One Step Back, How Many Forward?

It would be easy to use the Pistons’ play in the opening games of the playoffs as an indictment of the trade for Allen Iverson. Based on the way Chauncey Billups dominated his first playoff game this season, it seems crazy that the Joe Dumars traded him for a player who was mostly trouble for the Pistons. However, when the big picture is taken into account, the start to the playoffs has justified the trade more substantially than anything that happened during the regular season.

The Pistons have been utterly dominated by Cleveland. Save for the fourth quarter of game two – a quarter in which Cleveland relaxed with a 27-point lead – the Cavaliers have outscored the Pistons in every quarter. In game one, Cleveland did whatever it wanted offensively. The following game, the Cavaliers shut down the Piston offense; Detroit did not reach 19 points in any of the first three quarters.

What the Cavalier domination has proven is that Detroit is nowhere close to fielding a contender. While Chauncey Billups easily would have been the best player on the team, the Pistons had no chance to contend this season, with or without Mr. Big Shot.

Had the Iverson trade not happened, Billups likely would have led Detroit to a top-four seed and a second round exit. Dumars saw the writing on the wall and elected to jumpstart the rebuilding process by creating financial flexibility. The Pistons could have slowly faded into oblivion much the same that the Dallas Mavericks have fallen from the league’s elite. Thanks to Dumars’ foresight, that slow descent appears to have been avoided.

As much as the Pistons have struggled this season, several teams should be envious of the team’s ability to clean house this summer. Detroit has young talent and the financial flexibility to put together a completely new core as early as this summer. While teams like the Suns, Knicks, and Kings are forced to wait for bad contracts to expire before they rebuild, the Iverson trade has put the Pistons in a position to re-toll right away.

Dumars will accept nothing less than a team that can compete for a Championship. In order for a capable roster to materialize, Dumars made a trade that hurt the Piston roster in the short term. That has been a tough pill to swallow this year, but if the Pistons are back amongst the league’s elite by 2011 instead of 2014, the trade will be worth every embarrassing loss this team suffers over the next couple seasons.

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Dodging a McBullet

At the 24:20 mark this Bill Simmons podcast, where Simmons interviewed Rockets GM Daryl Morey, Simmons asked Morey if he came close to trading Tracy McGrady last summer. During Morey’s response, he named only one team as a potential suitor for T-Mac. “Detroit did have interest [in trading for McGrady.] It just never worked out for both sides,” Morey said. The fact that the Rockets were unable to make a deal work with Detroit is one of the luckiest moments in Piston franchise history. While Iverson has been a disaster in Detroit, acquiring McGrady would have been significantly worse for the Pistons.

Tracy McGrady and Allen Iverson have quite a bit in common. Both are former superstars who have failed to adjust to diminishing athleticism. When they play, Iverson and McGrady are both volume shooters who rely far too heavily on contested jump shots. This season, both players have an effective field goal percentage below 44 percent, well below the league average. Neither plays excels on defense or does much to help his team outside of scoring, so if they are shooting that ineffectively, they are marginal players at best.

The parallels do not end there. Both players have missed significant time this season with “injuries.” In both cases, there has been rampant speculation that the amount of time missed and the severity of the injuries do not align. Neither team should be too upset if the players are exaggerating their injuries. The Pistons have been much better without Iverson this year and the same can be said of the Rockets without McGrady.

Despite rapidly declining production, Iverson and McGrady are two of the six highest paid players in the NBA. Contracts also happen to be the point of differentiation between the two players who peaked more than half a decade ago. Allen Iverson’s contract expires this season. His departure will afford the Pistons unrivaled financial flexibility during an offseason in which few teams will be looking to spend money. McGrady, on the other hand, is owed over 23 million dollars next season. Had the Pistons acquired McGrady, their impending cap space would have evaporated.

