The 21-38 Pistons bring the drama back home as they take on 32-27 Utah Jazz Saturday night at the Palace of Auburn Hills. Turmoil aside, the Pistons have not beaten Utah since March 13, 2005.
- The good: No Deron Williams
- The bad: The mutiny
- The adding to the bad: Reports of the Rip berating of Kuester.
As stunned coaches and teammates watched, Hamilton bellowed at Kuester that he had been a failure in his two seasons in Detroit, blown the opportunity the franchise afforded him and was nothing more than a career assistant coach, sources said. Despite Hamilton yelling within inches of him, Kuester didn’t respond.
Pistons coach John Kuester has played Richard Hamilton in one game since Jan. 10.Several of the team’s younger players were mortified watching it and privately told agents and associates they wished they had the courage to stand up, confront Hamilton and try to take control back from the disgruntled veteran. Nevertheless, Hamilton influences a powerful lobby in the Pistons’ locker room, including veteran leaders Tayshaun Prince and Ben Wallace.
The early January incident was the second time Hamilton had initiated a confrontation with Kuester this season, sources said, and it ultimately spurred the benching that led to such public acrimony. Via Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo.
Tip off is at 7:30 pm and will be broadcast on Fox Sports Plus. If you can’t catch the game on TV, follow it live over at NBA.com or on the radio over at WWJ AM 950.
Leave your thoughts in the comments or Chat Live with your fellow Pistons fans during the game.
So glad I cancelled my NBA Package this year. So glad. And this team is so sad. Everyone of those guys who pulled the crap they did on friday lost my respect. Bynum has the right attitude. More people like him with his attitude is what we need.
Love what rip has done it the past, but it’s time for him to disappear.
Both sides (players and coaches) are handling this horribly, you don’t see this happening in Cleveland, this just means that the Pistons have a bunch of players with the wrong mindset and coaches that can’t handle players with bad attitudes. I know it seems like the Pistons have a new coach every other year, but they do need a no-nonsense coach with experience. A rookie coach has no chance at all to work with this team.-
Half this team needs to be gone. And we are not going to get some great coach. We “Flip’em” (no pun intended) like flapjacks at a loggers convention. And our players always cry about the. We need new players. We should have given Tay away for peanuts and made damn sure we got rid of Rip. This is so agonizing.
honestly…purchase a bunch d-leaguers, and drop rip, prince, mcgrady, (and lord this hurts to say) wallace
let the season play out with those guys
and sit austin daye down, and give him a talk. he choose a side. he choose poorly. one more chance
and not this week, but down the road a piece, maybe a week or two, you ask Q to step down voluntarily. if he doesnt, can him. he shouldnt be fired as a result or as a consequence of the revolt
ben doesn’t deserve to go. he just lost his brother. give him a break
I understand people are upset and I share your frustration. But there has been a lot of misinformation flying around and people are obviously using this for their own benefit. I’ve defended Kuester before, but I’ve come to the end of my rope. What I an see is a) there is more to this than just Hamilton b) I think Q has over reacted and made and bad situation worse and c) I’m not sure that he isn’t or at least isn’t behind some of the “unnamed” sources that are spreading misinformation. I think the Pistons need to get rid of Hamilton first and then Kuester second. Hopefully that will put an end to this. Dumars needs to step in sooner rather than later. It will be interesting to see what he has to say before the game.
Thank God someone with someone with some common sense!!!
I heard Ben Wallace’s brother passed away today. Can someone confirm this? If this was the family issue that he was dealing with, I don’t think he should have sat yesterday. The more you hear about this whole thing, the more muddled it gets. The players can point to Ben and say Kuester punished him for dealing with a family tragedy…..
As much as I always have confidence in this team, this is going to be PAINFUL to watch. =_=
I’ll tune in, but all this is going to hurt. Hopefully, the people that does play put everything behind ’em and play ball.
Let’s go Stones(?)
According to ESPN, only hamilton, daye, stuckey, and wilcox were fined. They also said that Tracy and Tayshaun were actually sick and it was just a coincidence that they missed practice in the boycott.
I dunno about Tracy just being sick, he was laughing his ass off when Kuester got ejected, hes gotta be part of the mutiny as well
maybe yhey were all “laughing” at what q was saying when he was ejected, i know i was.
there is supposed to be a statement by Dumars to be released before the game.
i dont think prince or hamilton have ever liked stuckey, so after kuester gets fired, they might try to get stuckey to leave. Who knows, maybe they can do it, doesn’t seem like Joe D or Kuester is running the show, Karen Davidson certainly isn’t. Kuester tried to stop the mutiny by sitting Hamilton forever, but it backfired, and this player’s mutiny will make Kuester be gone for sure. Hamilton also refused to leave when offered an excellent deal, so hamilton’s plan has to be that he is the #1 player for the pistons.
