Quest Summary: Correct Team Breakdown and Rebuilding Practices

TEAM REBUILDING PRACTICES PROVEN TO BE CORRECT AND NEEDED IN THE QUEST FOR THE RING
This is a reference summary; see editorial note at the bottom for details.

1. DO NOT even partially break up a team and rebuild it until such time as it is clearly necessary. Jumping the gun or being early out of the rebuilding gate will do more harm than good.

2. The point in time in which any breaking and rebuilding is necessary is simply AFTER a season when losses substantially exceed wins. Specifically, by number of regular season wins:

40 or more wins: Do not operate in breaking up and rebuilding mode; operate in normal management mode. Whenever a team wins more than it loses, and whenever it makes the playoffs, then normal, careful, and strategic step by step management is the correct management mode rather than any partial or full breaking up and rebuilding.

30-39 wins: Carefully operate in partial breaking up and rebuilding mode. DO NOT break up the team all at once, but do so player by player, trade by trade, acquisition by acqusition, step by step. The partial break-up should be done over at least two and preferably over three years.

29 or fewer wins: Breaking up and rebuilding is necessary, but even in this case you should not necessarily try to break down and rebuild the team in just one year; a two year breaking down is better even when a total breaking down and rebuilding of the team is needed.

3. DO NOT break up a team any more than is absolutely necessary, because breaking up a team is not a favored strategy in the Quest for the Ring. Try to hold on to four starter level players in a partial breakup and two starter level players in a full breakup. Starter level players are those with RPRs of about .700 or higher.

4. The number of things that can go very wrong in any breakup, but especially a total breakup, is large, and the odds that you will produce a contending team out of thin air via a breakup and rebuild are very, very slim, less than the odds of winning big in Las Vegas in fact.

5. The common denominator of this summary for breaking down and rebuilding a team is that most managers try to do too much of this kind of thing too quickly. You want to do as little breaking up and rebuilding as possible; you only do it when you are forced.

6. Wining the Quest for the Ring heavily requires less destructive forms of team managment, for example, holding on to above average players for as long as possible, developing drafted and other young players as much as possible, and looking for and making trades and veteran free agent acquisitions one at a time. A top objective for any top team management is to avoid any breaking down and rebuilding. Needing to break down and rebuild means management has failed.

7. NEVER EVER announce in public that you might or are about to partially or totally break up and rebuild a team.

8. NEVER EVER announce in private that you might or are about to partially or totally break up and rebuild a team. In other words, you must keep your mouth shut about breaking down and rebuilding and let only your actions do the talking.

9. Assuming you have a quality coach, you should generally NOT get rid of the coach during any breaking up and rebuilding.

10. If you do not have a quality coach, you should definitely fire the existing coach, bring in a quality coach, and postpone destructive breaking up and rebuilding for at least a year, pending review of results from the quality coach.

Editorial Note: The above is a Quest Summary that is produced for quick reference. No proof and very little explanation is provided, because this is for quick reference. The proof for the instructions and many implementation details are found in any number of Quest reports, available on the home page only.

Summaries such as this one are posted on the Quest for the Ring Summary site and also on the home page.

Summaries may be updated and/or added to at any time, in which case a brand new post will be made, while at the prior post the old text will be deleted and a link to the new summary will be inserted.


The User Guide for Real Player Ratings, and for the Defensive Adjustments, is located here. You must consult the Guide in order to fully understand the ratings and the value of them, and to understand how to make the best use of them.

The Quest 2009-2010 Traffic Promotion Plan: New User Guide Content

Editorial Note: This is a new Site User Guide article which explains the Quest for the Ring policies and plans, for at least the next year, regarding traffic development, including for example how much and where we provide Quest content to other sites. This is NOT a basketball content report. However, there is important information here regarding Internet traffic. And there are several valuable opportunities for Quest visitors explained below, such as free advertising, link exchange, and several content support platforms offerred by Quest Internet.

Although this is apparently true for every single independent Internet site, the traffic to Quest for the Ring has not met expectations and is much lower than one might think it would be. We do have a non-trivial, fairly substantial amount of traffic. And we do definitely have visitors who spend quality time at Quest, which is a major achievement in itself, but the overall traffic counts and especially the returning traffic counts are much lower than we want them to be.