It is hard to know what trade possibilities were discussed, but if the Rockets passed on an opportunity to deal McGrady for Chauncey Billups, Daryl Morey may have cost his team an NBA Championship. A starting lineup of Billups, Battier, Artest, Scola, and Yao would have rivaled the Lakers as the best in the West. Instead, Houston is just another second-tier team out West.

While the Rockets missed a potential home run, the Pistons avoided hitting into a double play. A trade for McGrady would have made the Pistons worse in the short term and delayed their financial flexibility, when compared to a deal for Iverson. The trade for Allen Iverson has not worked out well for the Pistons. Just know that it could have turned out much worse.

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Fastbreak Buckets 3.06.09

-If the Pistons want to separate themselves from the pack at the bottom of the East standings, they need to win five of their next six games – a feat which seems very possibly given their upcoming schedule. Detroit’s upcoming schedule features home games against Golden State, Orlando, New York, and Memphis along with road games against Atlanta and Toronto. The Pistons should dominate Golden State, New York, and Memphis, while Toronto should not pose much of a threat. If the Pistons maintain last week’s momentum, they should also fare well against Orlando and Atlanta. If the Pistons hope to make a push for a top-five seed in the playoffs – hence avoiding the East’s big-three in round one – there is no time like the present to make a move up the standings.

-Piston fans need to calm down about Will Bynum. The positives about Bynum are that he is fun to watch and he has an uncanny ability to get to the basket. The negatives are everything else. Bynum has no confidence in his jump shot and for good reason – he has made 29% of non-layup two-pointers and is 1/6 on threes this season. Despite his ability to get to the basket, he is shooting only 41%. A player Bynum’s size cannot survive in the NBA without a reliable jumper. Whenever he is on the court, opposing defenses simply clog the paint and force Bynum’s teammates to shoot over people. Bynum has shown enough this season to stick in the NBA as a third point guard, but until he learns to shoot well enough to keep defenses honest, he should not be playing significant minutes.

-Speaking of players who need to fix their shot, Arron Afflalo has disappeared from the Piston’s rotation. Afflalo is a nice defender with the potential to mimic the career paths of players like Raja Bell, Bruce Bowen, and Mickael Pietrus. While none of those players are great offensively, all hit open shots and force defenses to play them honestly. Therein lies the problem for Afflalo; his shot has abandoned him lately. Since the start of February, Afflalo is 2-11 on non-layup two pointers and 1-5 on threes. January was not much better – he shot below 40% for the month.

As a result of his poor shooting, Afflalo has played 14 minutes total in the team’s last seven games. During the first 30 games of the season, Afflalo shot better than 46% with more than a quarter of his makes coming on threes. He needs to re-establish that stroke if he hopes to return to the rotation. The good news for Afflalo’s future is that similar players have tended to be late bloomers. Raja Bell did not post a respectable PER until age 27, but is currently in the midst of his sixth consecutive productive season. Likewise, Bruce Bowen did not even find his footing in the NBA until he was 26. If Afflalo can continue to improve his defense and work on his shot, he should be valuable role player down the road. In the meantime, he’s going to be hard-pressed to earn minutes if he continues to be an offensive zero.

-One often overlooked aspect of the trade for Allen Iverson was the cap space created by including Antonio McDyess in the deal. While Pistons fans are very aware that the team cleared Billups’ twelve-million-a-year contract off the books, it should be noted that the Pistons no longer are obligated to pay McDyess 7.5 million next season. McDyess is an excellent role player who has done great things in Detroit, but in this economy, that money could go a long way on the free agent market this summer. Detroit should have roughly 18 million in cap space this summer.

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Flip-ing Off The Offense

With all the talk about the Pistons’ inconsistent defense, the real problem has been the offense. In the previous three seasons, the Pistons placed somewhere between fourth and seventh in the NBA in both offensive efficiency* and defensive efficiency* every season. While that shows remarkable consistency, it also proves that the Pistons’ performance did not mesh with their reputation as an all-defense, some-offense outfit. Instead, the Pistons were a remarkably balanced team that excelled on both sides of the ball.

