Game Thoughts: Pistons vs. Thunder, 10/30/09
The home fans got their first regular-season look at the fresh, new Pistons tonight ... and it didn't go well. After a good start, they collapsed in the second half and lost 91-83 to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Yeah, the same Oklahoma City Thunder that started 1-16 a year ago and finished 23-59. Now, thanks to the Pistons and the horrific Sacramento Kings, they are 2-0. With Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Jeff Green and James Harden, the Thunder are nowhere near as bad as they were a year ago, but that doesn't excuse the Detroit performance tonight.
Neither does the absence of Rip Hamilton, who will also miss Saturday's game in Milwaukee with a sprained ankle. Yes, he's been their leading scorer for the last seven years, and yes, he had 25 points in the season-opening rout of Memphis, but he is a shooting guard. Since Detroit's next two scoring options - Ben Gordon and Rodney Stuckey - are also shooting guards, losing one just makes John Kuester's roster dilemma a little easier.
Stuckey is supposedly a point guard, but tonight's matchup with Westbrook showed what the Pistons are missing. Westbrook had 10 assists, Stuckey had two. Stuckey did score 21 points, thanks to a 12-for-13 night from the free-throw line, but driving to the hoop and getting fouled is usually more in the job description of a ... say it with me ... shooting guard.
In the fourth quarter tonight, Detroit went with Stuckey and Bynum. Do you know how many assists they managed? Zero. Not just those two - the entire team didn't get an assist in the final 13:56 of the game.
The Pistons do have a fairly talented point guard - Will Bynum. When he and Stuckey were on the floor together, it was Bynum who brought the ball up the court, while Stuckey and Gordon covered the shooting guard and small forward positions. That was a combination that worked well in the preseason, but has a few flaws of its own. First, it lacks a bit of size. Stuckey and Gordon aren't exactly big guards, and Bynum is approximately three feet tall. The only way that group can play together is by matching them with Ben Wallace and Kwame Brown, which turns you into a hockey team - Bynum in the center with Stuckey and Gordon as his speedy wingers, with Ben and Kwame as the hulking defensemen. The problem? Hockey teams have a goalie. NBA teams don't.
Playing all four guards worked in the opener, but it is hard to say if that means anything, because Memphis is terrible. Tonight, Oklahoma City knew that the Pistons were only going to get offense from their guards, and used that knowledge to take over the game in the second half. Detroit's starting frontcourt - Wallace, Tayshaun Prince and Charlie Villanueva - combined for three points in the second half. They missed seven of their eight shots, and couldn't help the offense any other way, managing just one offensive rebound between them.
In Ben Wallace's case, that's fine. The Pistons won an NBA championship in 2004 without Ben adding anything to the offense, and he can still do that. I'd argue that he was probably Detroit's best player on Friday with 12 rebounds, three steals, three assists and two blocks. He only scored two points, but he made the only shot he took, so he put together all those positive stats against the negative of one turnover.
But the Pistons can't win with two empty offensive spots in the lineup - that's why the Ben/Kwame combination can only work for short periods of time. Villanueva was brought in for exactly that reason, but he was terrible tonight. He went 3-for-12 from the floor, turned the ball over twice and didn't have a block or a steal. OK, he pulled down five rebounds, but five boards in 34 minutes isn't exactly spectacular from a 6-11 power forward.
This team was never as good as it looked against Memphis, and it probably isn't as bad as it looked in the second half. I don't think Hamilton/Stuckey/Gordon can be on the floor at the same time, because they will get in each other's way, but it did hurt the Pistons to not have Hamilton tonight. He's a better player than Stuckey and while everyone expected that he and Gordon would be as much of a mess as he and Allen Iverson, keep in mind that they both went to Connecticut. Huskies hang together.
Kuester is a rookie coach that has been handed a talented roster that doesn't work. His three best scorers are all shooting guards. He has three promising rookies, all of whom play small forward, a position already held down by Prince, and which is also needed to contain the overflow from all the shooting guards. He has Ben Wallace, an incredible defensive impact player that just takes up space on the other end of the floor. He replaced Rasheed Wallace, a 6-11 finesse player with another one in Villanueva - except that Sheed is also a great defensive player while Villanueva is also a 6-11 finesse player on defense. That isn't as useful.
Of course, there was also the crucial move of replacing Antonio McDyess, Detroit's best player last season, with Chris Wilcox. To use a car analogy, Antonio McDyess in his prime was an Aston Martin DB9. He wasn't a flashy Ferrari or Lamborghini, he was smooth and elegant and incredible. This is a man who put up 40 point/20 rebound games fairly often. I've covered the NBA for 20 years, and I've never seen a single 40-20 game in my life.
