Curry: In order to be served, youth must prepare

Amir Johnson is 21 and Rodney Stuckey 22 and they look like they could hike up Mount Everest in the morning, be back in time to play 48 minutes at The Palace that night and then go out and cavort until the wee hours the way 21- and 22-year-olds are wont to do.

But Michael Curry knows well the incredible physical demands that an NBA game, never mind an NBA season, can exact on the most finely tuned human body. And he knows that no matter how polished the exterior might look, there is an arc that young players must travel before their bodies – and that means the inner workings, minds included – are ready to absorb the punishment that’s coming.

So before the Pistons played the Spurs the other night, and somebody asked about expectations for Stuckey, Curry started with this: “Playing in the NBA over the course of 82 games and the preseason and the postseason takes a toll on your body. His body hasn’t gone through that toll yet. If he’s going to be a guy who can play around 25 minutes a night, he has to get his body prepared to do that and the best way to do that is by playing him additional minutes.

“He didn’t have quite that bounce (last) Friday night and I’m sure he did something different to make sure he had a little more bounce on Saturday. These are the things he has to learn, because he won’t be playing 12 minutes a night anymore. He’ll be one of our key minutes guys and we just want him to use this preseason to continue to build his base. It won’t happen by the start of the season, but if he averages 25 minutes a game we want his 25 minutes in the postseason better than the 25 minutes he’s giving us right now – and that only happens over time.”

And on Wednesday, he said of Johnson: “I told Amir, for three years he could do whatever he wanted to do the night before a game, two days before a game. It didn’t matter what he ate. He wasn’t playing, so he was just getting a workout in every day. Now he has to think about what he’s eating, he has to think about what time he’s off his feet, the amount of time he’s walking around or going somewhere, how late he may be up.”

It’s not only about training the body, but about training the mind through the discipline required to train the body. The message is that the young players are no longer just adornments – nice if you’ve got ’em, but not essential – but foundation pieces. Curry needs to be able to count on them every night. For him to have that confidence in them, he wants their bodies to be in peak condition, so fatigue or weakness doesn’t stand in the way of their progress. Johnson can’t take advantage of his off-the-charts athleticism if he’s too gassed to fly across the lane and swat a shot away or not strong enough to fight through a pick to chase down a shooter. Stuckey can’t explode off his lethal crossover dribble if the previous 24 seconds of defense wobbled his knees.

More Curry on Stuckey: “Before it was, OK, Stuckey comes in and we hope he plays well, and if he plays well, he’ll play for a while. But now it’s not just what we hope he gives us. We expect a certain level from him. When he’s on, he’s really good. And when he’s off, he’s bad. He can’t be bad. When he’s off, he’s got to be OK, and when he’s on, he’s got to be very good. You want to cut that gap and when you do that, you find yourself playing at a high level more consistently throughout the year.”

There’s a focus issue in consistency – or inconsistency, as the case may be – that’s alleviated if the legs and lungs aren’t a concern. So Curry is going to make sure players stay plugged in to strength coach Arnie Kander throughout the season, so that as the dog days approach they don’t fall into sloppy habits or ill-advised eating patterns.

Curry, entrusted by Joe Dumars with this job partly because of the way he connected with the young players that could form the core of the next generation of Pistons, has given Stuckey and Johnson wide berth to stake their claim to the present as well as the future. The Pistons are going to be a very good team, with or without them. But if their bodies can adapt to the rigors of a full NBA season, then their minds will be best prepared to process everything about to be thrown at them as full-fledged members of a contender’s rotation. And with them at their best, the Pistons have a shot to be something better than very good.

And Michael Curry is doing everything within his power to make sure the inner workings are as honed as the polished exteriors.

• Check back on Pistons.com before tonight's 7:30 p.m. tipoff with Dallas for a pregame update on True Blue Pistons.

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