At that price, Pistons can't go wrong with Brown

I sat in Scott Perry’s office last Thursday for a few hours, talking about a variety of subjects, including the prospects for moves the rest of the summer. Whatever you do, I told him, don’t do it next week – I was taking a few days off. Don’t worry, he said. Nothing is happening next week.

One day into that week, the Pistons spent the better chunk of their mid-level exception on Kwame Brown. According to various reports, Brown will earn $4 million next season and then have an option to return the following season for another $4 million.

Things change quickly in the NBA. The Pistons hadn’t even spoken to Brown’s agent, Mark Bartelstein, about Brown as of late last week, though they’d spoken to him about a number of his other clients – Bartelstein represents Lindsey Hunter, Will Bynum and Trent Plaisted, as well as James Posey and Devean George.

What made Brown attractive to the Pistons? Well, the price was right, for starters. Consider: Brown was the No. 1 pick in the 2001 draft; DeSagana Diop was the No. 8 pick. In seven NBA seasons, Brown has averaged 7.5 points and 5.7 rebounds, Diop 2.1 points and 3.9 rebounds. Diop, still 84 points shy of 1,000 for his career, coaxed a full mid-level exception out of Dallas – five years and nearly $33 million.

Now maybe Diop is considered a slightly better defender, but Lakers assistant Tex Winter said last week that he thought his team was pursuing Brown as a free agent – they traded him to Memphis in the Pau Gasol deal – because Phil Jackson always liked Brown’s defense.

How will the Pistons use Brown? Tough to say. He’s certainly capable of supplying 20 to 25 good minutes a night. In his best NBA season of 2003-04 when he was with the Wizards – and still just 22 – he averaged 10.9 points and 7.4 rebounds, shooting 49 percent, in 30 minutes a game.

If he allows himself to be mentored by the likes of Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess, lets Arnie Kander get in his ear and does what Michael Curry asks of him, there’s no reason to believe Brown can’t be another of the Pistons’ reclamation projects. He has his warts – Brown has small hands that limit his ability to finish around the rim and he doesn’t have much of an offensive game outside of the paint – but he’s a rock-solid 270-pounder who gives Curry something a little different than his other big guys.

He also gives Dumars flexibility as he goes about exploring whatever trades might be out there. On the surface of it, the Pistons frontcourt is now incredibly crowded – Wallace and McDyess as the apparent starters, with Brown, Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson fighting for spots behind them in the pecking order, with Cheikh Samb also in the mix. As it stands, it’s tough to see how Theo Ratliff will still fit.

Because this move came on so suddenly, I don’t think it’s necessarily tied to another move. But it certainly makes other moves possible. Stay tuned.

And now I’ll return to my vacation. Unless something else happens that wasn’t supposed to happen this week.

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Brown Expected in Detroit

by Ryan Pretzer

The Pistons were expected to make a big splash this summer, but 6-foot-11, 270-pound Kwame Brown wasn’t what most had in mind. Nevertheless, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2001 draft is coming to Detroit.

Brown’s downfall from heralded “can’t miss” prep prospect to NBA journeyman after seven nondescript seasons has been well chronicled. Look past the cautionary tale, however, and you’ll find a 26-year-old who has averaged 7.5 points and 5.7 rebounds per game over his career. At the price the Pistons got him from a free-agent market with few established commodities, the deal makes sense for Detroit, a team with enough roster stability to take a chance.

The contract itself, as reported by ESPN.com, involves little risk for the Pistons. It’s a two-year deal at $4 million per year, but with a player option after the 2008-09 season. Perhaps the Pistons are hopeful that Brown, who generated virtually no free-agent buzz this summer, will realize he needs to produce to get another big payday, and will take advantage of this opportunity in 2008-09, then opt out of the second year. He failed to capitalize at the end of last season when he averaged just 3.5 points and 3.8 rebounds in 15 games for Memphis after his trade from the Lakers. That’s in part why Brown will be making less than half of the $9.1 million he was paid in 2007-08, the last year of his previous three-year deal.

The Pistons don’t have a sterling track record for underachieving big men taken at the top of the draft, but they may believe Brown could thrive in a winning locker room atmosphere patrolled by proven vets, and under a coach like Curry, who has earned rave reviews from Detroit’s young bench players. Brown, who bypassed college and was drafted first overall by Michael Jordan when he ran the Wizards' front office, is only one year older than three-year vet Jason Maxiell.

Brown also has raised his game in the playoffs when given the opportunity. He started a combined 12 games for the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2006 and 2007 postseasons, averaging 11.3 points and 6.1 rebounds. The Pistons have reached six straight conference finals, and anything Brown can contribute to making a seventh trip would be a bonus. The most Brown has contributed to a conference championship is his expiring contract, which the salary-slashing Grizzlies acquired in exchange for former All-Star Pau Gasol, who helped the Lakers win the West.

If that’s a distinction Brown would like to change in 2008-09, he might be in the right place. Nowhere else have other teams’ first-round picks done more to change how they’re perceived around the league than in Detroit.

Continue to check Pistons.com for the official announcement of Brown’s signing.

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Pistons won't spend big on a backup to Prince

The Pistons and Will Bynum tied up loose ends on Bynum’s contract on Thursday, which takes the roster to 12 players still pending decisions by Theo Ratliff and Lindsey Hunter on their returns for one more go-around.

Assuming both veterans decide to come back, that would leave the Pistons with only one more roster spot, which they’ll use to address the situation at backup small forward behind Tayshaun Prince.

Right now, the leader in the clubhouse is probably Walter Herrmann. The Pistons liked what they saw from Herrmann last season. Though ex-coach Flip Saunders thought Herrmann was better suited to playing power forward because of the mismatches he could create with his ability to shoot from 3-point range and put the ball on the floor, the Pistons think he can defend adequately enough to warrant minutes behind Prince.

But the reality is that the Pistons – at least as presently constituted – might not have a full-fledged backup role available for whoever they add to the roster at that position. The emergence of second-year guards Rodney Stuckey and Arron Afflalo, combined with Rip Hamilton’s proven ability to defend even elite small forwards, gives Michael Curry a wealth of combination options.

Stuckey is probably going to get 30 minutes a game next season – but it’s not very likely his additional minutes are going to come at the expense of All-Star guards Hamilton and Chauncey Billups. The most logical way to make room for Stuckey’s expanded role is to use Hamilton more frequently as Prince’s backup when he’s not manning his own position at shooting guard.

At the three perimeter positions – point guard, shooting guard and small forward – the Pistons have four bona fide starters, plus Afflalo, who’s also in line for a greater role this season and is a clear favorite of Curry’s. There are 144 minutes of playing time available per game at those three positions. If Hamilton and Prince get 35 minutes apiece, that leaves 74 to split up among Billups, Stuckey and Afflalo. If Billups and Stuckey took 30 apiece, that would leave 14 for Afflalo.

None of those numbers are excessive, either – and we haven’t allotted one minute of playing time for whoever winds up being signed as another backup small forward candidate.

And that’s why the Pistons politely backed out of the bidding for players like James Posey, Mickael Pietrus and James Jones, all of whom signed for deals in excess of $4 million a year. Just because a team has the ability to use its full mid-level exception doesn’t mean it should. Unless you have a role available worthy of a $5.6 million first-year salary, escalating by 8 percent annually every season, you’ll quickly hamstring your roster flexibility by overpaying mediocre talent.

Ask the Cleveland Cavaliers, still regretting the deals they gave journeymen like Donyell Marshall, Damon Jones and Ira Newble. Two years ago, Joe Dumars gave Nazr Mohammed a full mid-level deal. He took some heat for that one, but step back and take another look at it: He got someone who was his starting center, not a backup with a limited role available, until another option – Chris Webber – came along, and less than 1½ seasons into the contract he found another team willing to take it off of his hands. In other words, that wasn’t even close to a desperation signing.

• Coming from Sacramento this week was a report that the Pistons were pursuing Ron Artest of the Kings. Don’t hold your breath. Joe Dumars has carefully crafted a healthy locker room environment. He’ll roll the dice occasionally on players that others, at least, view skeptically from a character standpoint. But Artest? It’s highly unlikely the Pistons would go there.

• The Pistons hope to have European destinations settled within a week or so for the two second-rounders who’ll play overseas, Trent Plaisted and Deron Washington. Plaisted is likely to wind up in Italy and Washington in either Spain or Italy, Pistons vice president Scott Perry told me Thursday.

