Thoughts on a Tuesday
Posted December 9th, 2008 by Michael Curry
- The Detroit Pistons will be starting a lineup of Rodney Stuckey, Allen Iverson, Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and Rasheed Wallace when they tip-off against the Washington Wizards tonight. That might work against the woeful Wizards (3-15), but there’s no way they expect that lineup to be able to win in the Playoffs, right?
- At least the Pistons will have Antonio McDyess back tonight. McDyess waited out his required month, and then re-signed with Detroit. He can only help a Pistons team that is a mere 7-8 since the Allen Iverson-Chauncey Billups trade.
- Another day, more rumors about Gerald Wallace trades. I don’t believe anything I hear regarding Bobcats’ transactions at this point, but I am confident that the best deal for G-Force will not be found in Minnesota. It seems the Bobcats are trying to make sure everyone knows they want to move Wallace in an attempt to drive up the bidding. Unfortunately for Charlotte, when everyone knows you want to sell, the offers are never as good.
- Speaking of the Minnesota Timberwolves, they fired their head coach (and former Cavalier head coach) Randy Wittman on Monday, moving (now-former) GM Kevin McHale to the head coach position. McHale now gets to lay in the bed he made by trading Kevin Garnett to the Celtics for Al Jefferson and a bunch of ugly sweaters.
- While there’s no doubt that McHale has been a less than steller GM, I do feel a little sorry for him in this regard: It has never been harder to try to win with young players than it is right now. If your 23-year-old millionaire star player decides that he’d rather worry about “getting his” than worry about winning basketball games, there’s not much you can do. With the Timberwolves, McHale has a bunch of young, talented players who have no idea how much they have to learn if they want to become winners.
- Unfortunately, that me-first mentality isn’t just a problem for bad teams. The Suns are having the same problem with Amar’e Stoudemire. Hey Amar’e, I enjoy your complaining, but the stats say you are 40th, that’s four-zero, in rebound rate among power forwards! You are tied for 83rd overall! Maybe you should start working on the hustle elements of your game, rather than complaining about how many shots you want. Cleveland fans, thank the basketball gods every day that your wagon is hitched to an unselfish superstar in LeBron James. He isn’t perfect, but he is leaps and bounds over so many of these knuckleheads.
- In case you were wondering, Greg Oden leads the league in rebounding rate. Now if only he could stay on the floor. The highest-ranked Cavaliers are (no surprise) Ben Wallace (17th) and Zydrunas Ilgauskas (19th).
Enjoy the game tonight. Go Cavs.
