http://www.detroitbadboys.com/2010/2/22/1320329/joe-dumars-and-the-dark-side-of

It should’ve been painfully obvious to me that such a thing would’ve already been done, but these things happen.  Instead, I’d like to take time out to dispel the widespread belief that the Pistons championship team from earlier in the decade was a team that “did it as a team” and “without a star”.

It’s just patently untrue.

The term “star” is very vague and is very much in the eye of the beholder.  What is a star?  Is it a guy who puts up a ton of points per game (even if he chucks up way too many shots to get that total)?  Someone who garners All Star Game votes (even if they’re skating by on reputation)?

Stars, to me, are someone who is in the top 5-10 (closer to the 5, of course) in their position in the NBA.  Under that criteria, the Pistons were flush with stars in the year they won the NBA Championship.

Win Shares is a stat that I think does an amazing job of succinctly showing what a player has done for a given season.  It adds together a player’s defensive and offensive contributions to a team, and gives a nice and easy number.  Through this measure, the Pistons had a roster that was almost top to bottom in the top 6 in the NBA in their respective roles.

Let’s get down to the numbers, shall we?

1. Chauncey Billups:  11.3 WS – Chauncey is one of the most underrated players of the last decade (or longer, and I promise that is not hyperbole).  His 11.3 WS ranked #2 in the NBA that season among PGs, behind only Sam Cassell (who was brilliant that season for the Timberwolves).  He also ranked higher than this guy named Kobe Bryant.  Would Kobe Bryant be considered a star?  Exactly.
2. Richard Hamilton: 8.1 WS - 6th Best SG in the NBA.  Better than Michael Finley, Ray Allen, Vince Carter, and Steve Francis.  Keep in mind this is almost a 7 years ago, when all of these guys were dominating.  Star?
3. Tayshaun Prince: 7.5 WS - 11th Best SF in 03/04.  Sounds low, I know.  Then you think about how loaded SF is in the NBA.  You’ve got names like Peja Stojackovic, Andrei Kirilenko, Ron Artest, and Shawn Marion populating the upper part of the list.  Even with that, Prince was still better than Carmelo Anthony, Paul Pierce, and Rashard Lewis.  This is essentially the only spot in the entire starting five that you can legitimately argue is not a star with this criteria.
4. Rasheed Wallace: .171 WS/48 – Rasheed might be the only guy on the team who had a previous reputation as a star.  I’m using the minutes adjusted form of Win Shares for Wallace, since he only played around 22 games for the Pistons in that season and it wouldn’t be fair to compare him to guys who played a full season.  He would rank 6th for PFs, and 3rd for a Center.  I say this because there were plenty of instances where both Wallaces played together, and it’s pretty tough to say who’s the Center and who’s the Power Forward.
5. Ben Wallace: 10.2 WS – 4th Best PF in the NBA, 2nd best Center (behind only Yao Ming).  Even though Ben won plenty of Defensive Player of the Year awards, I don’t think people realize how dominant he really was defensively.  He led the NBA for four straight seasons in defensive win shares (these awards were not by reputation, in case you were wondering), and in 03/04 he led the entire NBA in Defensive Win Shares by over one whole win (Kevin Garnett was second place, with 8.0).  If defense truly wins championships, that’s a damn star.

That is just the starting five.  Detroit’s bench was pretty stacked that season as well. 

• Mehmet Okur often gets overshadowed and forgotten (most remember him playing for Utah), but he was an integral part of the team in 2003.  He had 5.9 WS (and the second best WS/48 on the team behind Chauncey), and was the 2nd best bench player in the entire NBA (behind Brian Cardinal of all people).
• Corliss Williamson ranked 6th in the NBA with bench players less than 23 MPG  (with 4.1 WS)
• Bob Sura, Mike James, and Elden Campbell rounded out the important part of the bench.  Campbell wasn’t amazing, but produced something similar to what Austin Daye did last season.  James and Sura played excellently off the bench in limited minutes, and were #3 and #2 respectively in the NBA among guards who played similar minutes per game.