• Rodney Stuckey reportedly played very well for the U.S. Select Team as its week of practice against the U.S. Olympic team wound down. Stuckey played off the ball, curiously enough, as Derrick Rose, O.J. Mayo and Jerryd Bayless took turns at the point, struggling to get the ball up court against the Olympic team.

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Childress signing a shot across the bow

The pool of biting American political humorists dangerously shallow, Lewis Black should have been given a national security detail the second George Carlin died. Black was typically spot-on the other night during his bit on John Stewart’s “The Daily Show” when he talked about the iconic American landmarks and businesses being gobbled up by foreign investors – everything from the Chrysler Building to Anheuser-Busch to Donald Trump’s Palm Beach monument to his own ego, closing his commentary with an image of the Statue of Liberty draped in a Wal-Mart greeter’s costume.

It’s not nearly as imminent nor as dramatically threatening, perhaps, but the reported Josh Childress signing with Greek powerhouse Olympiakos has to be mildly troubling for the NBA and those who love basketball played at the highest level.

This is a little different than Carlos Delfino signing to play in Russia or Juan Carlos Navarro returning home to Spain after a year in the NBA or Bostjan Nachbar heading back overseas or, heavens, far different than Primoz Brezec taking what he could get in Rome. A generation ago, those players would never have been in the NBA at all, and not one of them had a role guaranteed to their satisfaction with an NBA team next year or into the future.

But Childress? A four-year veteran coming off a career year, he could have settled into the starting lineup of many teams or, at worst, been a super sub for anyone else. Two things made Childress different than all those other foreign signings: He’s a native son and a coveted commodity.

Instead he apparently is ready to take a three-year contract for a reported $20 million to play in Greece.

Now, you can rationalize the Childress signing as an isolated event brought about by an unusual set of circumstances. First is Atlanta’s unsettled ownership situation that has all but paralyzed its front office for years. Then there’s the fact that Childress and Josh Smith – as first-round draft choices of the same team from the same 2004 draft that happened to both make it, unusual in itself – both hit unrestricted free agency in the same season. And, further, it was a year when less than a handful of teams had the cap space to offer any free agent more than the mid-level exception, and one, Memphis, wasn’t inclined to spend it.

So the climate was ripe for Childress to be lured away.

But two or three years ago, it wouldn’t have mattered – the threat of Europe would have been hollow then. Not anymore, thanks to an equally dense combination of factors, though there isn’t much about them that rings as a fluke.

Start with the changing world economy. The Euro has soared against the dollar over that time. Even if European basketball hadn’t raised the stakes, the typical contract would have been much more attractive to a fringe NBA player today than it was at the turn of the millenium. But Euro basketball has raised the stakes. Over and above the exchange rate, European teams are spending bigger money these days. Most of the contracts signed overseas are tax-free deals, an enormous consideration that effectively makes them worth half again their value relative to an NBA deal.

The trend is unlikely to reverse itself anytime soon. Perhaps the top high school player from the recent graduated class, point guard Brandon Jennings, just set precedent by signing to play professionally in Italy rather than take his chances with a qualifying standardized test score or an American prep school in the one-year interim required for him to apply for the NBA draft.

Russian oilmen awash in cash and not particularly concerned with the bottom line of their basketball hobby are helping to fuel the surge, as well. One thing that’s always augured against an overseas migration is the lack of NBA-caliber arenas abroad. That, too, appears to be changing. The 2007 opening of London’s O2 Arena, a 23,000-seat, state-of-the-art affair – already, the NHL and NBA have hosted games there – is likely to spawn a revolution across the continent, greatly enhancing basketball revenue potential across the pond.

So the Childress signing is a shot across the bow. I wouldn’t expect a rapid migration of NBA stars, but a continuation of a return to Europe by its own players, and better players, every year is the next logical step, so that only the Dirk Nowitzkis and Tony Parkers are left. And, sooner or later, as the pool of NBA teams without sufficient cap room to bid on free agents remains shallow, someone of prominence – someone who plays in All-Star games every year – is going to go all pioneer on us and accept a landmark contract by a billionaire European entrepreneur whose desire to best his peers in Euroleague competition trumps all financial reason.

I don’t know that it’ll ever be LeBron James or Kobe Bryant – though Bryant, born in Italy and with an ego the size of Sicily, at least, would be an approachable target – but it might be someone the equal of Baron Davis or Elton Brand from this year’s free-agent crop.

Chris Kaman is playing for the German Olympic team this year. Luol Deng was born in the Sudan and grew up in England. Becky Hamman of the WNBA – one of that league’s many stars who make tenfold and more playing in Europe during their off-season – has become a naturalized Russian citizen and will suit up for that country this summer in Beijing. The point guard for Russia’s men’s Olympic team is an American ex-pat.

The world is shrinking, the disparities between national economies along with it, trade barriers falling or having holes punched through them more every year. The United States has always shipped its basketball players around the world, though exporting only low- and mid-grade product while importing the high-end stuff.

That trade imbalance is about to even out. Stay tuned to find out how dramatically.

• The reported signing of Will Bynum all but assures him of a spot on the 15-man roster, which means the Pistons liked what they saw of Bynum in Las Vegas.
  
  I was struck by Bynum’s embracing of the opportunity. As Michael Curry told me, “This guy is a million-dollar player in Europe. The fact he’s out here in the Summer League, that says it all.”
  
  Bynum seemed truly humbled and appreciate of the opportunity. Always a flat-out scorer – Bynum remains a high school legend in Chicago – he showed up in Las Vegas focused on hounding the opposing point guard and proving he could run a team, to the point that Curry and Joe Dumars both told him to not forget about who he was, an off-the-dribble penetrator and a scorer, too.
  
  Bynum just got back from Israel in early July and soon took a phone call from Dumars, inviting him to Las Vegas. He worked out three times a day on his own before going to Vegas, where he played hard every second. Summer League ended last Sunday and Curry called him that night to tell him the Pistons wanted him to come to training camp with them. Bynum was sitting on a nice offer to play in Italy next season.
  
  The Bynum signing is going to spawn at least two streams of questions: What does this mean for Lindsey Hunter, and was Bynum signed with the expectation of moving Chauncey Billups.
  
  The answers: Nothing and no.
  
  If Hunter decides he wants to play one more year, he’ll be used much like last year – in spots during the regular season, when he would again be mostly inactive, more during the playoffs. Hunter would be a great mentor for Bynum, by the way, because it’s Hunter’s role that Bynum would be hoping to fill – high-energy pest.
  
  But that’s a lot different than being the backup point guard and playing 12 to 18 minutes a night. So the addition of Bynum in no way implies an imminent trade of the incumbent point guard.

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Joe D coolly plays the waiting game

I was on my way to Red Wings training camp in early September 2002 when I got a panicked call from my newspaper editor at the time. Joe Dumars had just traded Jerry Stackhouse to Washington for Rip Hamilton.

It was almost that late in the NBA’s off-season a year ago when Dumars added depth to the one spot on his roster that looked a little thin, plucking Jarvis Hayes in free agency to back up Tayshaun Prince.

Pistons fans are growing restless – at least the scores of them moved to comment via Pistons Mailbag – at the lack of activity so far this off-season, especially in light of Joe D’s comments on the day he rendered Flip Saunders’ firing the day’s second-biggest story by boldly declaring everyone on the roster could be had for the right return.

Lost in the noise of that 21-gun salute was the acknowledgment by Dumars that nothing was very likely to happen soon. The draft was imminent and then free agency’s first wave would effectively serve to paralyze the marketplace until the big dominoes fell.

Most, but not all of them, have now fallen. Baron Davis landed with the Clippers. Elton Brand went to Philadelphia. The Warriors, unexpectedly handed cap space by Davis’ decision to opt out and bolt, spent their money on Corey Maggette and Ronny Turiaf. The last team with enough cap space to make a bold strike, Memphis, has all but admitted it’s saving its money for another day.

So that leaves a laundry list of restricted free agents – Andre Igoudala, Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, Emeka Okafor, Josh Smith, Josh Childress, et al – hoping somebody steps forward with a multiyear deal that prompts their current franchise to enter into a sign-and-trade agreement. Most will go wanting, some then deciding to sign a one-year qualifying offer and try again next summer, this time as unrestricted free agents.

Long story short, it’s now getting to that point of the summer where teams still left with holes in their roster unaddressed by the draft or free agency will revisit their options. And all of them are fully aware that the Pistons’ roster ripples with options for them to explore.

It was July 31 last summer when Minnesota went back to Boston to say, upon further review, a package built around Al Jefferson would suffice if the Celtics were still interested in adding Kevin Garnett to Paul Pierce and Ray Allen.