There is much evidence that virtually all independent internet sites have much less traffic than the average non-webmaster person might think, and have far more difficulty in generating that traffic.

The objective of the Quest for the Ring Traffic and Publishing Plan is simply to build traffic, especially returning traffic, while taking into account the realities.

There is a lot of evidence that building traffic is so difficult that for all practical purposes it is not possible, at least not possible for a good number of years:

FACTUAL BASIS OF THE QUEST TRAFFIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN
1. The “internet (or technology) bubble of the late 1990’s was followed by a bust much worse in real terms than even the ongoing “housing bust”. So the Internet has seemingly from day one always been a place where the actual potential is far less than the perceived potential. The gap between perceived potential and actual potential is so large (or huge even) that it is actually mysterious.

2. There are numerous scam type offers on the internet and via e-mails where the come-on is a false claim about how much a site’s traffic will go up if only it sends a little money to the scam.

3. Google and other search engine policies are substantially secret, made extremely difficult to understand with arcane and confusing terminology, and subject to continual modification as well. It is simply not reasonably possible to study search engine policies and “tailor” your site to maximize search engine response, regardless of what Google or any other search engine tells you publicly.

4. To the extent that search engine policies are not secret, they are generally difficult to understand, complicated to work with to produce higher traffic, and subject to continual change. Believe me, Google does not want you or I to know exactly how they do what they do.

5. There are several major “catch-22s” involved. The biggest one is that to the extent you spend large amounts of time building traffic, you are neglecting the content, which of course means you are less likely to see loyal, returning traffic from any traffic you generate. Generally speaking, the vast majority of the traffic you get from most traffic generating activities is one time only traffic.

6. Experience shows that direct traffic generation, such as through content placement on aggregator sites such as Yardbarker or BallHype generates much less traffic than most people would think. And again, such traffic is overwhelmingly one time only traffic. So the idea that you can spend a few months on traffic building and then sit back and watch your traffic grow is generally false. In other words, almost everything or perhaps literally everything you can do to boost traffic is nothing more than a quick fix.

7. Similar to (6) experience shows that any traffic that is generated through content placement on other sites is temporary traffic that generally does not come back and is not loyal. In other words, traffic generated in this way does not result in any continuing or long-term benefit, so that you would have to continually spend a lot of valuable time cross posting content in order to improve traffic counts, which in turn would reduce the quantity and very possibly the quality of the content.

8. Evidence shows that the overall traffic pattern on the Internet is extremely unequal to say the least: there are a tiny number of sites that get a huge amount of traffic, and a huge number of sites that get essentially no traffic at all.

9. Independent sports (and presumably other) sites that are linked to or “sponsored” by huge corporate sites, such as ESPN, get much less of a boost in traffic than you would think; even those sites do not get anywhere near 1,000 visitors per day, which is probably the benchmark for traffic to be considered substantial from the economics and advertising perspective.

10. Traffic seems to be much more dependent on what the site starts out with than many people would think. In other words, how many friends and associates the site owners bring to the site from day one is a primary determinant of traffic not only in the early days, but for many years after the site has been launched. In other words, a site owner can not depend on the Internet itself for traffic, but rather needs to have a following outside of the Internet in order to get more than a small number of visitors per day.

11. Judging from extensive review of traffic counter details, most Internet traffic is simple people looking for simple things, such as nice pictures or simple opinions. Although Quest is fiercely multimedia and sometimes relatively simplistic, it is generally fiercely sophisticated, fact based, and controversial wherever called for, which means simple people looking for a quick fix are not going to be interested. The Quest audience is clearly limited to people who take basketball very, very seriously, either because they make their living from it, or because they are the kind of intelligent people who always gravitate to the most sophisticated or “advanced” sites.

12. Due to the remarkably limited and problematic nature of RSS traffic counting, Quest is unable to determine the number of readers it has via RSS. Moreover, we are in the dark about the overall reader preference breakdown between internet site and various RSS options. Nor do we know what actual readership is via cross posting, which is another reason by the way we have severely cut back cross posting. For all of these reasons, although we know exactly how many folks visit the Quest sites themselves, Quest is actually unable to determine what its total readership is.

