10-25-2006, 12:07 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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HoopsAddict.com
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 9,348
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Sports Illustrated's burning questions
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5. Can the Pistons recover from the loss of Big Ben?
Replacing Ben Wallace with Nazr Mohammed is a little like trading in a Range Rover for a Toyota Corolla. The Pistons' new car will work efficiently, but it'll be woefully underpowered when Detroit needs to gain some separation on the road to the playoffs.
Mohammed isn't a bad player -- on a per-minute basis, he grabs as many boards and scores twice as much as Big Ben -- but Wallace was the one player Detroit had who was a legitimate difference-maker, a player few teams could effectively counter.
Still, the Pistons return 4/5ths of a starting lineup that has reached four consecutive Eastern Conference finals, a safety blanket Detroit will rely on.
"We're not going to say, well, Ben's not here, so those four guys are going to play differently," says Pistons VP John Hammond. "We looked at the free-agent class and asked who's a player that we like that we think will help us continue at the same pace that we've been playing at for the last couple of years. We had one guy in mind and that was Nazr."
With Flip Saunders calling the shots, that pace has become decidedly open on both sides of the floor.
While Detroit's scoring improved to 13th in '05-06 from 24th the season before, the club's defensive field-goal percentage allowed fell from fifth to 13th. The numbers aren't indicative of a team in crisis, but they do suggest a team in slow decline.
And with every step the Pistons take further from the title won in 2004, they draw closer to an ugly abyss.
"That's one of the dangers of having a real veteran team," a team consultant says. "If things don't go well, then you've got four or five guys who feel like they could coach it themselves, and they can make that a lot tougher for a coach."
Though Saunders has the support of management, that means nothing on a bench of players who were quick to point fingers last spring when their playoff end was near.
With Wallace now 300 miles to the west, that end may come a lot quicker this season.
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12. Which teams are on the decline?
Detroit Pistons
Not only did they lose the player who defined them, the Pistons now have placed their faith in Rasheed Wallace to play the good soldier through what is likely to be at least a subtle downturn in their regular-season fortunes. Good luck with that, Flip Saunders.
Even more daunting is the prospect that the Pistons' luck in keeping their starting five healthy is due to run out.
"No team gets as lucky as long as they've gotten lucky," observes an opposing consultant. "If they just have the normal number of injuries, that's going to be something they've never had to deal with before."
And that could mean a fall into the middle of a beastly Central Division.
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Question 5
Question 12
Well this comes as no surprise, I am under the impression over the course of these past few months that Sports Illustrated doesn't think too highly of the Pistons.
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Sports Illustrated's burning questions
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