, we are looking at a starting lineup that will most likely be Stuckey at point guard, Hamilton at shooting guard (since we know how fond he is of coming off the bench), Prince at small forward, Monroe at power forward, and Wallace at center.

This lineup leaves a lot to be desired; defense will be middle of the pack, and the offense is scary bad.

On the defensive end, you will have a soft interior that will be aided by a lot of length in the back court.

Detroit will be forced to hope that Wallace has the same type of season he had last year and that his toughness rubs off on Monroe.

You don't have a natural playmaker on offense, and the only good passer is your power forward. You also don't have a natural three-point threat on the perimeter to pull pressure off of the paint.

This means that there will be little room for Stuckey to penetrate the paint, and it means that the front court defenders will swarm Monroe if you decide to run a triangle-style offense that begins in the low post.

So how do you combat this with your bench? First, Gordon brings the three point threat that the starting lineup lacks and Bynum brings a much better distributor at the point guard spot.

However, you can't bring them both in together as they will be liabilities on the defensive end.

Perhaps you combat this by bringing McGrady in with Bynum, which gives you a much better size combination. However, at this point in his career, McGrady is an afterthought on the defensive end.

So maybe you bring in Gordon and Daye and hope that one of the two can handle the ball, let alone distribute. But then you still have two weak defenders trying to chase around guys like Brandon Roy, LeBron James and Paul Pierce.

I know what many of you are thinking: what about Prince? Can't he guard those guys?

Absolutely, but that means Prince becomes your 40 minutes a night guy on a team loaded with players that play his position.

Perhaps Summers could step in, but the Pistons only are allowed to dress 12 of their players, which means that Summers (as well as White and possibly Wilcox) become their players in street clothes.

Potentially Jerebko will fill the role of defensive stopper at the small forward spot, but the talented forward seems better suited to playing power forward as he may lack the initial quickness to keep up with smaller swing men.

Regardless, this roster as currently constructed yields 144 minutes combined for the two guards and the small forward. If you give Stuckey, Rip and Prince 30 minutes each, that leaves you with 54 minutes left for the remaining players.

So Gordon pulls another 20 of those minutes, leaving Daye, McGrady and Bynum left to split 34 minutes. That works out to just over ten minutes per player.

If you think McGrady and Bynum will be happy with 10 minutes per game, then I have some property in the middle of Lake Michigan that you might want to purchase.

This brings up the front court and its combined 96 minutes. Since you no longer have any minutes left at small forward, Jerebko now has to fit into your front court rotation.

So if Wallace and Monroe take 30 minutes each, you have 36 minutes to split between Villanueva, Jerebko and Maxiell. That works out to about 12 minutes per player.

Again, not an ideal situation for those two positions.

The bottom line is that this team, as presently constructed, cannot win. In all likelihood, they will struggle to compete. They are loaded with pieces that do not fit together.

So how do you fix this flawed roster?

Everyone seems to have an opinion on this answer and most seem to revolve around trading Hamilton.

On paper, that sounds great: deal Rip and you immediately clear up plenty of playing time for the rest of the backcourt.

But break down the idea of trading Hamilton and you are forced to confront two questions: who do you get back for Rip, and which teams would be willing to take on his large salary?

The first question is probably the easiest to answer from the Pistons standpoint. They need to get a big man for Hamilton, preferably someone that can score and rebound.

Since those types of players are usually hard to come by, it may be easier to start with the second question to weed out the options.

A team that would be willing to add an aging player with a large salary would have to be very close to title contention. Teams that feel that they are only one piece away from a title historically have the most guts when it comes to stomaching bad contracts.

Looking at likely playoff teams, only a few have a need for a player like Hamilton. In the east, Chicago and New York are the only real options (although New York is far from a lock to make the playoffs, let alone contend) and in the West, Denver, Utah and Oklahoma City are the only teams with sizable holes at shooting guard.

Chicago would gladly take Hamilton, although they likely would prefer a shooting guard with a bit more range than the Pistons mid-range specialist.

They also have limited players to offer since their roster is composed mostly of low-priced youngsters whose contracts would not match up to Hamilton's.

New York could definitely use a better option at shooting guard, but their only trading option would be Eddy Curry, and its not likely Dumars is looking for an outright salary dump for his former All-Star.

Denver is likely going to lose Carmelo Anthony after this year, so they likely will be trying to slash their payroll and start over, meaning that they probably won't want to add an aging player.

Utah could be an option, but they don't have the front court depth to offer in a trade, and they just signed Raja Bell to help at shooting guard.

Oklahoma City showed a lot of grit in the playoffs last year, but like Chicago, they lack the high salary that would be needed in a trade.

This brings us to the biggest obstacle facing Detroit in dealing out of their log jam: scoring shooting guards are a dime a dozen in today's NBA. The one position that the Pistons have been collecting is the one position very few teams need to fill.

Regardless, even if Detroit opts to deal Hamilton in a salary dump for Curry, the remaining players on the roster still don't really fit well with one another.

You still have a need for size up front and the guards and small forwards do not compliment one another very well.

This is why the Pistons find themselves in such a precarious position moving forward.

There are no quick fixes for dealing with the problems they have made for themselves, and with each new move and each passing day, they find themselves farther away from the goal this franchise strives for: winning championships.