Maybe an equally dramatic move isn’t in the cards for the Pistons, whose inclusion in a wild assortment of off-season rumors Dumars anticipated once he went so public. But I’d still say it’s more likely than not that something gets done because there are a lot of teams out there – in the Western Conference, especially – run by men feeling an even greater sense of urgency than Dumars to alter the mix.

Take a look at this from Dumars’ perspective. He has a 59-win team with plenty of room for internal growth, thanks to the recent shrewd drafting of Rodney Stuckey, Arron Afflalo, Jason Maxiell, Amir Johnson and Cheikh Samb at spots well below what their current market value would dictate. He has a new coach with a steely aura that could go a long way toward dispelling the emotional inertia that’s settled in among his veterans. He’s in the Eastern Conference, significantly improved but still not as top-heavy as the West, where winning 50 games doesn’t guarantee a playoff berth.

Now think about life if you’re sitting in the GM’s chair in places like Houston, Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, Utah or a handful of other Western franchises. The Lakers are adding 7-footer Andrew Bynum to the reigning conference champions, San Antonio remains a colossus and New Orleans just added valuable vet James Posey to a young core headlined by Chris Paul.

A lot of teams on the other side of the Mississippi figure to be gripped by the fear that standing pat is a sure way of ceding ground. They might not have great confidence that a trade will put them over the top, but many of them are going to be willing to roll the dice for a deal that could propel them in either direction over inactivity that locks them into second-tier status.

That gives Dumars the high ground as he goes hunting a trade. He’s not looking to fleece anyone’s pockets. He has value to offer in exchange for value. But he goes to market knowing his sense of urgency is at least matched and probably exceeded by that of his potential trade partners.

And waiting into late July and beyond does nothing but help his case. The teams that have made noise so far – the teams whose activity has caused the unrest of Pistons fans – have played their hands. That reduces the options for all those teams whose GMs entered the summer, like Dumars, intent on shaking up the mix. And they all still know a potential trade partner with assorted coveted assets is waiting by the phone at Five Championship Drive.

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Plaisted's 'live body' gives him an NBA future

Trent Plaisted already shoots free throws a little like Ben Wallace. Now the Pistons are hoping someday he evolves into a defensive force that could be mentioned in the same company with the four-time Defensive Player of the Year.

That might be an exaggerated projection, but then who could have foreseen such a resume 12 years ago for Wallace when he went undrafted out of Virginia Union and came to Summer League with the Boston Celtics, who tried to convert him into a small forward?

Plaisted has drawn consistently high praise from Pistons coach Michael Curry for his ability to cover ground and defend the pick and roll – an increasingly important component of a big man’s portfolio – during his time with them in the Las Vegas Summer League.

“He’s what we call a live body,” Curry said. “He does really well defending and going to the offensive and defensive boards, and already I think he’s a really good NBA pick-and-roll defender. Pick and roll is what our league has gone to now and your bigs have to be able to get out and move their feet because of not being able to be physical with the guards. He already can get out and defend pick and roll, which is the hardest thing for a big to do.”

Plaisted, who averaged 15.6 points and 7.7 rebounds a game while shooting .547 from the free-throw line as a Brigham Young junior before declaring for the draft, was the bonus the Pistons picked up for trading down three spots – from 29th, the bottom of the first round, to 32nd, the top of the second round – so Seattle could take D.J. White. The Pistons got the man they wanted anyway – Walter Sharpe – and took Plaisted with the 46th pick.

The Pistons have seen enough of Plaisted in Las Vegas to make them even more convinced than on draft night that the big man has an NBA future, though their intention to groom him in Europe for a year or two remains intact. And that’s OK with Plaisted.

“If that’s the way it’s going to go down, I’m completely content with that,” he said. “I’ll be over there for a while and get an opportunity to come back and hopefully be on the Pistons. The chance to develop and play basketball in Europe is a good opportunity.”

“Trent may wind up playing overseas, but I know Joe (Dumars) likes him and Mike likes him because he can move his feet,” newly hired Curry assistant Darrell Walker said. “He’s a physical player. He’s tough, and on a team like this, all you need to do is defend pick and roll, get loose balls and bang, and he’s not scared to do that. So that gives him a big plus right there.”

In his first four games in Las Vegas, playing behind Amir Johnson and Cheikh Samb up front, Plaisted has averaged 4.3 points 2.5 rebounds a game. But what caught Curry’s eye were the little things, especially on the defensive end, not reflected in the box score.

“Trent’s defense is definitely ahead of his offense,” he said. “I think that’s why we were able to get him in the second round. Sometimes they say he had 20 (in college) and one game you see him and he had six. Well, when you’re a role player, that can happen. That doesn’t mean he was inconsistent. I think he was consistently playing hard and rebounding every day. His offense depended on a lot of driving and dishes and offensive put-backs. We want to add a couple of things to him offensively. That way he can be a presence on the block and up to 10 to 12 feet. When he adds those things to his game, he’ll be a bona fide NBA player.”

Plaisted, a 6-foot-11, 245-pounder, took a redshirt season as a freshman, got married last summer and is scheduled to graduate in August with a degree in economics from BYU. He acknowledges that work needs to be done on the offensive end to ensure his NBA future.

“Right now I’m a guy that’s going to run the floor and play really hard defensively and do little things,” he said. “But as my career progresses, I’m going to need to advance my offensive game – my mid-range game.”

A native of San Antonio, Plaisted said good coaching in college helped make him NBA ready defensively.

“It’s something that comes naturally, but it’s also good coaching,” he said. “Coach Curry and his staff are doing a great job since I’ve been here and in college we did a lot of stuff like that, trapping ball screens, so I’ve been doing it a little while. It’s just that on the professional level, it’s a little bit different.”

But the differences haven’t come close to overwhelming him yet, and a winter or two spent honing his game in the increasingly competitive European pro leagues could deliver him to Detroit as a big man ready to make an impact in the NBA.

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Patience a virtue for Pistons with Sharpe

The Pistons are open to the possibility of Walter Sharpe providing whatever immediate help he can muster for them, but they’re also realistic and patient enough to wait for Sharpe to deliver on the promise he shows in scintillating flashes.

Through Sharpe’s first week of practices and three Summer League games since arriving in Las Vegas, the statistics haven’t leaped off the page. He’s averaged 6.7 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.7 assists a game. But in the seamless way he moves, the deft ballhandling skills, the unusually long wing span for a small forward and the soft shooting touch when he squares himself, Sharpe has announced himself as another Joe Dumars draft choice who’ll be one day regarded as a steal at his spot.

When the Pistons played Milwaukee on Tuesday without Rodney Stuckey, Pistons coach Michael Curry opened the game by having Sharpe initiate the offense. He’d most often throw the ball to point guard Will Bynum on the wing, then take UCLA rookie Luc Richard Mbah a Moute – a second-rounder taken almost solely for his defensive ability – into the post and go to work.

That’s one reason Sharpe has elicited comparisons to the Pistons’ incumbent small forward, Tayshaun Prince. Like Prince, Sharpe is a long-limbed, lithe 6-foot-9 athlete unusually at ease handling the ball and playing so far from the basket for his size. Unlike Prince, who came to the Pistons off of a 135-game career spread over years seasons at Kentucky, Sharpe is very much a work in progress.

Sharpe scored six of the Pistons’ first 16 points as they took a quick 10-point lead in a game they would lose by 14 to the Bucks. First he caught the ball on the low right block, made Mbah a Moute think he was going to bounce inside the lane and shoot over his left shoulder, but instead drove the defender off and scored on a soft step-back jump shot.

A few possessions later, he caught the ball facing the basket on the opposite wing, beat Mbah a Moute off the dribble to force a foul and made both free throws. Later still, he caught the ball in the corner, and with Mbah a Moute giving him ground so he wouldn’t again get taken off the dribble, Sharpe confidently stroked a jumper.

But he would make only one more basket the rest of the game, something that Curry talked to him about as soon as the game ended.

“We wanted to take advantage of Walter getting the basketball on the post and being able to make plays,” he said. “But I told Walter, they gave him more resistance and he kind of gave in to their resistance. He didn’t fight as hard to get the ball on the post. The thing he has to learn about this league, teams are going to know what you want to run. They’re going to know what you do best and they’re going to fight to stop you from doing that. So he has to learn and he will over time just how hard you have to work to get the ball where you want to. If he gets it in a scoring area, he can make pretty good decisions for us.”

Sharpe, whose length affords him a mismatch against most small forwards, was a little discouraged after the game, but understands the enormity of his transition – not just to the pro game after playing a combined 18 games over his last three college seasons, but to playing on the perimeter after being a post player his entire basketball life.