This season, the balance is gone. When the Pistons traded Chauncey Billups – a strong defender – for notoriously poor defender Allen Iverson, slippage on defense was to be expected. Not surprisingly, the Pistons have fallen to 11th in defensive efficiency this season.

The roster moves do not, however, fully explain the deterioration of the teams’ offense. The Pistons began this season with last season’s rotation mostly intact – save for the Billups/Iverson swap and the loss of Jarvis Hayes. Iverson is one of the most prolific scorers of all time, while Hayes is a streak shooter who can do little else, so it would have been reasonable to expect the Pistons to replicate last season’s results offensively.

The Pistons have not, however, come anywhere close to matching last season’s performance offensively. After three straight seasons with a top-six offense, the Pistons have fallen to 21st in offensive efficiency. The Pistons lead only Charlotte and Memphis in points per game, but that is, in part, a product of the team’s relatively slow pace. The fact that the Pistons are in the bottom third of NBA teams in offensive efficiency requires no such qualifiers; the Pistons have been a poor offensive team this season.

In spite of their reputations, Billups is actually a much better offensive player than Iverson. That swap explains some of the offensive problems, but the disparity between the players is not nearly large enough to explain the difference between an elite offensive team and a below average one. Since the personnel do not fully explain the plunge in offense, the likely culprit seems to be the coach.

Michael Curry simply has not done enough to put his players in a position to succeed. The ball movement, player movement, and spacing that were so prevalent under Flip Saunders have all diminished enormously. The Pistons have lost more than two assists per game off of their average from last season. Players like RIP Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince have had to find much more off of their offense through isolations, compared to previous seasons when they relied more heavily on screens and off the ball movement. Last season, 53% off Prince’s baskets were assisted. This season, that number has plummeted to 36%.

Flip Saunders had many faults as a coach; he struggled to connect with his players, players such as Rasheed Wallace often ignored his instructions down the stretch of close games, and his playoff record leaves something to be desired. With that said, Saunders’ playbook and ability to make in-game adjustments offensively were exceptional. Saunders is one of the best in the world at constructing offensive schemes.

Saunders was proficient at hiding limited offensive players like Ben Wallace, Amir Johnson, and Dale Davis. They would set picks, occasionally go backdoor for a dunk, and remain in position to fight for offensive rebounds, all while staying out of the way of their more skilled teammates. This season, Johnson, Kwame Brown, and to a lesser extent Jason Maxiell, seem to simply clog the paint on offense. They tend to drift near the basket without apparent purpose. While part of this can be pinned on the players, Curry deserves much of the blame.

With all of the talk about Curry’s starting lineups and rotations, his inability to mold a first rate offense out of so many talented parts has been his biggest failing. Curry is in his first season as coach so there is plenty of room for Curry to develop. In the meantime, Piston fans should appreciate what they had in Flip Saunders and hope that Curry either learns how to implement a productive offense or is replaced by someone who can.

(H/T to BasketballReference.com and 82games.com for stats. Also, Kelly Dwyer was ahead of the curve with this one.)

*Offensive Efficiency is a measure of points scored per possession, while defensive efficiency measures points allowed per possession. The efficiency statistics take pace into account, while per game numbers do not.

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Transitioning Away From Greatness

The Pistons are a team in transition. At least that is what people are saying. Members of the media and people in the Pistons’ organization have spent the six weeks since the Iverson trade preaching about “adjustment periods” and “a team trying to find itself.” “We are trying to adjust,” Antonio McDyess told The Detroit News. "In the midst of [the coaching change], we end up making the trade for Allen [Iverson], so that's been another transition," Michael Curry told The Augusta Chronicle. "It's going to take time,” RIP Hamilton told The Detroit Free Press. "We're in transition right now," Joe Dumars told CBS. Allen Iverson also followed the company line, telling The Detroit News that “I know we're going [to be] in a better situation at the end of the season than we are now."

