Much has been said about the ongoing tension between Flip Saunders and Rasheed Wallace. Today Rasheed actually took offense to ESPN.com reporter Chris Sheridan at practice. It seems that Rasheed went looking for Sheridan 25 minutes after the team left the practice floor to talk to reporters.
Rasheed seems to be upset with what Sheridan wrote in his about the Pistons – Utah game.
” Before we get to a dissection of (Chris) Webber’s game we’re going to change the subject to what appears to be a growing note of discord and disharmony — aw, heck, let’s just call it hate — between Rasheed Wallace and coach Flip Saunders.
“At one point late in the third quarter (Wednesday) during a timeout, nearly everyone on the Pistons’ bench turned and stared at Sheed as he prematurely broke from the huddle and walked to the scorers’ table to await the resumption of play.
“Now Wallace has been doing this for years, but on this occasion, judging from the looks on the Pistons’ faces, there was more to it. Webber even walked over and said something to Wallace, who replied with a shake of the head and the type of disgusted look you get from someone who doesn’t want to be told to calm down or to make peace.”
In response to the article, Wallace said to Sheridan: “Have you ever heard the word hate come out of my mouth?”
Wallace also accused Sheridan of trying to create “drama.”
As Wallace was yelling at Sheridan, Sheridan suggested that Wallace calm down and discuss the matter privately. Via The Detroit News
Now maybe this is more than a problem than I actually thought is was. I personally have seen Sheed leave the huddle for years. I was pretty close to the incident when it happened last night at the Palace and I didn’t make much of it. I just took it as Rasheed being Sheed. Maybe that was my way of brushing things under the rug so I wouldn’t have to worry about what was really going on.
Let’s hope things get straighted out because this team has a chance to win a championship this year and I would hate for discord to be the reason it didn’t.
I do however think that Flip Saunders isn’t the right coach for this team. That became apparent to me in the Playoffs last season. How many players do the Pistons have to lose because they don’t see eye to eye with Flip? My God the man doesn’t even know when to call a timeout.
Matt at Detroit Bad Boys has a great piece on the subject.
The Detroit Pistons Keith Langlois defused the situation.
I wish we could bring back Larry Brown. :/
Larry Brown? No. But we do need to get rid of Flip. Both of them actually. And soon.
i’ll coach them.
i won’t piss anyone off, i’ll call timeouts when it’s brutally obvious i should do so, and i won’t make stupid awkward face gestures the whole game. i will just sit on my butt, not say a word and let chauncey lead the team to victory, and i will be a better coach than flippy.
I’m glad Sheed raked this reporter over the coals!!! An ANGRY SHEED is a good Sheed! Thank God he has somewhere else to channel it now! The media vultures are getting neurotic over the buzz of the Detroit Pistons’ expected fortunes, and one of their first attempts to dismantle the ship yet assembled got slamdunked down by a perceived culprit playing possum. What a Sheed, huh?!!
Joe Dumars isn’t about to sacrifice this season! I will continue to let this season ride out, before I give up on Flip Saunders. Detroit isn’t going to have a chance of winning this season, without some unity on the bench and in the stands; as in, NO WAY IN HELL!!! I still think we can win this year, and not willing to be a contributor to underminding that effort. The players need to work harder; that’s the bottomline! If the starting lineup beyond Tayshaun would play some “D”, there wouldn’t be a need to waste the timeouts that aren’t there at the end of the game when we need them! If Flip used a time out everytime a team went on a long run lately, we’d be out of timeouts shortly into the 4th. They all aren’t giving maximum effort when needed most, and that’s what needs to change, more than anything else. Players can coach when their playing days are over with, if they in fact have the saavy to do that.
This is a very good development today, and one Rasheed decided to jump on as an opportunity to mend whatever perception of a feud that there is. Sheed has to realize that this team isn’t yet ready to begin to mesh; how in the world can it, when you know the retooling has just begun? He has to be bored with the losing, but I believe he’ll being getting his game face back on, and they’ll soon be kicking ass like never before! It’s no surprise that the defense is going to be porous, with little focus until the new offense is in tune. If Dumars thought Saunders was stinking the place up, do you think he’s going to be silent about it? The biggest problem this season has been having no credible backup, in the event that Chauncey went down? When has that happened before??? When the Pistons were strolling along near a .700 clip, and after I poor start, I might add, there wasn’t any of this FIRE FLIP talk; how soon we forget, huh?!! Detroit was exposed BIGTIME, because we’ve always feared what would happen to this team if Mr. BigShot went down. We were exposed to those nightmares, and the meager teams went right for the jugler. Is that what’s really happened? C’mon people… you need to bring it better than finding the wrong excuse; that’s too easy.
Luckily, this new opportunity came along, to fix roster moves that just haven’t worked, and put Joe in a position of strength to do so; this definately needs to be addressed, as we can all see what chaos it’s caused, both within the ranks, and beyond. With the current roster, he knows this is weeks away. The players nor the fans are not used to this type of losing, and everybody is getting too frustrated over it.
Well said Garold. I just hope I can adopt your philosophy. I really hope that this puts an end the whatever is made out of this Flip – Sheed thing. And yes I do have faith in Joe D.
