Great news for the wonderful city of New York. For the first time in my life, I can root for the Knicks and not be ashamed about it.

I still think Knicks gave up too much for the overrated Carmelo.

Palace Revolt

PHILADELPHIA – The drama never stops with the Pistons.
In what team sources termed some type of player protest, Tracy McGrady, Tayshaun Prince, Richard Hamilton and Chris Wilcox were missing from this morning’s shootaround before tonight’s game against the Philadelphia 76ers.

Team spokesman Cletus Lewis said Rodney Stuckey and Austin Daye missed the team bus as well, but they did arrive toward the end of the media session.

only 6 players played last night, and my guess is that ben wallace won't be coming back after his brother passed away.

http://apps.detnews.com/apps/blogs/johnniyoblog/index.php
It's an impossible situation. To be honest I have only watched a handful of Pistons' games all the way through this season.
I don't think Kuester is a very good coach but Dumars gave him a crappy team. All we have are shooting guards, small forwards and undersized tweeners.

It is a challenge to do it-to lead grown men and make them want to perform for you when many of them make more money than you do and can't be fired by you but Kuester knew that when he signed up.

I sort of think Dumars cut Kuester off at the knees at the beginning of the season when a reporter asked Dumars why he hired a relative no-name like Kuester instead of a fellow with more cachet and Dumars said the Pistons weren't ready for a big time coach yet but maybe would be in a few years.

If I'm Kuester that's hardly a ringing endorsement from the boss.
But again, he's well paid to eat s***.

The last "strong" coaches we had were Larry Brown and Rick Carlisle. They weren't always liked but players did what they were told, mostly.

Again, we're not on the inside. Maybe Kuester said something about someone's mother. That aside, those guys are paid to practice and play. I don't know if the CBA allows fining for unexcused missed practices. I'm sure it must. Either way Dumars must right the ship-especially if he still wants to keep his job once the team is sold (unlikely)

About a week prior to his banishment to the Detroit Pistons’ bench in January, Richard Hamilton berated coach John Kuester in a jarring and expletive-filled diatribe on the practice court, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.

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.

Hamilton-Kuester Conflict

i heard that they attempted to buy out hamilton, so he could sign with the bulls, but he decided to stay on the bench to get paid in full.

That's correct. It all goes back to some critical mistakes by Joe D (not just Darko) but re-signing Hamilton to that long contract before trading Billups and trying to make Stuckey into a point guard. In the offseason, Joe or perhaps a new GM will have an opportunity to shed some salary and rebalance the team.

I was @ that Sixers game Friday night. Sittin courtside right behind the hoop! I didn't find out about the "protest" until I got home Friday night. Either way, I'm pumped about my Sixers baby!

Fuckin' bum.

The Mavs have the best road record in the league and have won 13 of 14 overall. The Sixers have won 13 of 17 and are one of the hottest teams in the NBA right now. Dallas @ Philly tonight...should be a good game, I hope. I am interested in seeing 6th Man of the Year candidates Lou Williams and Jason Terry duke it out.

Not exactly breaking news, but the Miami Heat can't win the title when they're give or take .500 against winning teams.

You can't.

they can't beat the elite teams either

Sixers get another W. Iggy gets another triple-double. IGGY!

I thought this was a satire article but evidently it wasn't.
There are very limited times when it's appropriate for a grown man to weep. Losing a basketball game isn't one of them.


It's safe to say the Miami Heat took Sunday's loss to the Chicago Bulls harder than some of their noted fair-weather fans. According to Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, several Miami players were reduced to tears following the team's 87-86 loss to the Bulls.....

Act Like a Man!!!!

So now I feel like a fool for counting out the Lakers, and then they go and fucking destroy the Spurs, the best team in the league.

And considering the Heat are already crying after regular season games, we're another loss or two away from them staying in bed for a week and eating cartons of Haagen-Dazs while watching "Sex And The City" DVDs...

Don't break the code!!!