In recent years, several teams have made franchise-altering transactions and seen no ill effects of the alleged transition. The 2004 Pistons went 20-5 after Rasheed Wallace officially joined the team. They went on to win a championship. The Suns went 18-11 after remodeling their franchise with Shaquille O’Neal last season, even though that trade may have made them worse. The Lakers also made a big move in 2008, and won 14 of their first 16 games with Pau Gasol. The 2005 76ers were below .500 before adding Chris Webber, but went 17-11 after he joined the team. The Pistons’ counterpart in the Iverson deal – Denver – is 16-4 while dealing with their end of the change.

The chatter about “transitions” and “adjustments” fills newspapers, but it is not necessarily worthwhile. There are benefits associated with chemistry and familiarity, but those benefits are not nearly as drastic as the Pistons would make one believe. Basketball games are won and lost based on three very tangible components: offense, defense, and rebounding. When a team makes a move that improves it combined performance in those three areas, the “transition” and “adjustment period” are suddenly much less burdensome.

What matters for the Pistons are those three tangible aspects of basketball. Is Iverson an upgrade for the Pistons in terms of offense, defense, and/or rebounding? Rebounding is a non issue, as both players are guards who have posted almost identical rebounding rates over their careers. Defense is another issue. The drop-off from Billups to Iverson is monumental. Billups is one of the better defensive point guards in the league while Iverson is one of the worst. Iverson lacks the size and focus to be an adequate defender and the results are obvious on the court. The Pistons have fallen from fourth in the NBA in defensive efficiency last season to 20th this season even though every prominent member of the rotation other than Billups is back.

Offensively, Billups has a 22.2 PER compared to Iverson’s 16.55. While PER does not tell the whole story, comparing team performance might help. The Pistons had the number one offense in the league after the two games that Billups played for Detroit, but the team has fallen to 13th with Iverson. They were in the top-six each of the past three seasons.

People have the perception that Allen Iverson is a star. While in his prime, Iverson was a legitimate superstar, at this point in his career he is merely a good role player. The current incarnation of Allen Iverson is eerily similar to a backup guard on his old team – the Philadelphia 76ers. In 2008, Lou Williams had a strong season as the sixth man for the Sixers. Despite his small stature – he is generously listed at 175 pounds – he posted impressive numbers as a scoring guard. On a per 40 minute basis, he averaged 19.8 points, 3.6 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 2.7 turnovers, and shot 42.4% from the field. His PER was 16.8. This season, on the same per 40 minute basis, Iverson is averaging 18.7 points, 3.4 rebounds, 6.2 assists, 3.1 turnovers, and shooting 41.5% from the field for a 16.55 PER. Both players are shooting guards in a point guard’s body, both are weak defensively despite a high rate of steals, and both are best-suited for a bench role. While Iverson has a reputation as a player vastly superior to Williams, the evidence suggests that the difference between the players is not nearly as pronounced.

The Pistons took a step back by trading their best player for a player formerly capable of being a team’s best player. They are no longer an elite team. Instead, they are merely a good one. While others talk about the Pistons adjusting to Iverson, maybe Iverson needs to adjust to the fact that he is no longer a star.

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Fastbreak Buckets 12.08.08

“Fastbreak Buckets” will be an occasional feature on CTBAAF where I take a quick look at a few different topics.

-The return of Antonio McDyess could not have come at a better time. The Pistons are reeling and definitely need the outside shooting, interior defense, and passionate play that McDyess brings to the table. Also, Rasheed Wallace has played poorly recently and he appears to be wearing down. With McDyess back in the fold, the Pistons only need to play Wallace about 30 minutes per game, which should allow him to be more productive.

-The more Iverson struggles, the more convinced I am that Dumars actually made the trade as a strict salary dump in an effort to re-build. The Pistons scouts could not have possibly believed that Iverson is an upgrade over Billups. While I understand the desire to re-build after falling short of a championship for four straight seasons, trading the team’s best player – Billups – for salary cap relief was not the right move. Billups’ contract is reasonable and he is one of the 20 best players in the NBA. His strong play in Denver has only confirmed this.

