To quickly re-hash what has happened this offseason:
- Rasheed Wallace, the inspiration for this site, decided to hang up his Air Force Ones and call it a career
- PF/C Greg Monroe and SG Terrico White were selected by the Pistons in the 2010-2011 NBA Draft
- Ben Wallace and Will Bynum signed multi-year deals to remain in Detroit
- SF/SG Tracy McGrady signed a 1 yr deal for the veteran’s minimum
- Four groups of buyers have gone public with their interest in purchasing the Pistons from Mr. Davidson’s wife.
- Jason Maxiell signed up for twitter, as did Ben Gordon
- Charlie Villanueva asked us which kind of car he should buy on Twitter
- Shaquille O’Neal says he “was offered” or “could’ve gotten” $8 million dollars to play for the Pistons this season
- Chris Wilcox exercised his player option for the 2nd and final year of his current contract
- Not surprisingly, the Pistons are only scheduled for 1 nationally televised game this season. It’s against the Pacers on the back half of the schedule which means, if Detroit or Indiana are not in playoff contention this game will likely get bumped.
- Ben Gordon announced on Twitter that he will be changing his number from 7 to 8 next season
- Packey (and pals) have started up their player previews for this season over at Detroit Bad Boys – Chris Wilcox, DaJuan Summers, Terrico White, and Tracy McGrady are up first
- If you don’t yet have a Twitter account, you missed out on possibly one of the deepest discussions about snack crackers in recent history. On one side was #TeamWheatThins and the other, #TeamTriscuit. It spawned into a potential tournament of snack crackers here (full disclosure: I am #TeamWheatThins, as you can see by my Twitter avatar here)
- Last, but certainly not least, Natalie interviewed Will Bynum using your questions! Will, as usual, was a great sport about it and we here at Need4Sheed wish him and the rest of the boys in blue well this season
In other site news, we will be participating in the 2010-2011 NBA Season Preview that is run by Jeff Clark at CelticsBlog.com, so keep an eye out for that in the near future. Natalie and I have also briefly exchanged ideas for more contests and giveaways for you guys for the upcoming season as well.
If you’re like me, at this point you just want training camp to open and the NBA season to start. This has been an extremely busy offseason for just about every NBA team, and it’ll be interesting to see how the new faces in new places pan out for their respective organizations. Aside from Miami, who do you guys think were the biggest winners of the offseason in the NBA? Are you excited with the moves the Pistons have made? If you were coach of the Pistons, what would your starting lineup be? Have any of you been paying attention to the USA Basketball team this summer? Does USA Basketball “do it” for you as a substitute for the NBA regular season or playoffs? Do you see any trades, involving major players like Carmelo Anthony or Detroit’s own Tayshaun Prince, happening this season?
Those are just some short, easy topics to think about and discuss. Let’s fire up the old comments section again, and get ready for the season.
That Around the way put me to shame!
Happy we didn’t waste 8 mill on Shaq…the only place he should be playing is in his living room with his playstation fired up to NBA2K11.
TEAM TRISCUITS!!!!!
good points here.
Townhouse flipside crackers, try em. I think Joe has been doing a good job this off season. I didn’t expect him to be able to pull off a trade until the dust fully settles from free agency, but he was able to draft a highly skilled big in Greg Monroe, and added an exellent project for Arnie to work on in Mcdy… I mean Mcgrady. I’m excited to see this squad finally healthy and able to play. I love how everyone’s got a chip on their shoulder and have been working hard improving themselves during the offseason via tournaments, and training. I see this team doing well, but it seems trading Rip in some kind of package is almost manditory. I feel that in order to maximize the potency of this team you gotta go at least 10 deep, and my early rotation would be;
1rst string:
PG Rodney Stuckey Leaner, healthier, smarter
SG Ben Gordan His game compliments Stuckey better,3 pt sniper
SF Tayshaun Prince Still a great defender, all around game
Pf Jonas jerebko Tenacious, wide skill set, all star potential
C Ben Wallace w/Reduced minutes, played some of his best ball last year.
2nd string:
PG Will Bynum The thrill, nuff said
SG Tracy Mcgrady once a super star all we need is about half of that
SF Austin Daye Had a great showing in the summer league, excellent scorer
PF Charlie V. Better than you think, much better
C Greg Monroe Perfect fit for the Pistons, sky is the limit.
On the fringe:
Richard Hamilton Thanks for the memories but this is business
Jason Maxiell Would love to keep him but he’s got to give a little more
Dejuan Summers probably best served in a package deal to somewhere he can get minutes and blossom
Terico White CBA bound see you next year
Chris Wilcox also package material
They like to televise the Pistons – Pacers so they can reminisce and show clips of the Artest Brawl..