There's no crying in basketball!

Two crazy games tomorrow night. Lakers@Miami and NYK@Dallas. I'm seriously considering putting a nice sum on the Lakers. It's just this feeling I have and whenever I get it, I tend to lose big. Still, I could win! That's the beauty of gambling.

Seven years ago, former Los Angeles Clippers head coach Kim Hughes was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and the ensuing aftermath will change the way you feel about several NBA types significantly.

Up until Tuesday afternoon, the only functional knowledge I had of former Los Angeles Clippers head coach Kim Hughes was that he was, in fact, a former Los Angeles Clippers head coach, and that he once touched his elbows on the rim in a lay-up line at a high school tournament in Illinois, which really impressed my father.

Beyond that, nothing. Until Tuesday afternoon, when Howard Beck brought this column to Trey Kerby's attention, and he brought it to our attention. And now we're passing the feel-good savings on to you, in the form of an anecdote that reveals that NBA players Corey Maggette, Marko Jaric, Chris Kaman and Elton Brand all chipped in to pay for expensive life-saving surgery for Hughes, after the Clippers organization (read: Donald Sterling, noted worst person in the world) declined to cover the costs.

Declined to cover the cost of a surgery that would save their employee's life. While playing rent-free in an often sold-out arena in America's second-biggest television market. Unyieldingly evil.

Gary Woelfel has the original story:
"Those guys saved my life," Hughes said. "They paid the whole medical bill. It was like $70,000 or more. It wasn't cheap.
Players chip in to save coaches life; owner declines

Following up to that, here is a piece that illuminates why I think Stern needs to depart.

It's not that he may not be a very nice person. I don't think "nice" people necessarily make great leaders. It's that like anyone who's been at the top too long he starts to think that he is the organization and that he is indispensable. He's been there what, 27 years? That's way too long. They should have the commissioner have five or six year terms and be limited to no more than three. 15-18 years is long enough to give stability and put your mark on things.

I see that Scottie Pippen has finally recovered from his migraine headache. He has removed his lips from Jordan's hindparts long enough to run his mouth about the Bad Boys.

The unofficial end of the Bad Boys came in the spring of 1991 when the Michael Jordan-led Bulls capped their 4-0 sweep of the Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals at The Palace.

That's when Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer and other Pistons walked past the Bulls' bench en route to the locker rooms before the game ended; they refused to shake hands with their opponent. The boycott was in response to disparaging remarks Jordan made earlier in the series about the Pistons' two-year reign atop the NBA. Many years later, Thomas apologized for not displaying sportsmanship.

I wish he hadn't.

Bulls forward Scottie Pippen opened up old wounds recently when he called the Pistons a dirty team. Those words coincided with what Jordan said in 1991 after the Bulls went up 3-0 against the Pistons in the series. Jordan sat in the risers behind the visitor's basket and blistered the Pistons for 20 minutes. He called them bad champions and said they were bad for basketball.

Old wounds
That's why the Pistons walked out. But everybody forgets that. They simply believe the Pistons were poor sports and sore losers. I applauded them for walking out then and I applaud it today, and I'm sorry to see that Thomas apologized to someone who had no respect for the Bad Boys.

Now Pippen has opened his mouth.
"The Pistons were a nasty team," Pippen told the Chicago Sun-Times. "They'd go out of their way to be mean and try to hurt you. And because we had better athletes, coach Chuck Daly just let them play the way they had to play to win."

Pippen also said the Pistons were classless.

"It was gratifying to see the Pistons walk off the court before that last game ended," he said. "We didn't expect anything less because they were a classless organization and everybody saw they were a classless team. I didn't care to shake their hands anyway."

Those words do not sit well with Bad Boys John Salley and Thomas. They took pride in playing the game with mental and physical toughness.

"They're still talking about us 22 years later," Salley said.

Thomas said: "It's his opinion. Whatever. All I know is at the end of the day we beat them more times than they beat us."