“Looking back (at the first week), there’s a lot of things I could have done better,” he said. “I didn’t shoot it very good in the first two games, but I started out 2 for 2 today. But I didn’t get up as many shots as I thought I would. That’s just how it goes sometimes.

“It’s different. It took me the first two games (to adjust to small forward) and I’m getting a little more used to it. It was mostly fatigue, coming down and playing the three and just moving the whole game. I never had to do that. It’s just a transition and I’m adjusting.”

Curry and his staff have been struck by Sharpe’s aptitude and his willingness to take coaching and apply the lessons.

“He’s a guy who’s played 18 games,” assistant Darrell Walker said. “What’s it called? Deer in the headlights? But the talent is there. I mean, it’s there, big-time. As a coaching staff, we have to just keep harping on things, get him into practice early, work on some things he needs to work on. When he gets stronger and when he gets in better shape, somewhere down the line you may have a real talented player.”

“As you saw, he has great instincts,” Curry said after the Summer League win over the Lakers. “He can really pass the basketball. At his size at the three spot, he’s like Tayshaun. He can cause some matchup problems. There’s a lot of things we can do with him. He’s really making a conscious effort to defend the basketball. He’s been a pleasure to coach. For a guy who’s really raw and hasn’t had a lot of experience, he’s anxious to learn and his focus is 100 percent every day.”

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Summer school's in Sessions for Pistons

It’s not like the Pistons need any reminders about the importance of the point guard position in the NBA, but Ramon Sessions provided one for them anyway Tuesday. Playing without their own blossoming star point guard, Rodney Stuckey, the Pistons lost a 12-point lead and got outscored 23-9 in the fourth quarter to lose 73-59 to Milwaukee, their first Summer League loss in three games.

Stuckey didn’t dress for Tuesday’s game, strictly a precautionary measure as he continues to feel minor discomfort in a big toe. Stuckey first let the Pistons’ training staff know of the injury in Friday’s opening win over the Lakers, pulled himself out of the latter part of Saturday’s practice and didn’t play in Sunday’s second half against the Clippers.

“We’re going to be cautious with him,” Pistons coach Michael Curry said. “Rodney worked out really hard prior to the Summer League and he’s been here working hard and he has next week with the U.S. Select Team. So we just want to make sure he gets toe better. He was a little sore and we just took precautions.”

Sessions closed the NBA regular season with a rush for the Bucks, joining the starting lineup for the final seven games. In 17 games, Sessions – a second-round pick in 2007 out of Nevada – averaged 8.1 points and 7.5 assists per game. In an April 14 game, Sessions scored 20 points, grabbed eight rebounds and dished out a franchise-record 24 assists against just two turnovers.

He finished Tuesday with 21 points, six rebounds, four assists and two turnovers to lead Milwaukee. The Pistons had forced an average of 23 turnovers a game in their wins over the Lakers and Clippers and had Milwaukee on a similar pace early. But after the Bucks committed five turnovers in the first quarter, they committed only five for the rest of the game – and only two in the second half.

The Pistons led 27-15 midway through the second quarter, but the Bucks went on a 13-0 run to take the lead. The Pistons tied the game at 50-all at the third-quarter buzzer when Arron Afflalo, who led the Pistons with 18 points, set up Marcus Stout for a corner jumper. But the Bucks scored the first five points of the fourth quarter and blew it open in the final three minutes.

“I’m not worried about losing the lead we had,” Curry said. “I thought we came out with really good focus. We did some things really well. We really created our offense off of our defense. What happened is they stopped turning the basketball over. They did a really good job protecting the basketball and once they did that, they were able to set their defense and they played pretty good defense on us.

“I don’t think we moved the ball side to side as well as we can. They ran some things we probably hadn’t worked on as much, but that’s what summer is for. We’ll go over some of those things tomorrow and get ready for Thursday.”

Stuckey’s absence gave Will Bynum another chance to press his case for an invitation to training camp, though he played to mixed results. In 29 minutes, Bynum scored nine points to go with three assists, but he committed six fouls and turned the ball over five times.

The Pistons played a terrific first quarter, leading 22-14 and getting strong performances from all five starters. Rookie Walter Sharpe was particularly impressive, making two assertive moves – one a step-back jumper out of a strong post move, the other a clever move that forced a foul to send him to the foul line. Sharpe also drained a corner jumper. On the first several possessions, Sharpe was used to initiate the offense. We’ll have more on Sharpe’s first week in Las Vegas on my blog on Wednesday.

Cheikh Samb and Amir Johnson started strong on Tuesday, combining for three blocked shots in the first quarter. Johnson finished with six points, four boards and three blocks while committing nine fouls – one under the Summer League limit. Samb finished with seven points, three boards and three blocks. Second-round rookie Deron Washington had seven points and four rebounds. Two of his baskets were spectacular – one a one-handed putback and the other a lob dunk delivered by Bynum.

Milwaukee lottery pick Joe Alexander finished with 11 points and three rebounds. His best moments were a first-half drive past Johnson that finished with a dunk and a 3-pointer in the second half.

The Bucks outrebounded the Pistons 19-10 in Tuesday’s first half and 33-27 for the game. Free agent Ryvon Coville from Detroit Mercy had five in nine minutes to tie Afflalo, who played 36 minutes, for the team lead.

“I thought defensively our guys have been pretty good,” Curry said. “Even today, where we didn’t rebound the ball as well, we held them to 40 percent shooting. A couple of things they did today were different than what we’ve covered so far, and we didn’t do a good job handling those things. But I’m very pleased with the way we are defensively, very pleased with the way the guys have shared the basketball. The guys did a lot of good things tonight as well. We just didn’t play with enough poise and we didn’t rebound the ball as well as we need to.”

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Bucks pull away from Stuckey-less Pistons

With Rodney Stuckey in the lineup, the Pistons have made a habit of dominating the fourth quarters of the last two Summer Leagues. Without Stuckey in the lineup Tuesday, Milwaukee pulled away from a tie game after three quarters to win going away, 73-59, Detroit’s first loss in three games in Las Vegas.

Stuckey sat out the game with the same minor big toe injury that caused him to take himself out of Sunday’s game at halftime. Arron Afflalo led the Pistons with 18 points, who led 27-15 midway through the second quarter before the Bucks started clawing their way back in the game.

Rookie Walter Sharpe led a strong first-quarter charge by the Pistons, scoring six points as Detroit led by as many as 10 points, settling for a 22-14 advantage heading into the second quarter. With Stuckey unavailable, the Pistons let Sharpe initiate the offense for their first several possessions. He scored on a 20-foot jumper, a nice step-back jump shot out of the post and hit two free throws when he got fouled off another strong move.

The Pistons expanded their lead to 12 early in the second quarter before the Bucks went on a 13-0 run fueled by two Matt Freije 3-pointers to take the lead. The Pistons had nine consecutive empty possessions despite having their starting lineup on the floor for a good chunk of their drought, which finally ended on an Afflalo 3-pointer. Consecutive baskets by Ramon Sessions put Milwaukee ahead 32-30 at halftime.

Sessions, who finished the regular season strong for Milwaukee, helped the Bucks protect their lead for most of the third quarter, which finished with Afflalo setting up Marcus Stout for a corner jump shot to tie at 50. Sessions finished with 20 for the Bucks.

Will Bynum had nine points for the Pistons. Amir Johnson picked up nine fouls.

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Bynum making the most of his shot

Rodney Stuckey’s bothersome toe might have helped Will Bynum get a foot in the door.

When Stuckey sat out the second half of the Pistons’ Summer League win over the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday night, Bynum played 25 minutes in the 75-66 win, scoring 10 points, dishing out four assists and showing a Lindsey Hunter-type knack for pressuring the ballhandler into turnovers. Twice Bynum stripped Clippers guards at mid-court and converted steals into layups.

Now he hopes he can convert a Summer League opportunity into a return path to the NBA.

A playground legend in Chicago, Bynum has spent the past two seasons in Israel after a brief fling with the Golden State Warriors. Bynum first attended Arizona out of high school, transferring midway through his sophomore season. As a junior at Georgia Tech, his driving layup in the final seconds carried his team past Oklahoma State and into the 2004 national championship game.

He was foremost a scorer then, but Bynum knows his NBA future will swing on his abilities to affect games defensively and run an offense – defense, especially.

“Just putting a whole bunch of pressure on the ball and trying to change the tempo of the game,” he said. “I think that’s pretty much what I’ve got to be. I’ve got to focus every single possession on locking down my guy and putting a bunch of pressure on the ball. I’m looking to be consistent and play my game. I’m not worried about offensively so much as defensively, to stay focused on it. That will pretty much be my niche.”