All of those bench players were also well above average when using WS/48. When even your bench is above average, you’re doing something right.

What do we have when this is all added together?  The #2 PG, #6 SG, #11 SF, #4 PF (#2 Center), and the #6 PF in the NBA (#3 Center).  To me, that is AT LEAST 3 stars, and possibly 4.  Going over the team like this, they honestly remind me more of the “Big Three” Celtics teams of recent years more than anyone else.  How many stars did that team have?

Oh, and one more thing.  Chauncey Billups really is insanely underrated (I really can’t say this enough), and was the reason I initally wanted to write about Joe Dumars in the first place.

Dumars wanted to sell high on Billups (I doubt he knew how high he was selling, and how little he actually got), and hitched his wagon to Rodney Stuckey and Richard Hamilton.  If Joe D had the Win Shares statistic available to him at the time, he probably wouldn’t have pulled the trigger so quickly (or at all).  In his tenure with the Pistons from 02/03 to 07/08 Chauncey was 2nd in the entire NBA for Win Shares among guards (5th, if you include centers and PFs).  Who did he trail?  A guy named Kobe Bryant, and only by less than two wins (over a 6 year period, my god).

Richard Hamilton’s total in that stretch was 46.3, which isn’t too shabby and was good for 12th among guards in the NBA.

Still, would you take a chance that Rodney Stuckey is the future and go with Hamilton?  Or would you go with a PG who is simply one of the best in the entire NBA (he’s only 2 years older than Rip as well) and find a way to fill one of the most easily replaced spots in basketball.

Man, what a tough decision.

Simply put, it won’t happen. To Detroit anyway.

Reason #1: Ed Wade just doesn’t sell.

Most people will tell you that it makes all sorts of sense to deal Roy Oswalt right now. He’s on the other side of 30, he’s nearing the end of his deal, and the Astros aren’t winning anything soon. Their farm system could really use the help. Oswalt wants to be sent away. So, it’s all lining up, right?

Not if you’re Ed Wade.

Wade started his tenure as Astros GM in December of 2007. In both of the years he’s presided over the Astros, the team has been pretty mediocre and far out of playoff contention. In 09, they lost 88 games. In 08, they finished 11 games out of first. Both years would have been fine times to sell to stock the farm system, with plenty of candidates to be sent away. But during 2008, he made deals to acquire, not send away, major league talent. In 2009, he made one midseason trade the entire season: a minor move to send Ivan Rodriguez out in the midst of an awful season for a minor leaguer of little consequence (RP Matt Nevarez).

The 2009 season is an interesting one. At the time, I wasn’t surprised that they opted to stand pat during the 09 deadline, surmising that they didn’t have any realistic sell pieces. Looking back, I’m not so sure about that. Jose Valverde certainly became a pitcher in demand. Wandy Rodriguez, a very good pitcher in his own right, was hitting arbitration, and a pro-active organization could’ve gotten a king’s ransom by dealing him while he still had a couple years of arbitration control. Did they approach Oswalt about a trade last year? He wasn’t pitching as well last year, but there wasn’t a word suggesting that they had even considered it. Miguel Tejada could have gotten something if Wade had been willing to absorb some of the contract. It’s not a great list of players for sale, but the Astros have lacked minor league depth and carried a mediocre big league club in his few years in charge. The only major leaguer of any consequence that he’s traded out of Houston was Brad Lidge near the start of his tenure, whom he immediately replaced with Jose Valverde.

This doesn’t mean that he won’t change his mind now. Oswalt is the first Astro to go public with trade demands, and the team is worse now than it was the last two years. However, it’s clear that Wade is not a fan of selling, and if he has to trade his ace, he’s going to demand a high price. In Philadelphia, Wade sold on Scott Rolen and Curt Schilling in separate deals and received very little for his trouble. There’s no doubt in my mind that Wade is wary of repeating those mistakes, which may drive the price out of realistic range for anyone, much less the Tigers.

