Stan Van Gundy doesn't' feel great about his team. (USATSI)
Detroit Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy is pretty stressed out at this point. I mean, the guy's not exactly laid back to begin with, but this Pistons team (3-16, 1.5 games out of last place in the East) has him to his limit. The Pistons lost to the Lakers on Tuesday, somehow making a bad season worse. If this isn't rock bottom, it's pretty darn close. And Van Gundy is pretty fed up with the whole mess.
"There's no dilemmas in the preseason. No dilemmas," Van Gundy said. "No one cares how many shots they're getting. Everybody knows everybody's gonna play so everybody's spirits are up. You're not worried about stats. … No one cares. Same in practice. You practice hard, do what you're supposed to do."
The Lakers scored 60 in the second half, while shooting 48 percent and hitting 10 of their 17 3-point attempts. It negated a great start from Josh Smith, who was on his way to a triple-double in the first half but had to settle for a team-high 18 points, 10 rebounds and six assists in 33 minutes.
"I think we took a lot of tough shots with people open," Van Gundy said. "We have to show them those things. I have to do my job better. I'm not gonna say I have a selfish team or lazy team. We have a messed up team."
via Lakers right at home in cruising past Pistons.
"Messed-up" sounds about right. The Pistons are 28th in points per possession, 19th in points allowed per possession. They are 18th in assist-to-turnover ratio, dead last in percentage of possessions that end in an assist, dead last in effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage, which means they can't shoot from the field, from three, or free throws.
Is there an answer? Well, a good start would be blowing it up. Putting Barndon Jennings, Greg Monroe, and Josh Smith on one team wasn't a good idea from the start, but it was worth exploring. Guess what, it's been explored. The Pistons should hold a firesale, rebuild around Andre Drummond, and see if they can get a whole different set of players. This team has way more trade value than collective value. Jennings is on a comparative value deal at $8 million and some teams could use a backup point guard of his ilk. Josh Smith still has all the tools to make some team believe in him. And Monroe is an up-and-coming center that just needs to get out of a bad situation.
Trade everyone, start over. This isn't panicking. It's calling for help when the ship hits the iceberg instead of after half the ship is underwater.
HT: PistonPowered via RealGM
Basketball Hot News
Mark Cuban claims he drew a technical foul, unofficially his first
Mark Cuban has been fined – and fined and fined.
But the Mavericks owner has never gotten a technical foul.
Those are reserved for “any player on the court or anyone seated on the bench.” Cuban typically sits (stands) near, but not on, the bench.
However, Cuban claims he unofficially drew a technical during Dallas’ win over the Bucks.
Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News:
Officially, it will go into the books as a technical on assistant coach Monte Mathis, who has vocal chord problems and has trouble raising his voice too loud. He was stunned when the refs said the technical in the third quarter was on him.
Cuban straightened things out postgame, saying the technical foul that was assessed to Mathis actually was called on him.
“All I said was, You got to make that call,” Cuban said. “No cursing. They had to give it to Monte because they realized they’re not allowed to give it to me.”
Announcement: Pro Basketball Talk’s partner FanDuel is hosting a one-day $150,000 Fantasy Basketball league for Thursday’s NBA games. It’s $25 to join and first prize is $20,000. Starts at 8pm ET on Thursday. Here’s the FanDuel link.
Presumably, Cuban wasn’t complaining about the lack of a travel call on Monta Elli’s game-winning buzzer beater.
Cuban wants Mathis’ tech rescinded, and there seems to be a decent chance the NBA will grant the request. After all, the league just rescinded Jazz trainer Gary Briggs’ technical foul, and the referees are at least allowed to call techs on him.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment