Fastbreak Buckets 12.24.08

-Two of the biggest differences between Flip Saunders and Michael Curry were supposed to be that Curry would play young players and Curry would stop his players from complaining to the officials. Two months into the Curry era, the results have been hit and miss, with more misses than hits.

Young guards Rodney Stuckey and Arron Afflalo have been given plenty of minutes. Stuckey’s development has been the biggest success of Curry’s coaching career thus far. On the other hand, young bigs Jason Maxiell and especially Amir Johnson are not playing nearly enough. Johnson is racking up healthy DNPs despite posting an impressive PER and the best net +/- numbers of any Piston other than Rasheed Wallace.

Also, to date, Curry has failed in his attempt to stem the complaining to officials. Wallace and RIP Hamilton are picking up technicals at a manic rate. The Pistons are fifth in the NBA in technical fouls.

-The first step toward fixing a problem is realizing that one exists. Coach Curry appears to be headed in the right direction with both of the aforementioned issues. He told The Detroit News that he plans to pull Allen Iverson and Tayshaun Prince midway through the first quarter in favor of a bigger lineup. He then plans to re-insert Iverson and Prince as part of a bigger lineup to start the second quarter. The moves should allow Maxiell and Johnson to see minutes at power forward while Will Bynum would effectively be eliminated from the rotation. These move makes sense. In the same article, there is talk that the Pistons are trying to cut back on technical fouls.

-Stuckey tracker: In the 13 games since Thanksgiving, Stuckey is averaging 15.5 points, 7.0 assists, 3.7 rebounds, 1.9 steals, and 2.0 turnovers per game. He has made 55.6% of his field goal attempts and nine three pointers for an effective field goal percentage of 58.7%. His PER is at 19.2 on the season and is surely in the mid 20s since Thanksgiving. The man can flat out ball.