In light of the above and possibly other related facts, and with the need to reduce confusion and counterproductive time expenditure, Quest adopts the following Internet traffic and publishing plan:

2009-2010 QUEST TRAFFIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN, (Effective August 1, 2009)
1. In general, you can conclude from everything above and below that Quest needs its visitors to help us improve traffic counts, because we have concluded that it costs us more than it benefits us to spend a lot of valuable time on activities intended to improve traffic. Therefore, we request anyone who likes or who benefits from Quest content to exchange links, and also to give us a shout out on any Internet site where they think basketball people are who will like or benefit from Quest. Email questforthering at Gmail .com whenever you act to help the Quest, and we will subsequently help you out as well.

2. Quest will NOT any longer cross post a large percentage of content on other sites.

3. Approximately 25% of content MAY be reproduced on other sites, with an absolute limit of 33% of content.

4. The primary site for content sharing will continue to be http://www.sportstwo.com. Like all sites other than major corporate sites such as ESPN, SportsTwo is also subject to ultimately surprisingly limited traffic. There was discussion about moving to a somewhat higher traffic sight, but in the end it was decided that since the objective is to build traffic to Quest for the Ring, and since the objective is not met regardless of where content is posted, that it doesn’t matter much where cross posting is done. Although SportsTwo is not in the highest traffic tier among independent sports communities, it is not in the lower tiers either. Finally, even the highest traffic independent sports sites are still surprisingly limited in traffic, at least when you break down their traffic to actual relevant areas, such as a specific team forum. So more for the sake of tradition than anything else, SportsTwo has been renewed so to speak under the present Traffic Plan for most but not necessarily all cross posting.

5. Limited additional cross posting at other sites is under consideration and may be done on an experimental basis.

6. Quest may visit totally independent team forums once or twice a year. From now on, the conversations on such sites will be reproduced in real time on Quest, and not after a delay of weeks or months.

7. Links (without any content) to Quest content will be provided on certain sites that invite them, most notably Yardbarker, but only on an as time permits basis. It is expected that the percentage of reports for which links are provided will be between 20% and 50%.

8. Other than active forum discussions (see(6)) Quest content posted at SportsTwo and occasionally at other sites will be posted at those sites only after a delay of about 30 days, meaning that those who want or need immediate access will have to visit Quest even for the limited (see(3)) amount of content that does eventually appear elsewhere. This will completely reverse the bad habit we have sometimes had of posting content elsewhere and then not posting it on Quest until weeks or even months later.

9. The policies being adopted here represent a major cut back in time spent on tasks intended to build traffic. Quest is now 32 months old in terms of content and is now 26 months old as an Internet site. In light of the above facts, Quest will not, as was the case in many of the first 20 months of its Internet existence, spend large amounts of time on various things intended to build traffic. Roughly speaking, in the first 20 months, 35-40% of total working time was spent on such activities, with the other 60-65% on the content. Under the new plan, the amount of time that can be spent on activities intended to build traffic will be capped at 15%, with a target of 10%.

10. The cap described in (9) will ensure the continuing improvement in the quality and quantity of Quest content, something which as already occurred during the phase in of the change. For example, the Real Player Rating system was upgraded a year or two more quickly than it would have been had we been still spending close to 40% of time available on activities intended to build traffic.

11. Quest has decided, in other words, that given the choice between a very small amount of traffic and a moderate quality and quantity on the one hand, or a very small amount of traffic but a high quality and quantity of content on the other hand, that the latter combination is better for us. What this means is that the “chosen few” who do make the effort to bookmark and visit Quest, or at least to read Quest in an RSS or My Yahoo page or the like, will be treated as royalty more so than ever, as they will get the high quality and high quantity basketball content that is unique on the Internet and that (as has been explained) the vast majority are missing.

12. In conjunction with (11) and in conjunction with this plan as a whole, Quest is planning and in some cases developing new ways for treating our actual small audience base to even more features not found hardly anywhere else, such as Blog Talk Radio, an almost Real Time Real Player Rating database, and free or virtually free custom Real Player Rating and Basketball Winning Consulting Reports.

13. Quest continues to offer link exchange to any basketball site as long as it passes a basic qualification test. Any even half serious basketball site is invited to email Quest at questforthering at Gmail .com to get the link exchange. Such links will go somewhere in the top quarter of the Quest home page.

