That Concludes Pre-Season Basketball for the Detroit Pistons
Thursday night, the Pistons closed the pre-season with a 92-82 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. In all, Detroit had a good showing in the pre-season. The real story has not been the performance of Nazr Mohammed, who has shown positive signs in exhibition, but it is Detroit’s bench that has earned the greatest attention.
The biggest story of the pre-season, in this blogger’s humble opinion? Maxiell.
Jason Maxiell’s Preseason Stats:
Absolutely stellar. Maxiell’s worst shooting performance was 50%. He consistenly put up good numbers each night, which can’t be said of many other players during exhibition. In the coming season, if things aren’t working right for ‘Sheed or McDyess, Maxiell could be the lucky third charm. However, we have plenty of depth in the forward position. Do the Pistons really need Maxiell’s talent on the bench?
We’ll see. What the pistons still need is a good back-up point guard. I don’t see Flip Murray filling that position, and we’re going to have a hard time relying on Lindsey Hunter. Perhaps our strength at the 4th position will lend itself to a smart trade by Mr. Dumars before February… who knows. Time will tell. In the meantime, this blogger is happy about Detroit’s bench developments. And if there had been any arguments against the Pistons last season, it was on this very subject.
The Pistons ended this pre-season at 3 wins, 2 losses. While these games don’t have any real bearing toward their numbers in the regular season, this has given the Pistons three valuable lessons that will help in the coming tip off on November 1st.
- Nazr Mohammed has talent, and while there may be some growing pains in the beginning of the season, Flip Saunders can get the offensive strength the team needs out of its Center.
- The Pistons know who the reliable stars are on its bench: McDyess, Maxiell and Murray. Delfino had a great performance in the 4th exhibiton game, but throughout the other games he didn’t bring what he needed to.
- Flip Saunders now has a much more versatile pallete to paint with this season. The weight is now squarely on his shoulders to make use of the broad talent he will manage this year. Let’s see what you got, Flip.
Stay tuned, everybody. If you’re like me, your eyes can hardly stay away from your watch– just a few more days, and the tip off will kick off a difficult, but equally rewarding season.
[…] I mentioned in my pre-season review here at Basketballr that Detroit is deep in power forwards, and that a trade could help us out. Unless you shape up, Rasheed, I wouldn’t regret if your name came up in that discussion: “Perhaps our strength at the 4th position will lend itself to a smart trade by Mr. Dumars before February… who knows. Time will tell.” […]