As a Piston, McDyess was playing on two bad knees, but he understood his limitations, and still performed at a high level at both ends of the floor. You might not want to use the older DB9 to commute to work, but it still works great for weekend trips, and people gawk when you take it to the Dream Cruise.
Chris Wilcox? A Chevy Cobalt. Nice car that will get you to your boring 9-5 job and will run the family to Sonic for dinner ... but no one is going to confuse it for the Aston Martin.
(That might sound more insulting to Wilcox than it is intended - my wife drives a Cobalt and likes it very much. Besides, Kuester apparently thinks less of Wilcox than I do, since he didn't even put into the game against Oklahoma City.)
Anyway, a bad loss to an improving team. I'd certainly take the Oklahoma City nucleus over the Detroit nucleus at this point. Durant just turned 21, and is already a better player than anyone on the Pistons. Green's 23 and Harden and Westbrook are both 20. Harden might very well be the Rookie of the Year - he didn't look like someone in his second NBA game when the Thunder needed someone to deal with Detroit's defensive pressure while Westbrook was on the bench.
The Pistons get right back at it on Halloween night with a visit to Milwaukee. Most people think the revamped Bucks roster is going to be a disaster. I'm not one of them, because I think they'll be a tough defensive team, but they didn't look great in Friday night's loss at Philly, losing 99-86.
Shock’s Farewell Party
It's hard to say that a farewell party for a franchise could ever be a rousing success - you'd rather it never happened at all - but tonight's Shock party exceeded everyone's expectations.
For an event that was only advertised for a few days on Facebook and Twitter, the turnout was amazing. I'm not sure if anyone got an accurate headcount, but there had to be close to 100 people there. It was certainly more than the venue planned for, and a lot of the best memorabilia was gone before many of the fans even arrived, but it was still a great event for the fans.
It's a shame that so many players were already out of town, but Plenette Pierson, Katie Smith, Alexis Hornbuckle, Rick Mahorn, Cheryl Reeve and Laura Ramus were all there. The players made a point of visiting every table, posing for dozens of pictures, signing autographs and, most importantly, thanking everyone. Not just for coming tonight, but for supporting the team. Even if the Shock couldn't draw a big enough fanbase to succeed, there's never been any question about the devotion of their core fans.
There was a fantastic cake in the shape of the Shock logo, with mini-cakes in the shape of each player's jersey. I believe I saw Katie Smith eating her own jersey just before I left.
It was a great night. My daughter got her picture taken with more of her heroines and got more autographs on her #14 jersey.
My wife finally got to thank Laura Ramus in person for taking care of me the night I passed out after covering a conference finals game in 2006 - they had only ever spoken on the phone when Laura called to tell her what had happened. And I got to say thanks and goodbye to some people that have made my professional life easier and been very nice to my family.
Finally, a huge amount of credit goes to Plenette Pierson. This was her baby from the start, and there are several dozen Shock fans who will have a nice final memory because of her efforts.
Michigan: Not Terrible and Not Elite
#13 Penn State 35, Michigan 10
So what did we learn on a cold, drizzly October afternoon? Not a whole lot that we didn't already suspect. Michigan had already proven that they aren't nearly as bad as they were last year, and they still aren't ready to rejoin the top tier of Big Ten teams.
For a few minutes, it looked like Michigan might have a chance to pull off the upset. They took the opening kickoff and marched down the field for an easy touchdown - the first scored before halftime against Penn State this season. That made it 7-0 Wolverines. The score over the last 57 minutes? 35-3 Nittany Lions.
So how did things get so far out of hand? Let us count the ways:
1) Offense: The thing that people need to keep in mind about Tate Forcier is that he's a true freshman playing through a shoulder injury. No, he hasn't looked nearly as comfortable as he did early in the year, but if you watch him closely, you can see that he's still in pain. He's also trying to master the reads in Rich-Rod's spread offense, which takes a season or two.
He also didn't get much help yesterday. His wide receivers weren't getting open, and his tight ends kept dropping the ball. Add an anemic running game and a bad day by the offensive line, and Forcier's poor performance looks a lot worse.
He could probably use some rest for his shoulder, but Michigan certainly can't count on Denard Robinson. When he's in, the offense looks a lot like the Miami Dolphins' Wildcat - a lot of running plays and one or two inaccurate passes that fail to keep the defense honest. Robinson turned the ball over twice Saturday - a interception and a fumble - and didn't show any sign of moving the team.
2) Defense: Brandon Graham was very, very good. The rest of the team? Not so much. Darryll Clark shouldn't look like Colt McCoy against a defense that wants to be competitive with the Big Ten's best. Every time he needed a big play, he had a receiver breaking open in the end zone. Usually, it was Graham Zug two steps ahead of the defender on a crossing pattern, but on one ugly play, it was a tight end going 60 yards because he was being covered by Obi Ezeh with no downfield help. That came seconds after Penn State got a safety on a botched snap, turning a 10-7 game into a 19-7 game, and Michigan never got within one score again.
