Ten Years of Detroit Pistons Basketball Reviewed
Record: 30-52 (11th in Eastern Conference)
Head Coach: John Kuester
Offensive Rating: 107.7 (15th in NBA)
Defensive Rating: 111.7 (28th in NBA)
Draft Additions:
Greg Monroe (1st round, 7th pick)
Terrico White (2nd Round, 35th pick)
Free Agent/Trade Additions:
Depth Chart:
Point Guard: Rodney Stuckey, Will Bynum
Shooting Guard: Richard Hamilton, Tracy McGrady, Ben Gordon
Small Forward: Tayshaun Prince, Austin Daye, DaJuan Summers
Power Forward: Charlie Villanueva, Chris Wilcox, Jason Maxiell
Center: Greg Monroe, Ben Wallace
Best Players: Rodney Stuckey, Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Greg Monroe
Here we begin our journey through the dark ages of Pistons basketball. The season prior we had made a bold move, trading franchise point guard Chauncey Billups along with Antonio McDyess and Cheikh Samb for Allen Iverson.
This experiment failed and Iverson ended up signing with the Memphis Grizzlies for the 2010-2011 season leaving Rodney Stuckey as our franchise point guard and Will Bynum as his backup. Not an ideal situation in hindsight but at that point in time Stuckey was a promising young guard that the front office was happy to hand the reigns over to.
In the draft that off-season we added Greg Monroe, a big man with good footwork and post game that we hoped would help to form the core of the Pistons for the future.
In free agency, our big signing was Tracy McGrady, although it is important to note that this was not “vintage” McGrady. This was a version of McGrady that was limited due to numerous unfortunate injuries that would eventually derail his career and force him into early retirement.
This was a team that lacked the talent to compete and win basketball games. It was a team trying to stay relevant and trying to do anything to avoid a rebuild when in reality the front office needed to just cut their losses and blow it up.
Detroit did have some promising young players in Greg Monroe, Rodney Stuckey, and Austin Daye. However, these young guys were playing with a group of older veterans out of their prime and the team seemed stuck in the past.
Richard Hamilton (32) and Tayshaun Prince (30) were both at the tail ends of their careers and trending downward fast. Ben Wallace (36) was able to grab rebounds and make effort plays like the Wallace we knew and loved, but still couldn’t score to save his life. Tracy McGrady was a shell of the player he used to be only putting up 8 points per game.
The greatest downfall of this team was the defense. They were a middle of the pack team when it came to putting the ball in the hoop (15th in offensive rating) however they were a bottom of the barrel team when it came to defense (28th in defensive rating). The highest scoring player on this team was Rodney Stuckey averaging 15.5 points per game. When your leading scorer can only give you 15.5 a night and on top of that you are not stopping anyone on defense, that is not a good sign that your season will go well.
The Pistons finished their season off 30-52. Good enough for the 11th spot in the eastern conference and missing the playoffs for the second consecutive season.