Reason #2: Tigers’ Finances.

The Tigers didn’t make a play for any free agents until after the Granderson trade had freed up about 7 million dollars. With the payroll carefully budgeted for Verlander’s extension, Valverde’s signing, and Damon’s signing, it’s hard to imagine that Detroit has too much money kicking around. Keep in mind, they declined to offer Placido Polanco arbitration simply because they were prepared to take the risk of paying him if he accepted.  That might have been 5-7 million extra if they still had him around.

Roy Oswalt is due about 10 million the rest of this season, and 16 million next season.

Next season is less of a big deal considering the money that will be available, but that’s still 16 million dollars in a season for a team that already has 2 $20 mil players on the payroll. If Oswalt was on next year’s payroll, that would put about $75 mil between 5 players: Oswalt, Cabrera, Verlander, Ordonez, and Guillen. With so many players making near the minimum (Sizemore, Avila, Jackson, Boesch, Scherzer, Porcello, Zumaya, Perry), they would be able to absorb his salary next season, but that would be $16 million that they wouldn’t have available to fill holes at short, 3rd, left field, or to sign other pitchers. The Tigers are set up nicely with their elite players locked up for big money and young players locked up for small money, but they aren’t really in a position to take on any more large yearly figures until Guillen and Ordonez are off the books after 2011.

Reason #3: It’s not as good of a fit as you think.

Justin Verlander won the strikeout crown last year, and is universally recognized as one of the top-notch pitchers in the AL. Rick Porcello was a solid major league starter during his age 20 season, and he isn’t leaving the rotation soon. Jeremy Bonderman just rode a fantastic month of May to a season FIP of 2.99, a career best. Max Scherzer struck out 14 batters last weekend.

It’s hard to imagine that the Tigers brass would look at those kind of results from Bonderman and Scherzer, compare those to what is already established with Verlander and Porcello, and feel compelled to burn big time prospects and big time money for another starting pitcher. If Jacob Turner, Casey Crosby, and/or $15 million dollars is going to be pumped into improving the 2010 Tigers, it would be awfully strange to see the team pass on filling holes #1 (shortstop), #2 (catcher), #3 (second base), and #4 (third base), to spend all that on hole #5 (5th starter).

I’ve been surprised by trades before, but there’s just a lot of evidence in the background to contradict any prediction that the Tigers would acquire Oswalt. I will say that Verlander, Oswalt, Scherzer, Bonderman, and Porcello would possibly be the best Tigers rotation since 1968, and that would be pretty neat. And Adam Everett is kind of like Ray Oyler…

Long story short, they were not, and were a massive disappointment.

Better than the Pistons starting five? Probably.

This was supposed to be a team that was going to be able to run, and be a team that would light up the scoreboards with lots of offense.  If basketball-reference’s Pace Factor statistic is to be believed (Pace Factor is the estimate of how many possessions a team will have per 48 minutes), the Pistons were 2nd to last in the entire NBA in Pace.  Not only did the Pistons play a painfully slow brand of basketball, but they also ranked 21st in the NBA in Offensive Rating and 26th in Defensive Rating.  A feather in the cap for these statistics is that the top 16 teams in the NBA for Defensive Rating all made the playoffs (the Celtics finished 5th, the Lakers finished 4th overall as well).  The Offensive category is a little more sketchy, but 13 out of 16 isn’t bad either, so I believe that these stats may be on to something.  At the very least, they help us paint a little bit better picture of the team (and give me a nice talking point).

