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Post by TrayWithAnA on Aug 25, 2014 11:10:32 GMT -6
Welcome back to Detroit for our annual Preseason Presser. The league pays us for doing these so we're gonna take them up on that. We'll do a quick year in review before getting into our big free agency signings. The team struggled last year after losing our long time captain to a trade that prevented us from bankrupting the city...errr...team with a pricy luxury tax. He has since been passed around like a bad cold, but that is a different conversation altogether. The team got out to a great start and the front office made some moves to bring in some more talent to replace Miller. Unfortunately, an extend appearance on the IR by Steve Smith pretty much sunk any chances of sneaking into the playoffs after low expectations at the beginning of the season. Thankfully, that pick didn't become much for our rival, the Milwaukee Bucks, and ultimately we got a pretty good building block going into this season in Allan Houston.  Houston is going into his contract year so we expect to have to pony up a bit to keep him. We will be working with his agent here in the coming weeks to try and prevent him hitting RFA. That brings us to this offseason, we made a few moves that freed up nearly $9M. By trading Mark Jackson to the Mavericks on his final year of a max deal, we decided we would try and spend that money a little more wisely. In combination with giving away Mario Ellie, we were able to sign Magic Johnson, Stanley Roberts, Kevin Willis, and Sean Elliot.     While Johnson and Willis are aging vets on one year deals, Stanley Roberts and Sean Elliot are younger guys on multi-year deals who we expect to be key new additions to our rotation. We will wait until after TC to determine our starting center, but going in to camp, it is looking like Willis will start and Roberts will get equal minutes off the bench. All four players deals are $3M or less so we have more depth than we have had in years. Injuries are our biggest concern, but if everyone can stay semi-healthy, we feel like we can be right back in the hunt this season. I have fewer talking points this year, so I'm gonna open up to you for questions. Our players will be here to answer any question you have for them as well. |
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Post by Nick Malone 77 on Aug 25, 2014 11:39:32 GMT -6
Nick Melon; Charlotte Observer: You've amassed quite a veteran presence around your star of Steve Smith. The Central Division has gone through a total transformation this past offseason. How much of an impact do you expect Kevin Willis and Magic Johnson do you expect to see on the court this upcoming season ahead?
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Post by TrayWithAnA on Aug 25, 2014 12:58:02 GMT -6
Nick Melon; Charlotte Observer: You've amassed quite a veteran presence around your star of Steve Smith. The Central Division has gone through a total transformation this past offseason. How much of an impact do you expect Kevin Willis and Magic Johnson do you expect to see on the court this upcoming season ahead? We brought in Magic to be a facilitator to our high scoring wings, so as long as his handles and passing stay adequate, we fill good about passing along the reigns to him for a season. If Magic gets hurt, we plan on sliding Smith into the PG slot as a temporary fix. Kevin Willis was brought in to be a bench presence, but on paper, he seems to do some of the basic duties of a big better than Stanley Roberts. Depending on how the gameplanning goes, we could see these two splitting the starts at the end of the year. We shouldn't expect more than 30 minutes a game from either. It's gonna be crucial to manage their minutes to lessen the risk of injury. If we can get 70 games each from both, we'll insider ourselves very lucky. |
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Post by IamQuailman on Aug 25, 2014 13:03:02 GMT -6
Will Maukie, Milwaukee Tribune. Congratulations on a successful off-season. As much as it pains me to say as a Bucks fan, you have assembled a pretty solid roster that will win a lot of basketball games this season. Speaking of the Bucks, you mention the pick you indirectly sent to Milwaukee being not as good as they had hoped. But that pick turned into a young Kerry Kittles, who many pundits call "Allan Houston with Defense". If you had still had that pick, assuming it was still #10, who would you have picked with that pick?
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2014 13:03:20 GMT -6
Kane West, L.A. Times, can you talk about your mindset this offseason knowing you didn't own your own pick? Did that motivate or put pressure on you to hand out some bigger or longer deals that you may not have done otherwise? What are your realistic expectations for the season?
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Post by TrayWithAnA on Aug 25, 2014 13:41:46 GMT -6
Will Maukie, Milwaukee Tribune. Congratulations on a successful off-season. As much as it pains me to say as a Bucks fan, you have assembled a pretty solid roster that will win a lot of basketball games this season. Speaking of the Bucks, you mention the pick you indirectly sent to Milwaukee being not as good as they had hoped. But that pick turned into a young Kerry Kittles, who many pundits call "Allan Houston with Defense". If you had still had that pick, assuming it was still #10, who would you have picked with that pick? If I still had my pick, I would have likely taken the BPA which was Kittles but then again I would have probably been much worse. I probably shouldn't have given up the pick for Mayes. He is now a Milwaukee Buck and that's a difficult thing to fathom. A risk that I took to make a run at the playoffs. Now that we have gotten a taste of the playoffs, we likely will never lay down for the sake of our draft pick. Hindsight is 20/20 but we are happy with Houston and will do everything we can to keep him. |
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Post by TrayWithAnA on Aug 25, 2014 13:46:29 GMT -6
Kane West, L.A. Times, can you talk about your mindset this offseason knowing you didn't own your own pick? Did that motivate or put pressure on you to hand out some bigger or longer deals that you may not have done otherwise? What are your realistic expectations for the season? I think this offseason was a learning experience. A lot of people go for the big splash and don't try to focus on the cheaper guys who help you in a playoff run. Seeing that I landed 4 of my targets (at different positions which is key) I'm pretty hopeful for a good follow-up season to our lottery bound campaign. We gave longer deals to Elliot and Roberts who we expect to contribute for the next three years. Both deals are team friendly and traceable which gives us some leeway if needed. We still have some serious obstacles. Mainly a 36 yr old PG. We have to prove we can game plan with this crew before the trade deadline. If we can't, we'll need to make moves to better our second half of the season. |
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Post by JNR on Aug 25, 2014 13:50:02 GMT -6
Generic Wolves Reporter: Even in a bench role, Sean Elliott struggled defensively for the Timberwolves last year. Are you planning on making him your 6th man, and do you have a plan to limit his clear defensive limitations?
