Michael Curry made it official Monday: Rodney Stuckey is in as a starter, Kwame Brown is out. Digging the 29-point hole in Sunday's narrow loss to the Knicks no doubt pushed Curry to the decision, but there are two other factors at play, too.
One is the return of Antonio McDyess. The other is the schedule. Take a look at the 11 games left in December, and the new lineup - Rasheed Wallace at center, Tayshaun Prince at power forward, Rip Hamilton at small forward, Allen Iverson at shooting guard and Stuckey at the point - makes sense.
The Pistons just aren't exposing themselves to much risk that they'll be overpowered by any of the opponents lined up in December.
They get Washington twice over the next eight days. The Wizards are starting a rookie center, JaVale McGee. Antawn Jamison is a perimeter, finesse power forward. Caron Butler plays relentlessly, but he's not a physical mismatch for fellow UConn product Rip Hamilton.
On it goes. Indiana's frontcourt of Rasho Nesterovic (Wallace), Troy Murphy (Prince) and Danny Granger (Hamilton) isn't physically imposing. Charlotte lines up with Gerald Wallace, Sean May and Emeka Okafor - and while May is strong enough to present Prince with problems and Wallace has a size-athleticism package that could trouble Hamilton, the defensive matchups have to be even more daunting for Larry Brown. May chasing Prince? Good luck.
With Carlos Boozer out, Utah goes with Mehmet Okur at center, physical but undersized Paul Millsap at power forward and smallish C.J. Miles at small forward with Andrei Kirilenko coming off the bench. If Boozer is back for the Dec. 19 game, Prince would be hard-pressed guarding him on the block. But Boozer would be equally challenged defending in space.
Atlanta (Marvin Williams, Josh Smith, Al Horford), Chicago (Luol Deng, Drew Gooden, Aaron Gray), Oklahoma City (Jeff Green, Kevin Durant, Chris Wilcox), Milwaukee (Richard Jefferson, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Andrew Bogut) and New Jersey (Bobby Simmons, Yi Jianlian, Brook Lopez) come after that. Nothing there to deter Curry's lineup tinkering.
Plus Orlando. On paper, that one might give Curry pause. Or maybe not. Wallace and McDyess have always fared well against Howard. Prince's classic block on Hedo Turkoglu iced the second-round playoff win last year and was symbolic of his ability to guard one of the most versatile small forwards in the game. Would Prince continue to guard Turkoglu or slide over to Rashard Lewis, leaving Hamilton to Turkoglu? The more pertinent question might be Orlando's to answer: Whom between Turkoglu or Lewis guards Hamilton?
It figured all along, even before the Iverson-Chauncey Billups trade, that Curry was going to put his five best players on the floor to end games, and that Stuckey was going to make a strong case that he was one of those five. And it's that lineup - the one on the floor at the end of close games, not the one at the start - that will be more revealing, more pertinent to how this season plays out.
When McDyess returns, he'll be in the mix for that finishing group, too. Curry doesn't want to start him for sound reasons. The Pistons have struggled offensively without Wallace on the floor since losing McDyess in the Iverson trade. The times when Wallace or McDyess won't be on the floor from this point forward will be rare. And having McDyess in reserve lessens the effect of exposing Wallace to quick foul trouble on nights he has to start games, in the newly configured lineup, guarding the likes of Howard, Tim Duncan or Shaquille O'Neal.
If it wasn't for the prospect of McDyess returning, giving Curry the luxury of allowing Wallace to pick up a few early fouls, this lineup change probably doesn't happen. It probably doesn't happen if the next week included games against Cleveland, Boston and the Lakers. And it probably doesn't happen if the Pistons didn't go 29 down in the first half to the Knicks two days after letting a 15-point second-half lead slip away against Philadelphia.
But it never would have been considered were it not for the fact that in Rodney Stuckey, the Pistons have a point guard worthy of starting - and, more to the point, finishing - NBA games.
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Award-winning journalist Keith Langlois, most recently lead sports columnist at The Oakland Press, joined Pistons.com as the web site editor on October 2, 2006. Langlois, who brings over 27 years of professional sports journalism experience to Palace Sports & Entertainment, serves as Pistons.com's official beat writer and covers the team on a daily basis.