-Michael Curry hinted that a change in the starting lineup is on the way. Many Pistons fans are clamoring for the team to start Stuckey over Iverson and in a strictly basketball sense, I agree with them. However, Iverson’s ego and a bench role are a potentially disastrous pairing. Ideally, I would love to see the Pistons show Iverson the advantages of the Jason Terry role. Terry is taking more shots per game than Iverson despite coming off the bench. If Iverson were to embrace a bench role, his shots per game could actually increase because he will spend more time on the floor with players like Afflalo and Maxiell who do not need the ball. The problem is that I doubt Iverson would embrace such a change. If Iverson needs to start, I think the starting lineup that makes the most sense is: Iverson, RIP, Tay, Amir, and Sheed.

-I fear that the lineup Curry will actually choose is: Stuckey, Iverson, RIP, Tay, and Sheed. This lineup would be punished inside and would struggle to rebound. Also, if Prince is eating up minutes at power forward, Maxiell and Amir Johnson would lose minutes. Johnson makes plays and good things tend to happen when he is on the court. I would hate to see his minutes cut in favor of a small ball approach.

Update: Shortly after posting this, I learned that the Pistons will use the small ball arrangement I argued against. I hope I am wrong, but I see major problems with that lineup's lack of size. Also, keep an eye on Amir Johnson's minutes, or lack thereof, in upcoming games. He should be playing about 20 minutes per night, but there is virtually no chance of this happening without an injury.

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One Month Later: A Look Back on the Iverson Trade (Part II)

If Joe Dumars did trade Billups for Iverson in order to facilitate a championship run this season, he appears to have committed his greatest blunder since drafting Darko Milicic. At this stage of their careers, Chauncey Billups is simply a better basketball player than Allen Iverson.

Comparing the two on defense is almost comical. Billups is a good, steady defender while Iverson is one of the worst defensive players in the NBA. Stats cannot tell the whole story on defense, but they do provide some insight. So far this season, the Pistons allow an additional 5.7 points per 100 possessions with Iverson on the court compared to when he is off the court. The Nuggets allow 1.4 points fewer points per 100 possessions with Billups on the floor. Opposing point guards have posted an 18.9 PER against Iverson this season, while Billups has held point guards to a 13.4 PER. Iverson has been even worse in his limited time trying to guard shooting guards.

Subjectively, Iverson’s defense has been every bit as bad as those stats suggest. While on the ball, Iverson lacks the strength to fight through picks. Off the ball, he is focused on jumping into passing lanes which has produced occasional steals and frequent open looks for the man he is supposed to be guarding. In his first three weeks as a Piston, Iverson was lit up by Devin Harris (38pts), Beno Udrih (18), CJ Watson (17), Mo Wiliams (25), Rajon Rondo(18), Randy Foye (23, 14ast) and Ramon Sessions (21). Even in the Pistons past two games, against Portland and San Antonio, the team clearly played its best defense with Rodney Stuckey and Arron Afflalo matching up against opposing guards.

While no one expected Iverson to be an upgrade on the defensive end, the hope was that he could provide a boost on offense. The evidence suggests otherwise. On a points per possession basis, the Pistons were sixth in the NBA offensively in each of the previous two seasons. This season, when Iverson has not been on the court, the Pistons have scored 113.7 points per 100 possessions, a total higher than any team in the NBA so far. With Iverson on the court, that number drops to 104.3, which would be near the league average. Billups’ team has been an astounding 16.9 points per possession better offensively when he is in the game.

Allen Iverson’s biggest problem offensively is turnovers. Iverson has committed 3.1 turnovers per game as a Piston, nearly double Billups’ 1.6 mark in Denver. Iverson is also a much less efficient scorer than Billups. Iverson has a 52.2% true shooting percentage on the season, which pales in comparison to Billups’ 59.1%. Detroit’s top scorer in recent years – RIP Hamilton – has also been adversely affected by the arrival of Iverson. RIP averaged 20 points per game in the four games before the team acquired Iverson, but has averaged less than 15 points per contest alongside the future hall of famer.