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Post by DarthVegito on Aug 25, 2014 14:03:27 GMT -6
Tim Cowlishaw Dallas Morning News - What do you think you can get out of Magic that the Mavericks couldn't last year? Dallas was forced to nearly bench him seeing how inefficient he was. And they couldn't stop him from shooting the ball. How will you force a different outcome?
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Post by TrayWithAnA on Aug 25, 2014 14:25:42 GMT -6
Generic Wolves Reporter: Even in a bench role, Sean Elliott struggled defensively for the Timberwolves last year. Are you planning on making him your 6th man, and do you have a plan to limit his clear defensive limitations? I am actually planning on starting him at the 3 even though he is a complete liability on defense. Detroit has never been concerned with defense, so don't want to buck that trend now. We are hoping his offense outweighs his defense. |
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Post by TrayWithAnA on Aug 25, 2014 15:24:32 GMT -6
Tim Cowlishaw Dallas Morning News - What do you think you can get out of Magic that the Mavericks couldn't last year? Dallas was forced to nearly bench him seeing how inefficient he was. And they couldn't stop him from shooting the ball. How will you force a different outcome? We are going to review the tape for Magic's 1995-96 season and see what lessons can be learned. We don't want to lean on him very hard, but unfortunately, we struck out on a backup-PG. We need to hope we can get something out of him at PG. He won't play any other position than PG here in Detroit. |
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Post by WigNosy on Aug 25, 2014 15:49:44 GMT -6
With the your team lacking their own draft pick for the next two seasons and now relying on older talent with known liabilities for wins, do you think this team may have over-extended itself trading? Also, how do you anticipate the fans will react if the team isn't able to jell and has another down year?
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Post by bowtothebill23 on Aug 25, 2014 19:30:14 GMT -6
With Steve Smith as your main player and potential MVP candidate, can you explain your strategy of surrounding him with a lot of other scorers?
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jhow0036
Junior Member
Chicago Bulls
Posts: 712 
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Post by jhow0036 on Aug 25, 2014 19:32:57 GMT -6
With Smith, Elliott and Houston you are really strong in the Wing department. Have you decided whether Houston or Elliott will play the 6th man role?
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Post by Conroy on Aug 26, 2014 8:31:49 GMT -6
With known Rival the Bucks predicted to win the Central, and other rival the Lakers owning your pick. How important is it for you personally to try and outdo these 2 organizations?
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J2
Junior Member
Washington Wizards
Posts: 955
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Post by J2 on Aug 26, 2014 15:50:19 GMT -6
Johnny Junior, Washington Post - With training camp revealing the toll age has taken on your veterans, will you be looking towards your younger talent, such as Elliot and Roberts, to cover for them? Has finding a point guard now become No. 1 on the list of immediate goals for the Pistons this season?
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Post by TrayWithAnA on Aug 28, 2014 13:16:13 GMT -6
With the your team lacking their own draft pick for the next two seasons and now relying on older talent with known liabilities for wins, do you think this team may have over-extended itself trading? Also, how do you anticipate the fans will react if the team isn't able to jell and has another down year? Having seen TC murder us, we can say without a doubt that we have over extended ourselves trading. We thought we'd have depth but instead we are missing a key starter. I don't anticipate fans being terribly excited about the direction but there isn't much we can do about it. |
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Post by TrayWithAnA on Aug 28, 2014 13:17:37 GMT -6
With Steve Smith as your main player and potential MVP candidate, can you explain your strategy of surrounding him with a lot of other scorers? We just went with BPA at a few positions that we had holes at. I don't think we were terribly worried about adding too much scoring to the team. That was a big problem last year. |
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Post by TrayWithAnA on Aug 28, 2014 13:18:59 GMT -6
With Smith, Elliott and Houston you are really strong in the Wing department. Have you decided whether Houston or Elliott will play the 6th man role? We have been forced to move Smith to the one so both of those guys started at the wings in the preseason. We still aren't opposed to starting Magic for very limited minutes. If we do that, Houston will serve as the 6th man. |
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Post by TrayWithAnA on Aug 28, 2014 13:22:00 GMT -6
Johnny Junior, Washington Post - With training camp revealing the toll age has taken on your veterans, will you be looking towards your younger talent, such as Elliot and Roberts, to cover for them? Has finding a point guard now become No. 1 on the list of immediate goals for the Pistons this season? We may be turning to Elliot and Roberts as trade bait to land a No. 1 if that's what you mean. There really is no way these guys can make up for the hit to our depth. Roberts was a borderline starter before Willis got killed but Elliot was already a starter. Unfortunately there just isn't a good way to accommodate for our weakness at PG |
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Post by IamQuailman on Aug 29, 2014 11:26:31 GMT -6
Awarded 5 points (towards preseason presser 5pt cap).
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credit loco for photoshop