So a bad day against a very good team. Are most Big Ten teams going to manhandle the Wolverines like that? No. But there's still a long way to go if they want to win a conference title any time soon.
Future Shock
So now that we've established that the Shock are leaving Detroit, heading to Tulsa and getting a new coach/GM in Nolan Richardson, what happens next?
First off, they are going to need a new name. WNBA teams always take new names - the Orlando Miracle became the Connecticut Sun and the Utah Starzz became the San Antonio Silver Stars. For the purposes of this post, I'm going to guess that the Shock will now be known as the Tulsa Lightning. It fits in with the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder, and there's also some poetic justice to the name. After all, the NHL has the Tampa Bay Lightning, another team that won a championship while owned by Bill Davidson.
Second, they need a roster. Luckily, that's pretty much done. All but three of the Shock's key players are under contract for next season, including Katie Smith, Plenette Pierson, Deanna Nolan, Kara Braxton, Shavonte Zellous and Alexis Hornbuckle. They do have three unrestricted free agents - Cheryl Ford, Taj McWilliams and Nikki Teasley - but they can keep one of them by designating them as their "core" player. That would give the player a max contract, but take away their free-agent status.
So who do they core? Teasley helped some, but was just a role player brought in during the season because of injury problems. McWilliams is a great leader, and they wouldn't have won the 2008 championship without her, but today's her 38th birthday (happy birthday, Taj!), and she's probably not the best choice.
It's actually an easy decision. Even with two bad knees, you have to keep Cheryl Ford. She and Nolan are the last links to the 2003 championship team that started Detroit's incredible run, and with more time to rehab her knees, I expect her to be closer to what she was - the best rebounder in league history.
So the Lightning will have plenty of talent - they've still got the same nucleus that won the 2008 title, since McWilliams replaced Ford. In 2009, they overcame a great deal of adversity - Pierson's season-ending injury in the opener, Bill Laimbeer's abrupt departure, the cloud of the move to Tulsa hanging over their heads - to come within a game of a fourth-straight Eastern Conference title.
They also have Nolan Richardson, a hugely successful coach at the men's college level. He won a national championship with unfancied Arkansas and went to two other Final Fours. He also coached at the University of Tulsa in the 1980s, so he's got local credibility. If you wonder how important that is, think about how Bill Laimbeer turned around the Shock.
Unfortunately, while Richardson is unquestionably a successful coach and he'll bring fans to the building, I think there's a major problem - his legendary "40 Minutes of Hell" playing style. Richardson's teams won with sheer effort and fitness - they played 40 minutes of up-tempo offense and pressing defense and wore out the opposition.
The high-speed offense isn't a problem in the WNBA - Phoenix has proven that with two championships in three years - but no one has tried to do it on both ends of the floor. The Mercury are one of the league's worst defensive teams, because they are only focused on trying to outscore the opposition.
Richardson makes it work by stressing fitness and by regularly playing 10 or 11 players, but those are two strategies that have serious problems in the WNBA. It's a lot easier to get a team prepared for 40 all-out minutes a night when they are playing 30 games a year, but that's not true of the players he'll have in Tulsa. Many WNBA players spend the offseason playing in other parts of the world, so they are carrying bumps and bruises before they even arrive in training camp in May. Also, the league only allows 11-player rosters, with no injured list, so teams often don't have 10 or 11 healthy players. Because of Pierson's injury, Detroit never had more than 10 players in uniform, and often needed to juggle their roster just to get to nine. So "40 Minutes of Hell" would always be tough to implement in the WNBA, but it is going to be even harder with the Tulsa roster.
This is a team built in the Laimbeer/Mahorn mold, which isn't exactly centered on speed. Ford is as tough as anyone in the league, but she's had major injuries to both knees, and has one braced so heavily that it looks like she's got an artificial leg. Katie Smith is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but she turns 36 at the start of next season and missed the end of the year with a back injury. Deanna Nolan might be the league's most athletic player, but she's 30 and hasn't had a real offseason since her days at Georgia. Every year, the grind of playing in Russia and the United States is taking more of a toll on her body. Plenette Pierson has had two major shoulder injuries in two seasons, and it remains to be seen if she will be 100% healthy by next summer.
Even Kara Braxton, who is young, healthy and vastly improved last season, may struggle in Richardson's system due to a lack of speed. Alexis Hornbuckle and Shavonte Zellous will fit nicely on an up-tempo team, but that's two players.
There's a lot of talent and experience on this roster, and if Richardson adjusts his system to his players, they could still have another year or two near the top. But if he intends "40 Minutes of Hell, Part Two", the Tulsa fans might not get the success they expect from the most successful franchise of the decade.