People forget or never knew that the Celtics walked out on the Pistons in the 1988 Eastern Conference finals when the Pistons advanced to their first NBA Finals. All the networks showed, however, were clips of Kevin McHale telling Thomas to not be content with just being in the NBA Finals, but to go win it. That conversation only happened because McHale and Thomas had been acquaintances since high school. Meanwhile, many of McHale's teammates were already in the locker rooms, leaving Adrian Dantley standing at the free-throw line with about a minute left.

On second thought
Thomas now says the Pistons should have taken the high road even though he was angry about losing and angry about Jordan blistering their legacy.

"I'm not trying to justify what we did and say it was right," Thomas said. "In that era when you lost you walked off the court. Should we have walked off the court? Probably not. We should have taken the high road. Should we have shaken hands? Probably. It probably would have supported more sportsmanship. If all of us had a chance to do it over again we would want to set and give a better example."

Thomas said the Pistons were pupils of the Celtics. The two teams were locked in tough battles for years. But the Celtics with Larry Bird, Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson and McHale were the superior team until 1988. That's when the tide turned. And when the Celtics crashed, they walked.

The Pistons advanced to three straight NBA Finals, winning titles in 1989 and 1990.

"We probably hadn't won enough championships to earn that walk-off and didn't have enough tradition to earn that walk-off," Thomas said. "Boston did because of what Bill Russell did and what Red Auerbach did. They earned that walk-off. We probably hadn't earned that right after winning just two championships."

Like Thomas said, everybody is entitled to their opinion.

And I disagree.
terry.foster@detnews.com
http://detnews.com/article/20110329/OPIN...1#ixzz1I0mxS2WO

John Salley quote:
They were more athletic -- and they were younger," Salley said. "But obviously not smarter because we're not talking about him 22 years later. He's talking about us."

"Guys who said we played dirty couldn't have played in the '80s and the '70s. I watched those games in the '80s and '70s, and it's how I learned to play that hard. You fouled a guy who needs to be fouled. If he's going to the basket, you don't give a knick-knack foul and then argue with the ref. You foul him so he knows, so the next guy coming behind him knows, so his team knows you can't go in the lane. …

"We beat them psychologically, and obviously it's still working."

Let it go, Lilo. The Bad Boys were over 20 years ago. Salley's a talking head now. Isaiah turned out to be repugnant. And Dumars apparently ate Laimbeer. Your youth is over. Get over it .

any comment on dennis rodman?

She's nuts.

and a hall of famer

Dennis Rodman - Hall of Famer.

Tom Gores should let Joe Dumars try to mend Pistons

Tom Gores has made a lucrative career of raising the downtrodden, business-wise. That could bode well, because the Pistons need lots of raising, more than they need razing.

The Pistons need help, in dollars and direction. Gores, who purchased the team Friday, is expected to provide it. This could be a major infusion in the Detroit sports scene, as long as Gores and his people handle it correctly.

How different will it be? Well, Detroit hasn't had a new owner of its four pro sports teams since 1992, when Mike Ilitch bought the Tigers. Ilitch, 81, has owned the Red Wings since 1982. William Clay Ford Sr., 85, has owned the Lions since 1964.

Gores, 46, outbid Ilitch for the Pistons and Palace Sports and Entertainment properties, and that represents an interesting shift in logistics. The Ilitches' hopes of building a downtown arena to house the Wings and Pistons is dampened, and that's too bad.

But it's good that Gores has energy and basketball passion, and you figure he can match Ilitch's competitive passion. He's a self-made billionaire financier who knows the area, grew up in Flint and attended Michigan State. He's also a Hollywood guy, and his Platinum Equity firm, which deals in mergers and acquisitions, is headquartered in Beverly Hills, Calif.

The Gores story is a stirring tale: born in Israel, emigrated to Flint when he was 5 and worked as a janitor and telemarketer to pay his way through college. You don't climb this high without knowing how to deal with people and having a savvy business sense....


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