Bynum was a late addition to the Summer League roster. The Pistons originally thought Dee Brown would join them, but Brown, a restricted free agent who is property of the Utah Jazz, got an offer sheet from the Washington Wizards. Utah is not expected to match. The Pistons weren’t ready to commit a roster spot to Brown, nor are they at that point with Bynum, whose season in Israel had just ended in early July when he got a phone call that made his ears perk.

“I got a call from Joe (Dumars) and George (David, Pistons personnel director) and they both expressed a whole lot of interest in me,” Bynum said. “It was a big shock, to get a call from a Hall of Fame player telling you he wants you to play for his team. It definitely was a blessing. It’s a great opportunity for me. So I’m just going to try to give it all I’ve got. As soon as I got the call from him, I started working out three times a day to get ready for this. It’s been kind of hectic for me from that point on.”

Bynum was an easy choice for the Pistons when Brown, a Chicago contemporary of Bynum’s, got away. Michael Curry was familiar with him from his time spent with the NBA Development League in 2005-06. One of Bynum’s teammates with Maccabi Tel Aviv, Omri Casspi, was a player the Pistons brought in for a predraft workout before pulling out of the 2008 draft, so everyone in Detroit’s front office had seen plenty of Maccabi game tapes.

“We watched him on tape and while watching him really got the chance to see him play,” Curry said. “He’s an NBA player. He’ll keep plugging away. I think he’ll be in the league, if not with us, then with someone.

“Defensively, he’s made a concerted effort to get better. He’s playing the best defense I’ve ever seen him play. Sometimes he gets a little too aggressive, but we can bring that back. It’s harder to try to make a guy aggressive than to calm him down. Off the dribble, there’s not many people who can keep him in front of them. When you have guys in this league who can go off the dribble, they create so many problems for the opposing defense. You need that. Those are the guys who can help you get your points in the paint and also get more free throws.”

Though Bynum is undersized – probably a few inches less than his listed height of 6 feet – he’s strong and exudes Pistons toughness. He takes the ball to the basket fearlessly, but as with all penetrating guards, he has to learn when to pick his spots. Every NBA team has two or three shot-blockers of the kind a college player might see once every other week. Curry has seen Bynum make a conscious effort to evolve into more of a playmaker, but he doesn’t want him to lose his scorer’s mentality.

“I think his game has matured to where now he’s taking an interest at the defensive end of the court,” Curry said. “Everybody always thought he was able to score. He’s trying his best to be the best playmaker he can, but like I told him, ‘You’re a scorer. Score the basketball. Be better at making plays for guys and passing the basketball, but don’t forget what you do best.’ ”

If the NBA doesn’t have an opening this year for Bynum, he’s already agreed to a deal in Italy for next season and has until the end of July to decide. As it stands now, Chauncey Billups and Rodney Stuckey give the Pistons enviable quality at point guard and Lindsey Hunter is leaning toward returning for one more season. But Hunter would probably be used much like last year – very little during the regular season, inactive most nights.

“There’s definitely at opportunity here,” Bynum said. “They say they’re looking for a third guard, so I’m going to give it all I’ve got and, God willing, I think I have a great chance. I’m just putting it in God’s hands and whatever the outcome, I’m going to be happy because I know I gave it 100 percent.”

“He’s a fighter,” Curry said. “This guy is a million dollar player in Europe. The fact he’s out here in the Summer League, that tells it all.”

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With Stuckey down, Afflalo steps up

For the first time since the Pistons drafted him a little more than a year ago, Arron Afflalo was asked to carry the team offensively. If he passes all such future tests with equal aplomb, they’ll have a worthy successor to Rip Hamilton.

With Rodney Stuckey sidelined by a bothersome sore toe that caused him to sit out the second half – nothing serious, but no sense pushing it in July – Afflalo scored 19 of his 25 points after halftime Sunday night as the Pistons went to 2-0 in the Las Vegas Summer League with a 75-66 win over the Los Angeles Clippers.

Afflalo sizzled, shooting 8 of 10, most of them medium-range jump shots to deep 2-pointers, and knocked down all nine of his foul shots while also grabbing four rebounds.

Sunday’s performance continues a strong summer for Afflalo, who has already clearly developed into one of new coach Michael Curry’s favorite players. Afflalo is averaging 20 points in two Summer League games.

“You’re always glad to see everyone play well, but especially him because of how hard he works,” Curry said. “He puts the time in the gym to improve his game. I’ve always said when Arron plays consistent minutes, he shoots the ball consistent. He’s going to be our backup (shooting guard). We expect him to come in and play consistent minutes each night and he’ll be a consistent contributor for us.”

Afflalo told me a few days ago that he was happy to take on the role of defensive stopper as a rookie because that’s what the team needed, but he’s never considered himself anything but a complete player and is looking forward to expanding his role offensively. He scored 13 points in the third quarter of Sunday’s win to give the Pistons a 20-point lead after three quarters. When the Clippers cut it to six in the fourth quarter, Afflalo came back into the game and choked off the LA rally by nailing two more long jump shots in the final minutes.

“Rodney is aggressive and when we’re out there together, it’s fun,” Afflalo said. “But when Rodney is out, somebody has to take a little more initiative. I’m very confident scoring the basketball. I knew my opportunities would be there.”

Afflalo scored the Pistons’ first four points Sunday night in a game they never trailed, leading by as many as 14 points in the second quarter and stretching a nine-point halftime lead quickly in a third quarter dominated by Afflalo. Everything in Summer League is measured against the quality of competition, but just as the Pistons left Las Vegas last summer buoyed by Stuckey’s ability to take over close games in the fourth quarter, they’ll leave this year struck by Afflalo’s ability to score in bunches when he was asked to carry that burden.

“He’s a fighter,” Curry said. “So he just goes to work. If he’s not playing, he’s going to work even harder. He’s going to come in there twice a day. We have to make him get out of the gym. He’s done a really good job. He’s a confident kid. Even when he’s not shooting the ball well, he doesn’t play a lot of bad games.”

Among the other encouraging performances from Sunday’s win:

• Will Bynum took advantage of Stuckey’s absence to score 10 points, dish out four assists and turn two half-court steals into layups, furthering his case to stick as the No. 3 point guard. Check back tomorrow when I’ll be blogging about Bynum.



• Walter Sharpe had another rough shooting night, going 2 for 8, but he and fellow rookie small forward Deron Washington did a nice job defending against Clippers second-year player Al Thornton, who went one spot ahead of Stuckey in the 2007 draft and would have been the Pistons’ pick had the Clippers selected Stuckey instead. Thornton finished with 14 points, but shot just 5 of 18. Washington, who played against Thornton in the ACC, finished with five points and three rebounds, knocking down a 3-point shot. Perimeter shooting is perhaps Washington’s biggest weakness. He also had a spectacular alley-oop dunk.



• Amir Johnson again didn’t get many chances in the half-court offense, but he put up nine points and grabbed five rebounds while playing terrific defense. He and rookie Trent Plaisted cover tremendous ground and have been a dynamite combination in defending the pick and roll.



• Cheikh Samb had eight points, four rebounds, two assists and two blocks in 26 strong minutes after a shaky opener Friday.

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Afflalo's 25 leads Pistons past Clippers

The Pistons completed the sweep of Los Angeles, beating the Clippers 76-66 on Sunday night in Las Vegas after dumping the Lakers in their NBA Summer League opener on Friday. Arron Afflalo scored 25 points, knocking down 8 of 10 shots and all nine of his free throws to lead Detroit. Afflalo scored 19 points in the second half.

Rodney Stuckey scored eight points and grabbed four rebounds in 14 first-half minutes, then sat out the second half with a minor toe injury that forced him to skip part of Saturday’s practice, as well.

The Pistons led by 20 heading into the fourth quarter after Afflalo scored 13 in a third quarter Detroit dominated, outscoring the Clippers 27-16. But a 10-0 run by the Clippers cut it to 10 points midway through the fourth quarter. They sliced it to six on a 3-point shot by Brandon Heath with just under three minutes to go before a free throw by Will Bynum and then a Bynum fast-break feed to Amir Johnson for a layup gave the Pistons a nine-point cushion. Bynum finished with 10 points, three assists and two steals in helping his case for a training camp invitation.

Rookie Walter Sharpe had a tough night, shooting 2 of 8 and picking up six fouls, though he did have five rebounds to go with his four points and helped keep Clippers small forward Al Thornton in check.