Joe’s going to have to get this thing figured out, and fast. My greater concern is not how Sheed and Flip co-exist but what Chauncey thinks about the man. I wasn’t as aware of Ben’s problems with Saunders until after he had already left, something I never thought would happen. Chauncey has played well enough to draw huge offers when he’s unrestricted this coming offseason, and based upon how we floundered while he was hurt we need to do everything in our power to keep him. I’m pretty sure we were wearing those dreaded teal jerseys the last time we went 3-7 over a 10 game stretch. I’m almost positive we were the last time we dropped this many games at the Palace. They better stop the bleeding and right the ship now, I don’t think we can wait to turn it on until after the All Star break.
I just sent an email to Chris Sheridan advising him to apologize to Flip and Sheed for writing the word hate in an article with no hard proof.
dang, i think you need to calm down in regards to Flip! I trust Joe and the team already had a strong identity before Fip arrived. i do believe it takes time for a coach to find his place. We must factor in the fact that the Pistons players are old school and the Zone D is kind of soft. Growing up on the south side of Chicago or playing Ball in New York you will never catch cats playing ZONE — its Man-UP all day. The NBA is driven by money and a certain populace/segment of soceity that have influence and $$$$!!!! Super-Stars equal MONEY!!!! We all know that the game is becoming SOFT which is translating into the PISTONS adjusting to this crap. This will take time. The culture of the NBA is different and the PISTON Org. is adjusting, which will take time. Joe is a wise dude and I trust that our team will be good come Playoff time. I’m a loyal fan from the Chi’ (south-side) — grew up during the Jordan days….since third grade (1988) i’ve been loyal PISTON fan and I will continue to be loyal (hard good times. Also, its obvious that the media and the suspect cats with a pen are trying to create friction inside the locker room. The Pistons are a TEAM and play TEAM ball. They have 5 — YES 5 guys that can score 20 plus on any given night (maybe six) — 12 plus that are concerned about winning the game and not their stat line. This doesn’t sell tickets or generate rating on a national scale — the media has conditioned the public to worship the one man show crap…becuz it generates MONEY for the people who sign Rasheed’s check. I don’t buy dude article one bit — and we should see and understand what the article was designed to do — Create Drama and the illusion that the PISTONS won’t perform come playoff time. Sorry for the long post — but we need to relax on Flip and believe that this Suspect with a pen was trying to start DRAMA!!!!!!!!
TRUE PISTON FAN from the CHI’
Excellent post, fariddin muhammad… the age old Piston haters are still prominent out there, but this fanbase has been there before. Thanks for sharing your analysis of the truth.
BTW, good luck to Da Bears this weekend.
whats BTW???
BTW means By The Way…
Is this the first time you’ve been on a computer?
what they need 2 do is fire sheridan and flip (saunders and murray)
if sheed gets pissed off too much and demands a trade…i will personally hunt down sheridan (really)
and personally stab him with a lemon, coat him with salt and throw him in a pool full of vinegar
ps. my email is eJ_1k@tmail.com
email me if u wanna come and watch me do it
The ‘incident’ happened late in the third quarter right?
I do remember them going to Sheed for about 4 or 5 posessions and he couldn’t miss. I was like DAMN sheed is in ballerific mode right now. Then all of a sudden it seemed, either the D was too good from Utah or we couldn’t get sheed the ball or something happened and we stopped going to sheed. We were up by like 10, next thing you know Utah was within three, then we were down by two. Frustration probably grew that my man sheed got out of rhythym and he walked out of the huddle (as usual).
As for Flip not being the right coach… I think now more than at any other point he IS the right man. And look, Larry Brown will NEVER be a decent coach in this league…EVER again… Everybody is just gonna have to get past that.
Now that Chauncey is back we can get back to our winning ways. And with Webber in the lineup, Flip can break off a few new chapters in his playbook and use some new weapons. Flip M can go back to being a decent at best backup, which is just fine. And Lindsay can ball up and play sweet d like he used to. All will be good and fine. We don’t even need Mo Pete, Carlos Delfino is a damn fine wing player, I don’t mind going to the playoffs with him as our backup 2-3 man at all.
I’d buss a nut if Orlando accepted Nazi for Darko. That would be oh so cool.
Garold — thx. DA BEARS!!!!!
Nazi — i hate to see him go, he played at a highschool I grew-up around, but if we can get Bonzi or Mo Pete that would be classic :)-
Fariduddin
Flip the Flips, i hope Saunders goes and couches Charlotte then maybe we can beat them! We can’t trade Antonio McD. AND if we ever got rid of Chauncey i would eat my own foot
Flip can break off a few new chapters in his playbook and use some new weapons
Um… isn’t that what was said after we lost Big Ben? Sure I see more scoring, but I don’t see more winning !
Understand this…no d no w.
And Flip is a no d kind of a coach.
GET THE FLIP OUT OF DETROIT FLIP SAUNDERS! He has ruined this whole team! We dont need all offense all the time like he preaches. I would give anything to have a coach like Rick Carlisle back. He was a very good coach and I think he should come back to Detroit. And everyone knows the saying is right!
OFFENSE SELLS TICKETS…
DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS!