Idling Backward: Detroit Pistons Need To Make a Change

Seriously, what is going on in Detroit?

The Pistons continue to sputter with no real sign of that changing. The team is not constructed to be effective, especially on the defensive end, and the rotations have been schizophrenic at best.

From game to game, there is no guarantees of who will be playing and how long they will be out there.

Obviously, this can be expected from a team that is looking for a spark anywhere they can get it. But the answers seem to be staring them in the face, yet there is too much fear to address them.

That's right, fear is keeping the Detroit Pistons from moving forward.

There are two main things that need to be cleared up before the Pistons can start to develop as a team.

First, team president Joe Dumars needs to make a change to the roster. No one has railed on this more than I have this year, and yet it appears that Dumars is too scared to make a move given the ownership being in flux ahead of the inevitable sale of the team.

Perhaps I have this wrong, and Dumars isn't the one that is scared. Perhaps it is someone higher up telling him not to shake up the roster while the ownership situation is unsettled. But that just means that someone else is scared.

Fear still is the overriding reason why this problem hasn't been fixed.

The Pistons are a perimeter team. They always have been. However, in past years, they still had a strong interior presence at least on the defensive end. As presently constructed, this team's only consistent interior defender is Ben Wallace who is way past his prime.

This lack of interior presence drives down the entire team. The perimeter players are then forced to not only keep their man in front of them, but they then have to sag back and help the interior. So where in the past the power forwards and centers were forced to protect the guards, now the guards have to in turn protect the interior.

The difference is that in the past, the Pistons had strong interior defenders that were more than capable of stepping up with strong help-side defense and pressure. Today's Pistons do not have any overachieving perimeter defenders.

Tayshaun Prince is good, but not great and often is overpowered by bigger defensive assignments. Furthermore, he has shown a tendency to get frustrated by his teammates and coaches, leading to apathetic play especially on the defensive end.

Rodney Stuckey has the physical tools to become a good defender, but so far has not shown a desire to fully develop into the player that the team wants him to become.

Ben Gordon and Rip Hamilton are subpar defenders that need to be protected by better players, and Tracy McGrady, while he has improved since the beginning of the year, has not been a good defender since his Toronto days.

The two players that have the desire and physical attributes to become good defenders are DaJuan Summers and Austin Daye, but they have yet to get consistent minutes on the perimeter (more on that later).

There are two statistics that should be troubling for Detroit fans and are a microcosm of this team's troubles.

The first troubling sign is the rebounding differential. Of the 15 games Detroit has played this year, they have had the leading individual rebounder only three times. As a team, they are being out-rebounded nearly every night.

Take a look at the past five games. Detroit won only one of those games (vs. Washington), and was only really close in one other (vs. Dallas). Detroit did put together a really spirited comeback against Golden State, but that game was more about the Warriors apathy in the second half than it was about execution by Detroit.

In both of those games, Detroit won the rebounding edge, albeit by only three and four rebounds respectively.

If Detroit wants to be competitive, they need to win the rebounding battle.

The second troubling statistic is the absolute dominance that opposing power forwards and centers are putting in against Detroit's meager interior.

In the past four games, the Pistons have been torched inside.

Lakers forward Pau Gasol had 25 points and 12 rebounds. Teammate Lamar Odom had 15 points and 14 rebounds, and neither played more than 33 minutes.

Washington's Javale McGee, who is averaging less than 10 points and nine boards per game, went off for 20 and 16. Teammate Andray Blatche had 20 and eight.

Dallas superstar Dirk Nowitzki exploded for 42 points and 12 rebounds.

And Zach Randolph, who has been rumored to be a Pistons target, chipped in 21 and 14.

During this season, the Pistons are presenting their opposing power forwards with a huge "welcome" sign that is apparently placed directly in the paint.

The sad thing is that the Eastern Conference is far from daunting right now. Detroit, at 5-10, is only a game and a half out of the eighth playoff spot and is only four games out of first in the division.

And this is not a team devoid of talent. If Detroit were able to deal for a player of Randolph's caliber, they would immediately become a playoff team. And in a weak Eastern Conference, who knows where that could lead.

But Dumars or someone above him, appears to be too scared to pull the trigger on a move that would improve this team.

The counter argument to this is that the Pistons are in a rebuilding period and need to develop their young players while they have the opportunity.

However, they are not getting their young players enough minutes and that brings up the second issue plaguing this team: the inconsistent playing rotations.

Take a look at Austin Daye, arguably the most talented of the Pistons young players and his minutes played. Over the past five games, Daye has played 54 minutes...total! That's right, he is averaging just over 10 minutes per game.

If you look even closer, you will see that of those 54 minutes, all but six came in two games. In two other games, he never got off the bench.

That isn't exactly the definition of player development.

Another talented young player, rookie Greg Monroe, has had similar issues getting on the court. He didn't get off the bench in the Pistons first two games, and despite being the biggest player on a team devoid of size, he has only exceeded 20 minutes in four of fifteen games, and two of those came in blowouts.

Yet if you look at his numbers per 36 minutes (eight points, nearly 11 rebounds), you can see that added minutes would certainly help the front court situation in Detroit.

Another player that has been jerked around minutes-wise is Ben Gordon. Gordon is easily the best perimeter scorer on this team, and with his range, gives the Pistons offense a new dimension. Early on in the year, it appeared that Gordon would begin to get the minutes he so desperately craves in order to be effective.

In the first six games of the year, Gordon averaged 33 minutes per game. During that stretch, he averaged 20 points per game. However, most of the minutes came at the expense of Rip Hamilton (who was injured in two of those six games), who averaged only 12 points per game in that stretch.

So what happened? If I were to speculate, I would wonder about Hamilton's attitude towards his diminished role. During the Allen Iverson debacle, Hamilton openly griped about coming off the bench. Could it be that he pouted when Gordon began to steal his thunder?

This brings up that four letter word again: fear. It appears that Kuester may be afraid to fully transition from the past to the future with his playing rotations.

Let's face it, Kuester is in a tough spot. He is coaching a team made up of strong personalities that have won it all before. Their resumes are much more impressive than their coaches. So if he decides to turn the page on the vets, he may have a locker room revolt on his hands.

So instead, he caters to their personalities and steals minutes from young and less aggressive personalities. So instead of trotting out a starting lineup that includes Gordon, Monroe, Charlie Villanueva and/or Daye, he stays with his aging veterans.

This leads to inconsistent minutes and a lack of respect for their coach. Kuester needs to stand up to his team and say "I am going to do what is best for this franchise, not what is best for the individual players."

The best thing for this franchise is to develop the young players and turn the page on the vets. A starting lineup of Stuckey, Gordon, Daye, Villanueva and Monroe would at the very least begin the transition that is inevitable.

If worse comes to worst, they could still keep Prince and Wallace in the lineup in place of Daye and Villanueva, but they need Gordon and Monroe to begin the game. In this scenario, Daye and Villanueva would still come off the bench, but they need consistent minutes.

However, the rotation needs to be shrunk down to a more manageable number. Too often, Kuester is running out 11 or 12 players each game. Instead, the rotation needs to be closer to 9-10 players per game.

However, Kuester does not have that luxury with this team. McGrady needs to play because he is the only vocal leader on the team. Hamilton needs to play at least some, or he will pout. Same with Wallace and Prince.

This brings us back to Dumars. Dumars may have instructed Kuester to keep playing Hamilton and Prince in order to boost their trade value. But at this point, Dumars needs to just take what he can get for Hamilton and allow his coach to have a chance.

This is still a season that can be salvaged, but until the Pistons management conquers their fears and makes a clear decision, this team will continue to flounder.