Someone could easily point to the injuries that the Pistons sustained as being the thing that killed the season, but I don’t know if I buy that.  It definitely doesn’t help having Tayshaun Prince out for the first couple months of the season, Richard Hamilton being injured on and off for the first 2 months of the season, and Ben Gordon being bitten by the injury bug for the first time in his career, that much is certain.  But the team just looked lost more often than not.  The lineups were very inconsistent, and the personnel didn’t fit with what the were supposedly trying to accomplish as well.  Ben Gordon, Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, and Charlie Villanueva all had some of the worst seasons of their careers.

The best player on the team last season, by Basketball-Reference’s Win Shares measure (a combination of both offensive and defensive contribution added together and made into a simple number) was actually Ben Wallace with 4.7.  I’m bold-facing that because 4.7 is good for 102nd best in the entire NBA.  That, that is the best player on the 2009/2010 Detroit Pistons.  That’s worse than luminaries like Nick Collison, Kendrick Perkins, Beno Udrih, and Quentin Richardson.  When a 35 year old defensive specialist is ranked 3rd on your team in Offensive Win Shares, something is seriously wrong (to be fair to Ben, it was probably his best season in 7 years offensively though).  Jonas Jerebko was as good as advertised through this measure (with 4.4), and was arguably a top 5 rookie in the NBA (more towards the lower of the 5, though).  He was probably one of the lone bright spots for the Pistons last year.

The “big” free agent acquisitions from the offseason were not very bright.  As stated earlier, Ben Gordon fell to injury and put up the worst season of his career (easily the worst).  Almost all of his major stats (FG%, FT%, 3PT%) were all career lows or the lowest since his rookie campaign.  He was relegated to the bench when Richard Hamilton returned from his injury (though there were some instances where he was utilized in 3 guard sets), earning that 10 million.  The other big free agent signing, Charlie Villanueva, did his best to try to outdo Gordon in the disappointment department.  After having what seemed to be a breakout season in 2008/2009 with the Milwaukee Bucks, he reverted to what he had been previously last season.  The only thing that remained was that he shot around 36% from 3 point range (which isn’t terrible for a PF).  The thought was that he put up pretty good numbers in a bench role with his other teams, so giving him starter’s minutes with Detroit would transfer perfectly.  It didn’t, and he was back to coming from the bench by mid-season.

That’s 18 million tied up in (currently) two bench players, for the next 5 years.

One thing that’s been missing from the info so far has been Rodney Stuckey.  Rodney was drafted in 2007 to be the successor to Chauncey Billups at the PG spot.  Stuckey got his chance to be the man in Detroit after Chauncey was traded prior to 2008, and he hit a huge speed bump in 09/10 after a decent 08/o9.  All of his major stats were down (aside from points per game, of course), and he really didn’t look like much of a point guard throughout much of the season.  His Assist% was only 24 (guys like Steve Nash, Deron Williams, and Chris Paul are around 50%), and even if you think that PGs can do it other ways than guiding the offense, he didn’t do it scoring efficiently either.  His 3 point percentage was .228 (that is not a typo), and his FG% was barely over 40%.  The only guards in the entire NBA who had over 1800 minutes and were worse than him in 3PT% were Dahntay Jones, Andre Miller, Russell Westbrook, and Rajon Rondo.  Usually PGs breakout in or before their 3rd season in the NBA, but Stuckey hasn’t done it yet (not even close).  It would be fair to say that Billups didn’t do it until he was 25 (he also wasn’t a big assist guy for a PG), but he had a phenomenal free throw shot and perimeter offense to fall back on.  Rodney has none of those advantages, and may have a guy on the roster who is his clone (with lesser minutes) in Will Bynum.

This was a lot of words to essentially say that the 09/10 Pistons were an unmitigated disaster, but that is the short of it.  They are a team in disarray, and with the head scratching late season winning streak they took themselves out of the running for the 1st pick in the draft (everyone says it, but my god would John Wall have been nice on this team) and find themselves picking 7th overall.  With Joe Dumars’ drafting history, that doesn’t instill a ton of confidence.

I’ll address Joe D with my next post.

-Kevin

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