Here’s what has to happen.
team sold
joe dumars fired
Kuester fired, hire laimbeer he wants to coach this steaming pile so go for it
Rip Hamilton bought out even if it’s for full value he is untradable and refuses to leave
Prince not re-signed
Ben Wallace allowed out of the last year of his contract
Let T-Mac walk
Don’t re-sign Summers
Let Terrico White go to the D-League
we dont actually need any new players, this team will get 10 or 20 more wins with less players. I’ve said for a while, this team needs some addition by subtraction.
Daye, Monroe, Jerebko will all be better next year, we’ll have a team with Ben Gordon, Charlie V, Maxiell, Bynum, Stuckey, Monroe, Daye, Jerebko and a draft pick
When looking for our next big man and point guard, dont look for a scorer in either position, we have plenty of them, we’ll need a point guard that can move his feet, stay in front of the faster guards, and help out Ben Gordon and Charlie V. For a big man we’ll want someone who can stand up to the supermen of this league those imposing monsters that require strength and intelligence to defend.
Stuckey is our best player, if we let him go, and it will be Chauncy billups, Arron afflalo, all over again, we’ll only see just how much stuckey can bring when he does it for another team. We should be able to keep Stuckey for pretty cheap, even though other teams want him, they aren’t going to pay much for any piston player, because . .. after all, we suck.
Glad Summers is getting some burn out of this. There’s your silver lining.
i got to say I haven’t seen our players play this angry before. Angry is good. Not that this win matters, we are headed to the lottery. I guess it makes the slow motion train wreck that is this pistons team more interesting.
I wouldn’t mind seeing t-mac, prince, ben wallace and rip hamilton take a well deserved rest for the finish of this season. It’s not like we play better or worse with any particular rotation.
it was so nice to see Kuester hugging Ben Gordan as the game closed… & high fiving his other players…
as much as I feel his coaching i.q. has been questionable this year… u have to give it to him for always taking chances… & even if we do eventually fire him… doing so mid season isn’t going to do us any good anyway…
this was the best & probably most emotional win of the season
also… I hope this win helps people to realize that LESS IS MORE!!!
Kuester is not a great coach… but hes not as bad as we think… anybody would struggle with trying to sort out all these minutes between players who all play the same position…
as good as Prince, Rip, & T-Mac are… the team is probably better off without them…
better for us to establish a young nucleus & let them gel together… for players to establish chemistry they actually have to play minutes to the point where they can establish a rhythm…
the dramatic start & stop in playing time has dramatically affected players such as Ben Gordon…
I think we’ll definitely be a playoff team next year with LESS…
Bynum
Stuckey
Daye
JJ
Monroe
White
Gordon
Summers
Villanueva
Wilcox
Wallace
Maxiell
this team could guarantee u 45+ wins in the eastern conference if players knew their roles throughout the season…
with Bynum STARTING at the 1 as the true PG that he is… pushing the ball all night he could become a star…
Stuckey running the 2 guard at his natural postion… our backcourt would be the most dangerous tangem in the league scoring points in the paint all night…
JJ, Mornoe, Bynum, Maxiell, & Wallace would be our defensive anchors
Villanueva & Gordon being your 1, 2 punch offensively off the bench
this is the future… & Bynum is our star…
Actually I like this.
But Bynum should get of the bench, something like Terry with Mavs.
Three guard rotation with Stuckey, Bynum and Gordon.
thatz sad, if our star is will bynum lol. while the rest of the east is getting two three superstars to join them. pistons r done for atleast 10 years i think in the east.
you dont need superstars to win in the NBA. I remember a certain team that did well as a true team, not so long ago
ahem*2004 pistons*ahem
how is that sad? if Bynum played 40 minutes a night he could easily avg 20 pts, 8 asts, & 2 stls while shooting a good fg% & playing hounding defense…
Bynum controls & changes the tempo of the game & also makes players around him better…
we have one of the best guards in the league but dont play him over 20 minutes…
on April 5, 2009, Bynum set the Pistons’ club record for points in a quarter by an individual player, netting 26 in the fourth quarter of a winning effort
On March 12, 2010, Bynum became the first Piston in 25 years to record 20 assists in a game, getting 20
hard to argue with that one.
Natalie, please tell me you’re gonna have a vid of that sick baseline spin Greg did.
I’m still blaming Karen and her finance team for all of this. The price will be the same for Gores as it was for Illitch months ago. If she sold months ago, none of this would’ve happened and the team could’ve made the playoffs with some new life.
Steven A Smith just wrote a good article about how this affects the negotiations between the NBA and the players. The players association should demand Rip to take a buyout now to save face.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=smith_stephen&page=PistonsProtest-110227
I’ve always thought Stephen A Smith was a tool. I didn’t realize that he was also an anagram for Steppin’ Fetchit. Pass the watermelon, fool.
Rip get’s the last laugh? What a diva…. Something has to be done in this league to take at least some of the player power away. Teams can barely even make deals anymore, unless the player says they can. Rip is like the jealous stalker ex to Kuester’s battered house wife. Enough.