The Pistons led 16-15 after one quarter but scored the first six points of the second quarter, then went on another 6-0 run a few minutes later to expand their lead to 11. It went to 14 on a 3-pointer by rookie Deron Washington and a jumper by Cheikh Samb before the Clippers closed the half by scoring the final five points to trail 35-26.

The Clippers, playing their third game in three days, were without No. 1 pick Eric Gordon of Indiana, who sat out with a strained left hamstring. Gordon, who had averaged 19 points in Los Angeles’ first two games, getting to the foul line 21 times, will be held out of the remainder of the Summer League schedule. Rookie DeAndre Jordan led Los Angeles with 15 points and 10 rebounds.

Check back on Pistons.com a little later for a more detailed account of tonight’s game.

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Acker's goal remains a return to Pistons

When Alex Acker took the Pistons’ advice and went to Europe after his rookie season of 2005-06, he thought it was a one-year deal. But when Joe Dumars drafted Rodney Stuckey and Arron Afflalo a year ago, it turned into a two-year odyssey. The Pistons’ backcourt isn’t any less crowded today, but Acker’s intention is to go to camp with the Pistons in October and give the NBA his best shot.

But the best chance to make his case is unfolding without him. On the advice of his agent, Acker decided to pull out of the Las Vegas Summer League to let the right knee he first injured in June 2007 while playing in Greece fully recover.

“I’m able to play right now, but my agent told me to relax and take it day by day,” Acker said Saturday after arriving in Las Vegas to watch the Pistons practice. “There’s a little inflammation in my knee and I’m waiting until that does down, get the right therapy and treatment, and once that goes down I’ll be ready to go.”

Acker intends to come to Auburn Hills in August when first-year head coach Michael Curry runs three weeks of voluntary workouts. That now becomes Acker’s opportunity to impress Dumars and Curry enough for them to commit one of their 15 roster spots to the No. 60 pick in the 2005 draft out of Pepperdine.

Acker stuck with the Pistons that rookie season partly because he proved versatile enough to play both guard positions. Unless Dumars pulls off a trade that eases backcourt congestion, the Pistons will go to camp with Chauncey Billups and Stuckey at point guard and Rip Hamilton and Afflalo at shooting guard. Beyond that, it’s looking more likely than not that Lindsey Hunter will return for one more season. And free agent Will Bynum has been impressive enough in Las Vegas that the Pistons might consider signing him – or, if he’s still unsigned through the summer, bringing him to camp for a shot at making the team.

“Every time you have an injury, it’s a setback,” Curry said after Saturday’s practice. “As far as him having a chance to come in and compete, you don’t have a lot of spots. The roster stuff, that will be determined by Joe Dumars. He’ll figure out who’s ready right now and who’s better fitted to continue playing overseas.”

Acker is a restricted free agent, but it’s unlikely another team would sign him to an offer sheet given his injury status. If the Pistons don’t bring Acker to camp, he said he would most likely return to Europe to again play for Barcelona, which signed him last summer and then reneged on its original contract when Acker showed up with the knee injury. If Acker does return to Europe, the Pistons would still retain his NBA rights.

“It was shocking,” Acker said. “They knew my situation at the time and then when I got there, they played like they were unaware of what was going on. That’s why I had to sign another contract with them.”

Acker said his two years abroad have matured him and given him the invaluable experience of playing before hostile crowds and against the best competition available outside of the NBA.

“My confidence has always been there, but it was a chance to mature,” he said. “I just wanted to get that experience of being on the court and playing with some guys that were known. Overseas, it was a big advantage playing there. That’s the next step to the NBA and once I accomplished that goal, I feel I was able to play at the next level.”

Acker is fully aware there aren’t apparent openings with the Pistons and knows competition for playing time will be a never-ending challenge for him.

“In the NBA, you can be fighting every day for minutes, no matter who it is,” he said. “I completely understand that now. My rookie year, I was kind of blessed and happy to be on the team. This year, I’m coming with a whole new attitude.”

As soon as his knee lets him.

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Stuckey back in Summer League groove

Rodney Stuckey has Summer League down pat. It was a year ago when Stuckey gave the first hints that he’d be a force for the Pistons when he led them to wins by dominating the fourth quarters as the Pistons compiled a 4-1 Summer League record.

He did it again to open 2008 Summer League play, scoring six points in his four minutes of fourth-quarter play, combining with backcourt mate Arron Afflalo to blow open a tight game and lead the Pistons to an 84-73 win over the Los Angeles Lakers.

Stuckey finished with 21 points and Afflalo added nine of his 15 in the fourth quarter for the Pistons, who saw a 14-point first-half lead melt to a single point late in the third quarter of a ragged game that featured 34 fouls whistled on each team and 84 foul shots.

“M.C. (Pistons coach Michael Curry) said, ‘Get a little more ball pressure,’ ” Stuckey said. “Walter (Sharpe) got some steals for us that led to Arron’s layups. We were getting easy baskets, getting to the free-throw line and just blew the game open.”

Sharpe, the Pistons’ first of three second-round choices in June’s draft, had fairly modest numbers – eight pounds, three rebounds, two assists and three steals. A lanky 6-foot-9, Sharpe is making the conversion from college post player to NBA small forward and appears to have every physical tool to make it happen. Against a smallish Lakers team, the Pistons frequently posted Sharpe against overmatched small forwards.

“As you saw, he has great instincts,” Curry said. “He can really pass the basketball. At his size, at the three spot, he’s like Tayshaun. He can cause some matchup problems. There’s a lot of things we can do with him. He’s really making a conscious effort to defend the basketball. He’s been a pleasure to coach. For a guy who’s really raw and hasn’t had a lot of experience, he’s anxious to learn and his focus is 100 percent every day.”

Sharpe would have had a more impressive line had he hit a few more than two of his nine shots, but three or four nice moves yielded nothing when he got bad bounces or couldn’t finish what he started.

“The one where I came down the middle, I didn’t want to get a charge so I kind of slowed down,” he said. “I should have just taken off. I never really played the three before, so that’s an adjustment. And (defending small forwards) makes you tired a little bit, so it takes away from your shot. It’s a transition; I’ll get used to it.”

Fellow second-rounder Trent Plaisted had some nice moments, finishing with 10 points and five rebounds in 23 minutes and showed a knack for being in the right place.

“I think Trent is going to be a heck of a player in this league,” Curry said. “He rebounds and defends pick and roll really well. On the NBA level, as a big when you can defend pick and roll and rebound the basketball, you’re going to be able to play in this league.”

Amir Johnson contributed nine of the Pistons’ 34 fouls – there’s a no-foul-out rule in Summer League – but Curry was pleased with his energy at both ends as Johnson put up 12 points and four rebounds.

“He had some cheap ones, but as he continues to play basketball and gets his basketball hours up, he won’t make some of those plays,” Curry said. “But his energy has been great this entire camp. He’s done everything we’ve asked him to do and I was very pleased with that.”

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Pistons beat Lakers in summer opener

Rodney Stuckey scored 21 points and he and Arron Afflalo led a fourth-quarter surge to break open a tight as the Pistons won their NBA Las Vegas Summer League opener Friday night, beating the Los Angeles Lakers 84-73.

The game was marred by frequent fouling, including 38 called in a first half that saw Sharrod Ford of the Lakers pick up six fouls and Amir Johnson whistled for five. There is a no-foul-out rule in Summer League. There were 68 fouls called in the game, 34 against each team. Johnson finished with nine fouls.

With the frequent whistles inhibiting any chance to establish offensive flow, most of the key Pistons suffered subpar shooting nights. But Afflalo, who missed eight of his first 11 shots, scored nine in the fourth quarter as he combined with Stuckey to score seven points during a 9-0 run that put the game out of the Lakers’ reach in a game they led only once – 1-0 when Joe Crawford made a free throw in the game’s first minute.

Afflalo finished with 15 points and Johnson added a dozen to go with four rebounds. Cheikh Samb had nine points and nine rebounds. Walter Sharpe finished with eight points and four rebounds, shooting just 2 of 9, but made several nice moves that he simply didn’t finish. Trent Plaisted, drafted after Sharpe in the second round, had 10 points and five rebounds and showed a good nose for the ball.

The Pistons held the Lakers without a field goal for the first 5:31, taking a 9-3 lead before Coby Karl’s 3-pointer. Stuckey scored nine points in the first quarter as the Pistons settled for a 20-15 lead, Karl scoring eight for the Lakers. They stretched the lead to 14 midway through the second quarter and got to halftime with a 42-32 edge over the Lakers, who didn’t have anyone on their roster except for Karl who spent last season with their NBA team.