Part of the reason the Pistons have struggled so much with Iverson can be attributed to an adjustment period. With that said, as Isaac Newton explained: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” If the Pistons are struggling due to an adjustment period, we should see the same thing with Billups in Denver. There are problems with Iverson that patience and acclimation will not fix.

It’s far too early to call the deal a bust for the Pistons. The team does have a chance, albeit not a great one, to land either Chris Bosh or Amare Stoudemire in 2010 if it is able to preserve its cap space. Also, Joe Dumars is concerned with the product the Pistons have on the court in the playoffs, so judging players based on the regular season is somewhat unfair. I just fear that with Iverson taking over for Billups, there will be fewer playoff games than usual for Dumars to judge.

(Stats courtesy of 82games.com and ESPN.com)

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One Month Later: A Look Back on the Iverson Trade (Part I)

Joe Dumars must have a plan. Dumars always has a plan. This time, I’m just struggling to see it.

One month ago, Dumars traded the face of the franchise – Chauncey Billups – to the Denver Nuggets for Allen Iverson. Antonio McDyess and Cheikh Samb were also sent to Denver in the deal, but McDyess is set to return to Detroit and Samb is, at best, a project capable of developing into a poor man’s Mikki Moore. As a result, the deal was essentially just a swap of Billups for Iverson.

When news of the deal first broke, I was shocked. One month later, I’m as confused as ever. There are three possible reasons Dumars could have made the deal.

One possibility is that Dumars was simply trying to ratchet up ticket sales by injecting excitement into a stale product being offered in a dreary economy. I think it is safe to quickly dispel that possibility. Dumars knows the only way to consistently sell tickets is to produce a winner. The trade did lead to a temporary spike in ticket sales, but if the team is made worse either in the short or long run, those gains will quickly be negated.

Another possibility is that Dumars was hoping to improve the team’s future outlook by creating financial flexibility. This theory suggests that Dumars did not believe that the opening day roster could win a championship, thus he opted to re-build around his younger players. Suffice it to say that I’m not a huge fan of trading Chauncey in a salary dump. The Pistons were good enough to win 55-60 games this year and were among the top five teams in the league with Billups on the roster. Making a move simply to dump Billups’ reasonable contract does not make sense unless there is a player acquisition on the horizon.

If this were the case however, then the only way for the Pistons to improve would be to allow Iverson and Rasheed Wallace to walk. The Pistons would then have the cap space to add a player who helps the team more than Billups. While soon-to-be free agents LeBron, Amare, Wade, and Bosh are all fun names to toss around, is there really any chance that one of those four comes to Detroit? I don’t buy it. Not with the city’s lack of glamour and poor climate.

If the Pistons are looking toward the future, they need a big man to replace Rasheed – unless of course they can get their hands on LeBron, in which case they can worry about positions later. They could try to bring Mehmet Okur back, but I’m not sure how likely that is. He will be 30 when he signs his next contract and has a nice situation in Utah. Shawn Marion and Lamar Odom will both be free agents and either could join Prince as a forward in a small ball frontcourt, but that would still leave the Pistons with a hole in the middle. Other options include Boozer (don’t get your hopes up) and David Lee (is he really an improvement on Maxiell and/or Amir Johnson?). If the Pistons can get their hands on a superstar or a big man who they can pair with Amir, I take back everything in this column and concede that Dumars is a genius two steps ahead of the game. Otherwise, the “look toward the future” rationalization of the trade appears flawed.

The third, and most likely, reason that Dumars pulled the trigger is that he felt the Pistons are better positioned to contend for a championship with Iverson than with Billups. Check back for Part II, in which I will explore the logic behind such a suggestion.

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