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEN WALLACE!!! ONE DAY AFTER MINE!!!!
Yes, USA Basketball has tied me over in the meantime. Still can’t wait for October 3rd though!
Yeah! Enough already with September. Let’s get going so we can see what actually happens. I can’t wait for most of our kooky predictions to be rendered obsolete!
The first link to Sheed`s article is the incorrect link…
yeah im with natalie when i heard that about shaq i shook my head in shame for joe d, in what way would that make us any better? we let sheed dyess chauncey and others go for tracy mcgrady and shaq? that would of upset me if we spent that much money on him.
and i say just trade tayshaun, no one in the organization is asking him to get better and he doesnt ask it of himself. he’s hit his peak here.
on a side note this season sounds like its gonna be fun, cant wait to see what it brings.
and fyi argue all u want my animal crackers are herbavores and all your snack foods are going down
@ Ameri-can Prince Don’t believe a word of Shaq and his 8 million. We never had that much money to give anybody. He just talks a lot and thinks he’s younger than he is. Hope that’s not true of T-mac.
tks for the pistons fix danny. can’t wait for basketball to start up again. I can barely stand to watch our hapless lions. Who else in the entire NFL would have a touchdown nullified like that?
Not a Lions’ fan, but I thought they could feel a bit stiff after that call – I thought it was a pretty good catch.
I don’t mind Joe Dumars feeling out Shaq’s interest – hey, we need big men – but I don’t know if a deal was ever really offered. I think Shaq is talking it up like everyone in the NBA wanted to offer him a max deal.
1st lineup
bynum – better pg, gets us in a better flow of offense
rip – ppl hate on him but he still produces, bottom line
tay – ditto
monroe – opens up offense, if he can score aggressively, we’re in playoffs
ben wallace – still a beast on D
2nd
Stuckey – let him attack when he gets in
Gordon/Tmac – just shoot, thats your job!
Jerebko/Daye – awesome upside for both
Villanueva – get strong on D
Maxiell – stay strong on D
I would NEVER trade Tayshaun he’s too multitalented, and he holds things together on the court, with no true point guard.
Rip may have to go, but that’s only if TMac can score 18 a night, and only if we can get a 18pts/8rebs/2blk big man in exchange.
I’d play 12 players, and wear the other teams out, having all of our shooters run off screens like Rip. With passes from Monroe, and Jerebkos energy, all we would need is Wallace and Maxiel to stay healthy, and we could be over .500.
Terrico & Dajuan are there for injuries. Wilcox is trade bait with Rip for a big man that gets 18/8/2.
Dear Natalie,
I stop in to the site frequently and just want to make a suggestion as a long time fan of your site i love what you’ve done with the site. But i think it would be great if the heads of the current pistons players and coaches had links to their twitter’s or a recent article about them when you clicked on the heads when you first enter the site. Just a suggestion 😉
Sincerly, Chris Cowan
p.s. GO PISTONS, GO TIGERS GO BLUE OR GO HOME!!!!!!!!
All this boredom! UGHHHHHHHHH! Hurry up October.
Sheed is faking retirement to come back to Detroit, where he belongs. Chauncey is also coming back. I will continue living in my fantasy world, where we also get rid of Charlie ASAP and Austin Daye.
charlie v deserves another chance. And so does ben gordon. The problem with these players is not how skilled they are. They belong in the NBA. The problem is that Joe D decided to max out their contracts. And he maxed out Rip’s contract. We are way too untalented to be over the cap.
sorry i shouldnt have said “max” there, theoretically we could have paid more, but you know what I mean
I have never been able to stand Charlie. He can’t play defense worth a flip, and there’s really nothing good about him. He was a terrible decision to begin with. Charlie can stay in the NBA, but perhaps on a team that matches his abilities, like NJ currently, or another equally horrible team. He is nowhere near skilled enough to be a Piston, even with how little few games they win nowadays. Nevertheless, he doesn’t have the aptitude to ever play true Detroit Basketball.
Hi, I am Sridhar from India. I’ll be visiting the US for 3 weeks in November. It’s been my dream for the last 16 years to catch at least ONE Pistons game live at the venue. I thought I would try making it for the Pistons-Lakers game on Nov 17th. Can someone help me regarding the best place to buy tickets? Also, I will be coming from Dallas (where my folks stay); so what would be the best mode of commute from Dallas to Detroit, and then Detroit airport to the Palace?
Sorry for posting off-topic. I didn’t know where else to post this. I would be grateful if someone can help me. My email addres is – sridhar.raman@gmail.com
Thanks,
Sridhar