The Lakers cut the deficit to one point late in the third quarter and trailed 59-56 heading into the fourth.

Check back a little later tonight for a more detailed account of the Pistons’ summer League opener.

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Stuckey, Afflalo lead Pistons in scrimmage win

This just in: Rodney Stuckey is good. Really good.

Stuckey played less than half of a 30-minute scrimmage split into three 10-minute periods on Thursday when the Pistons and Philadelphia 76ers hooked up, but he dominated in his time – and sidekick Arron Afflalo was superb, as well – as the Pistons won 66-59.

There were no statistics kept, but I had Stuckey for 16 points and Afflalo for 12. They missed one shot apiece. Stuckey set the tone by going hard to the basket on the first possession, getting hacked and finishing for a three-point play. It’s hard to tell what was more impressive – the range and consistency Stuckey has added to his jump shot over his rookie year or the lethal off-the-dribble moves to repeatedly split the Philly defense.

I know – it wasn’t the NBA, it wasn’t even a Summer League game. It was a Summer League scrimmage. But Philly had a pretty impressive roster. Last year’s No. 1 picks, Thaddeus Young – who also looks ready to blossom into an NBA star – and Jason Smith were joined in the lineup by this year’s No. 1 pick, Marreese Speights. For most of Stuckey’s minutes, he was going against a point guard with a pretty fair amount of NBA experience, Junior Harrington.

When it was mostly first units against each other in the first 10-minute session, the Pistons dominated, leading 28-13, even though Stuckey came out less than four minutes into the game after scoring six points. If not for Young, who scored all but two of Philly’s points in the first quarter, it would have been a complete rout.

“We had a good focus on the things we’ve been doing,” Pistons coach Michael Curry said. “This is only the third practice, so for them to come out and carry out a lot of things … offensively, they were off a little bit, but defensively we were really good. Guys started with energy and effort and the focus on our coverages that we need. Of course, it always helps when you have Stuckey and Afflalo out there. They were good – and they’ll be good.”

Really good.

Among the other highlights:

• Cheikh Samb scored 12 points, making three long jump shots, two half-hooks – one from about 12 feet out – and scoring on a put-back. But when Samb threw up an air ball with four minutes to go to cap a stretch of five straight empty possessions with a unit that consisted of three long-shot free agent perimeter players, Curry called timeout and talked sternly to his team.
  
  “I called timeout because he shot the basketball because he hadn’t shot it in a while,” Curry said. “We’re not going to play that way. But when he’s open and it’s a good shot, he can shoot it every time. He understood that and that’s what I told him. It was basically a message to the rest of the guys, as well. How many points you score is not going to be what determines when you get on the court. It’s going to be doing things the right way, defensively and offensively. I think he made two or three baskets after that and they were all good shots, created through executing our offense.”
  
  Curry said he wants to get Samb minutes during the regular season by picking the right spots to use him.
  
  “Cheikh brings a different component to the game,” he said. “He can really shoot the basketball and defensively he can change the game around that basket for us. We definitely have to continue to develop him and get him out on the court. We’re going to find minutes for him in certain situations.”



• Amir Johnson didn’t touch the ball much in the half-court offense, but he drew unsolicited praise from Curry for doing a variety of things that don’t always show up on the stat sheet.
  
  “I thought what Amir did today was great,” Curry said. “I told him that what he did today is what gets him on the court – summer, regular season, postseason. Those are the things we need him to do and today he did them – active defensively, fronting the post, shadowing the ball up the court, rebounding the basketball, protecting the rim. All those things, they were great.”
  
  Among the highlight plays for Johnson were two blocks of Young, one when he jumped out at him as Young was about to shoot a 20-foot wing jumper shot and once at the rim. After the second block, he instantly filled a lane in transition and forced a Philly foul. He also scored on a pretty three-point play and took Speights off the dribble to draw another foul.



• Curry saw good things in all three rookie draft choices, too. Walter Sharpe scored five points, two on a nice steal at half-court that he took all the way, scoring on a reverse layup to avoid a block from Young. When Philly’s full-court pressure gave Detroit’s free agent guards fits, they had Sharpe initiate the offense.
  
  “Walter was good,” he said. “We’re asking Walter to come in and move from being in the post to being a perimeter player and guard the hardest position on the floor. It’s an adjustment for him, but he’s a kid that loves to play.”
  
  Trent Plaisted, the 6-11 center taken in the second round, didn’t get many touches offensively, but Curry lauded his ability to cover ground defensively. Deron Washington, the 59th pick, doesn’t have much of a jump shot yet but is as advertised athletically. He had a highlight reel lob dunk from Will Bynum and played well defensively.
  
  “Right now, Amir and Trent, they trap and get back to where they need to be, they cover more ground, than anybody. He has a chance to be really good as he grows into a professional basketball player. And Washington defensively is really good. He made some really loud plays and the other plays he was solid. He has a chance to be a big-time defender.”



• The Pistons replaced Alex Acker, out of Summer League with a knee injury, with Jonte Flowers, who led Winona State to the Division II national championship. He’s the brother of University of Wisconsin star defensive guard Michael Flowers.



• The Pistons open Summer League play Friday night against the Los Angeles Lakers. The game will be televised on NBA-TV with an 8 p.m. EDT tipoff.

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Acker's knee KOs him from Summer League

Alex Acker’s attempt to return to the NBA after two years in Europe has hit another roadblock. Acker, a Pistons second-round pick in 2005 who spent his rookie season with the team before playing in Greece and Spain the past two winters, is again experiencing problems with the same knee that he injured last summer.

The Pistons only learned of the injury on Tuesday, the day they held their first practice in preparation for Friday’s opener of the NBA Las Vegas Summer League.

“That’s too bad,” Pistons executive Tony Ronzone said. “We really wanted to take a good look at him this summer. He’s a talented kid who had a chance to help us. It’s a setback for him.”

The 6-foot-5 Acker played mostly point guard for the Pistons as a rookie but his NBA future is probably similar to Arron Afflalo’s – a shooting guard who can defend all three perimeter positions. If Afflalo is stronger defensively, Acker might be a more accomplished shooter.

The Pistons have an unusual number of players with NBA futures for a summer league roster, including three who figure to be in their rotation next season – Afflalo, Rodney Stuckey and Amir Johnson. Cheikh Samb could force his way into the mix, as well, as he appears to be more polished.

New coach Michael Curry said his first unit – which he expects to play the majority of minutes – will consist of Stuckey and Afflalo at guard, Samb at center, Johnson at power forward and draft choice Walter Sharpe at small forward.

“He has a great feel for the game,” Curry said of Sharpe. “The kid has a great work ethic. He wants to learn. He’s raw in a lot of areas, but that’s what we have to do as a staff – mold him in the player we need him to be. As long as he’s willing to work, we can get him to the point where he has a chance to be a really good player. Instinctively, he does things you can’t teach. The things we can teach, we’ve got to do a good job with that.”

• Curry said he considers point guard Will Bynum, who signed on to play with the Pistons in Las Vegas, an NBA player. Bynum spent the past season playing in Israel.
  
  “Will Bynum is a guy I’m really familiar with from the D-League,” said Curry, who spent the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons working in NBA operations and helped oversee the D-League. “We watched him a lot this year because one of the kids on his (Israeli) team, Omri Casspi, we bought in for a (predraft) workout and we watched him on tape and saw Will. He’s an NBA player. He’ll keep plugging away and I think he’ll be in the league – if not with us, then with someone.”



• Curry said he talked to Rodney Stuckey after the Pistons were eliminated from the playoffs by Boston – Curry was scheduled to coach the Summer League team even before succeeding Flip Saunders as head coach – and made a deal with him. If he brought his teammates to Las Vegas in top-flight condition, the Pistons would hold just one practice a day leading up to the Summer League opener instead of two.
  
  “We sort of had an agreement that the guys were going to be in shape,” Curry said. “They were (in Auburn Hills) about two to three weeks, getting some work in. They held up their end of the bargain and we’ve had two really good days of practice so far.”

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Pistons could be answer for Warriors' woes

It’s been nearly a week now since Golden State got blindsided by Baron Davis opting out of his contract one day and agreeing to sign the next with the Los Angeles Clippers. The surprising thing is that there hasn’t been any speculation that the Warriors would put in a phone call to Joe Dumars and ask about Chauncey Billups.

But don’t be shocked if you hear that suggested – it makes too much sense to not draw heavy consideration.