RIP Detroit Shock (1998-2009)
Well, I got a source to confirm it last night, and now AP has gotten another one, so we're officially reporting that the Detroit Shock are leaving after 12 seasons, three championships and seven straight playoff appearances. As of 2010, they will play in Tulsa, be coached by Nolan Richardson and well, not be Brittany's favorite sports team anymore.
I've covered the team since their first game in 1998. It was a valuable source of income, but it was also one of the most enjoyable teams I've ever been around. I'm not a big fan of the original coach, but you couldn't ask for a nicer group of players - Korie Hlede, Cindy Brown and the Aussie trio of Rachael Sporn, Sandy Brondello and Carla Porter. The team had some early success, but then struggled as the original coach made some divisive decisions.
She was eventually replaced by Greg Williams, a wonderful man who had done great things for women's basketball ... and who was an utter disaster. The Shock quickly turned into the league's worst team, and Greg was fired when they got off to a 0-10 start in 2002. He was replaced by a man that no one could have ever pictured coaching women's basketball, Bill Laimbeer.
The Shock finished that season 9-23 and the people at Palace Sports & Entertainment were ready to fold the team, but Laimbeer talked them out of it. He thought that, with the additional of a couple more players, he could turn the team around in a hurry. He already had Deanna Nolan and Swin Cash, and he got Ruth Riley in the dispersal draft and Cheryl Ford in the college draft. Given that nucleus, he turned the Shock into the best franchise in the league. They won the 2003 title, added two more championships in 2006 and 2008, and were one jumper away from the 2007 titles as well.
By 2009, Cash and Riley were long gone and Nolan and Ford were battling injuries. Even Laimbeer left early in the season to go after an NBA job. They lost a key player, Plenette Pierson, for the season from an injury suffered in the opening moments of the opening game, but Rick Mahorn and Cheryl Reeve kept the team battling, and they came agonizingly close to a fourth straight Eastern Conference title before losing to Indiana.
But this season always had the feeling of a farewell. The economy had wrecked the crowds and the death of Bill Davidson meant that the team had lost its biggest supporter. And now that's official - Tulsa gets our team.
On a professional level, this is going to cost me a significant chunk of money every summer, but that's the least of my cares at the moment. I'm going to miss the people. Rick Mahorn, for all of his ferocious reputation, and Cheryl Reeve are great people who have devoted so much energy to this team, and they both deserve much better than to be cast aside for Nolan Richardson.
With one or two exceptions, the players have been the most media-friendly group of any team I've covered. In a locker room containing the likes of Katie Smith, Taj McWilliams, Cheryl Ford, Deanna Nolan, Alexis Hornbuckle, Plenette Pierson and Shavonte Zellous, you could also get cooperation, and intelligent quotes. That holds true throughout the history of the team, starting with the people I mentioned, and going through Astou Ndiaye-Diatta, Wendy Palmer, Jennifer Azzi, Jae Kingi, Pee Wee Johnson and many others. And of course, Ruth Riley and Swin Cash, two of the nicest people I've met in sports.
But there's a very personal reason that I'll always have a spot in my heart for the Shock - my step-daughter Brittany. When I started dating her mom in 2003, Britt was understandably wary of another person trying to replace her dad. I didn't have a lot in common with an 8-year-old girl, but she liked basketball, and she quickly grew to love the Shock. This wasn't just basketball, these were girls, just like her! She was in Nashville for the end of the 2003 season, so she didn't get to experience that title, but she was in the stands at Joe Louis Arena in 2006, and she was back again at Eastern Michigan in 2008.
She was a fan of the team, but there were always three players that stood out for her - Ruth Riley, Swin Cash and Deanna Nolan. She still has copies of the pictures she got with all three at a Shock open practice - she's very proud that her arm and shoulder are in the picture on Ruth's Wikipedia page.
She was sad when Ruth went to San Antonio, and even sadder when Swin went to Seattle. She refused to go to the first Seattle-Detroit game after the trade, because she couldn't stand the idea of seeing her heroines playing against each other. This season, she did go, and got a big hug from Swin before the game, which made her month.
And until the last day, she always loved Tweety. She wore her autographed #14 jersey to school on Friday - the white one, as opposed to the autographed blue #14 jersey she also has - and it was really hard for me to break the news to her last night. She's got other interests now - boys, marching band, Homecoming dances - but she was still crushed to find out that her team was leaving.
I got the nickname "Doc Shock" from some of my colleagues, because I was the only person that covered the team every year, and because I cared about it. It was meant teasingly, but I always took some pride in it. I still want to write a book about the history of the team, and maybe I'll do that now.
So yeah, I know the jokes, but I'll miss the Shock. Thanks to everyone involved for a great 12-season run, and for those of you still part of the team, good luck in Tulsa.