The Warriors have the pieces in place to contend in the West if they can adequately replace their point guard and lock up their own young unrestricted free agents, Andris Biedrins and Monta Ellis. They got off to a horrible start last season as Stephen Jackson served a seven-game suspension, but still wound up winning 48 games in the ultracompetitive Western Conference and nearly made the playoffs again.

Golden State is at something of a crossroads this summer, but it’s now awash in cap space – and if the Warriors could put a package together that would entice the Pistons sufficiently to part with Billups, they’d be saving about $6 million at point guard alone. Davis was due to make $17 million next season and Billups is coming in at about $11 million.

What could Golden State offer the Pistons? My guess is the Warriors would start with Al Harrington, a 10-year veteran who’s still just 28 years old. Harrington has sometimes been the odd man out in Don Nelson’s system, which isn’t a great fit for his talents, yet he still averaged 13.6 points and 5.4 rebounds in 27 minutes a game last season. When Harrington was with Indiana, he was often a player who gave the Pistons matchup problems. A bit of a tweener, the 6-foot-9, 250-pound Harrington can overpower many small forwards and has become a proficient 3-point shooter, as well. Two years ago with Atlanta, he averaged 18.6 points and 6.9 rebounds.

Moreover, Harrington is somewhat expendable now that the Warriors have drafted two athletic hybrid forwards in the past two drafts, Brandan Wright in 2007 and Anthony Randolph just last month. In addition, Golden State picked up power forward Richard Hendrix in the second round, so its frontcourt is getting a little crowded.

The other possibility, though a little less logical, is Jackson. The Warriors would have a harder time replacing him, since both Mickael Pietrus – also a potential Pistons target – and Matt Barnes are unrestricted free agents unlikely to return to Golden State. Jackson’s role in the November 2004 Palace brawl might also be problematic, though he impressed Pistons officials last summer when he served as a basketball camp instructor here as part of his community service stemming from that incident.

The Warriors would have to sweeten the deal, of course. They aren’t getting a three-time All-Star who ranks among the game’s top handful of point guards straight up for either of those players. A future No. 1 pick would be a good starting point, you’d have to think.

Would the Pistons be willing to do that? Hard to say, but they’d have to consider it. Dumars has given indications that his preference is to acquire a high-impact player. He said last month that in the first week after declaring all of his players available for the right trade that he wasn’t talking to other teams about their second- or third-best players. Jackson and Harrington were somewhere behind Davis in the Golden State pecking order – and, on some nights, behind Ellis, as well – so the deal makes more sense for the Warriors on the face of it than for the Pistons.

When Dumars made his bold proclamation on the day he let Flip Saunders go, media speculation on which of the core Pistons was most likely to be traded centered first on Rasheed Wallace. And that’s still possible, of course. But Wallace would be very tough to replace unless he was being traded for another big man. While the Pistons certainly have room for three quality guards – as Dumars said, the history of a franchise whose first two titles featured a backcourt rotation of Dumars, Isiah Thomas and Vinnie Johnson proves as much – they might decide the easiest way to accommodate Dumars’ desire to shake things up is by trading from their position of strength.

One of the reasons some media analysts thought Billups was unlikely to be traded was because of the contract he signed last summer. To the contrary, that contract is one of the more attractive things about Billups. It runs for only three more years (and a fourth only partially guaranteed) at a very reasonable number for an elite point guard. (Davis, by contrast, hasn’t played in the last four All-Star games and has long had injury and conditioning issues.)

Trading the man who has become the franchise’s most identifiable player would not be a decision taken lightly. Billups has been a bedrock since signing six summers ago as an unheralded free agent. He’s a terrific ambassador for the team and still among the most reliable clutch performers in the game. If nothing else, the Pistons would dearly miss his ability to knock down free throws in the final minute when protecting a slim lead.

But Rodney Stuckey’s breakout playoffs performance has him in line for major minutes next season. The Pistons would need to find another capable point guard if they bite the bullet and trade Billups, someone who could play 15 minutes or so at a high level, but they’d figure that out sometime between now and the February trade deadline.

In a summer of interesting possibilities, the decision by Baron Davis to bolt Golden State creates one more opportunity for Joe D to do something dramatic. From Golden State’s perspective, it makes all the sense in the world. We’ll see if this one goes anywhere.

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Davis bombshell's ripple effect could reach Pistons

It didn’t take long for the bombshell of NBA free agency ’08 to detonate. Nobody really saw Baron Davis to the Clippers happening because everybody thought Davis would never walk away from the $17 million due him in 2008-09 on the last year of his current contract.

But the fact that Davis has bolted Golden State puts the Warriors in a curious position now, flush with cash to spend on free agents themselves but vulnerable to an exodus of other free agents who might fear how the uncertainty of Golden State’s future will affect their roles.

How does that affect the Pistons? Well, it’s more likely than not that when Joe Dumars goes to spend his mid-level exception – whether he spends it all in one place or breaks it into two mini-shopping sprees, as he has indicated is the likelier course – he’ll be looking to bolster himself at small forward. His backcourt is stacked and he's got young players like Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson who've already staked a claim to more frontcourt playing time. It would be more convenient holding off on free agency until the significant trade Dumars hopes to make comes to pass, but free agency won't wait on the Pistons. So finding someone capable of handling meaningful minutes at small forward makes the most sense at this time.

Beyond Tayshaun Prince, the only options on the Pistons’ roster are Jarvis Hayes and Walter Herrmann – and Hayes is an unrestricted free agent while Herrmann is a restricted free agent with the opportunity to make a nice living in Europe, where salaries are going up and the Euro is worth about 150 percent more than the dollar these days. There's also recently drafted Walter Sharpe, but it's not very likely the Pistons are going to head into the season with a kid whose college career consists of 40 games - and only 18 over the past three seasons - thrust into the position of being a rotation staple.

Numerous Western Conference teams are reportedly interested in Hayes – Phoenix, San Antonio, New Orleans – who fell out of Flip Saunders’ playoff rotation when he struggled defensively in the postseason against a murderer’s row of small forwards adept at making plays off the dribble: Andre Igoudala, Hedo Turkoglu and Paul Pierce.

The Pistons plucked Hayes late in last summer’s free agency after first making a stab at James Posey. But the Pistons didn’t have much room below the luxury tax and Posey saw greater opportunity for a role in Boston, where the Celtics appeared extremely thin. Posey’s superb play in the postseason probably prices him out of the Pistons’ range this summer, unless they’re prepared to offer him the full mid-level exception.

But Golden State has two intriguing possibilities, Mickael Pietrus and Matt Barnes. Pietrus, in particular, would seem a good fit for the Pistons. He’s an above-average perimeter defender with plus athleticism with 3-point shooting range.

Pietrus, only 26, was disappointed last summer, as a restricted free agent, that he didn’t generate more buzz. The market won’t be much more active this summer, but as an unrestricted free agent this time around Pietrus can expect more genuine pursuit.

Davis’ departure leaves Golden State with a big hole at point guard, unless the Warriors think Monta Ellis can handle the job. To complicate matters, Ellis, big man Andris Biedrins and useful swingman Kelenna Azubuike are all restricted free agents. Golden State is going to be in full scramble mode over the next few days. If other teams swoop in to sign their restricted free agents to offer sheets, the Warriors probably will have to let Pietrus or Barnes go without entering the bidding while they sort out the other pieces of their roster.

Another interesting target would be Atlanta’s Josh Childress. The Hawks’ uncertain ownership situation could leave them vulnerable to predators, as well. Philadelphia is expected to make a big play for Josh Smith. Like Childress, Smith is a restricted free agent. If Smith signs a 76ers offer sheet, will the Hawks commit the resources it will take to retain both him and Childress, who figures to get a full mid-level deal, in free agency?

Other players who could fit the profile of what the Pistons might be looking for are Portland’s James Jones (unrestricted), Minnesota’s Ryan Gomes (restricted), San Antonio’s Michael Finley (unrestricted) and Utah’s C.J. Miles (restricted).

• One of the ripple effects of Golden State’s loss of Davis is being felt in Washington. Until the Warriors got so unexpectedly and dramatically far under the cap, it didn’t look like Gilbert Arenas would have anybody offering him near the amount of money it was going to take to pry him out of Washington. But with the Warriors suddenly free to give him a max contract, the Wizards reportedly have come to Arenas with a max deal – six years and $125 million, give or take. Wow. That’s a lot of cash for a guy coming off knee problems, never mind his defensive indifference.
  

• Pistons coach Michael Curry’s father, James E. Curry Jr., died over the weekend. His funeral will be held Thursday in Augusta, Ga.

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