14. Quest continues to offer free advertising until at least June 30 2010. For details, see the User Guide article on the subject that is located here: http://thequestfortheringuserguide.blogspot.com/2009/03/free-advertising-program.html Any one who has a basketball related good or service that they would like to advertise for free is invited to email Quest at questforthering at Gmail .com

15. Quest has set up a “Ning Site” and invites participation in it. The address is http://thequestforthering.ning.com/

16. Quest has disabled the comment by post system and has established a centralized discussion page, where comments for any and all posts can be made. We are waiting and will apparently have to wait until the cows come home for participation in this. The discussion page is at http://thequestfortheringdiscussions.blogspot.com/

17. Aside from the basic discussion page described in (14) Quest also has established a relatively unique site called My Quest for the Ring, which is best described as a “public blog”. Anyone who has posted a few non-trivial comments on the discussion page can apply and be approved to be able to make posts on My Quest for the Ring which, were it ever to develop interest, would be an unusual, truely fun, and interesting basketball spot.

18. Those who outgrow My Quest for the Ring explained in (15) can get their own full scale site with any number of Quest features and with substantial support from the Quest Internet Service, which at this time has created and maintains more than 200 content rich Internet sites. Some of them are maintained and improved much more often than others of them.

19. The sites described in (15) (16) and (17) represent a truly comprehensive and state of the art social community system which, however, is so far lacking participation. Quest has done more than its duty in this area, and will simply have to wait indefinitely for participation. We can actually live with no one ever participating, and a case can be made that it is actually better long term if there is very little or no participation, since heavier participation would drain valuable resources from the production of primary content.

20. If someone wishes to post Quest content on another site, they should write to questforthering at Gmail .com with their proposal. We are more likely than not to gladly approve such requests as long as you follow a limited number of requirements, most notably a requirement that you credit and link back to the content posted.

21. Posting Quest content elsewhere without permission and/or without attribution and link back is an illegal violation of copyright law and will be contested legally. Quest actually spends a little time now and then to search for those violating our copyright. All Quest content is copyrighted in the year it is produced, and all copyright rights are reserved.
================

The User Guide for Real Player Ratings, and for the Defensive Adjustments, is located here. You must consult the Guide in order to fully understand the ratings and the value of them, and to understand how to make the best use of them.

The Detroit Pistons by Month November 2008 - February 2009

IMPORTANT EDITORIAL NOTE: This November 2008-February 2009 detailed history of the Pistons was actually produced in early March (of 2009) but not posted until now, in July 2009. To make a long story short, Quest was going through a major transformation for the better at the time, but some things got lost in the shuffle.

During at least the rest of July, we will be doing what we previously pledged we would never have to do again, which is posting content that was posted elsewhere many weeks ago. This is a bad habit that has proved to be tough to break, but break it we will.

New publishing rules going into effect will make it harder than ever for us to fall into the trap of posting content elsewhere and then not posting it here until after a delay that can be numerous weeks. In fact, these new rules are intended to reverse the bad habit. From now on, we will post content here, and then post it elsewhere only after at least one month, if at all. Only a small percentage of Quest content, roughly 25%, will be posted elsewhere after the delay of one month or more. The bottom line is that although you will still ocassionally see Quest content elsewhere, you have to bookmark and visit Quest or you will miss the great majority of Quest content.

With respect to this particular report, The March 2009 and April 2009 Pistons results were of course not available in early March. Also, the Real Player Rating system was fairly substantially improved since early March. Therefore, we are not now and will most likely not in the future be completing this month by month history of the Detroit Pistons. Quite honestly it's not a big deal that the March and April Pistons will never be detailed, because:

(a)The situation was so depressing that Allen Iverson, for all practical purposes, quit the team in late February and played in only 3 games during all of March and April! and because
(b)The Pistons overall tanked even worse in March and April than they did prior to that.
==========================

I made a sweet internet discovery on March 5, 2009. I found a place that archives who did what by the month This is very valuable, because it bridges the gap between mere game stats at the one extreme and cumulative season stats at the other extreme. Looking at how players have done by the month can give you extremely valuable information that you could not get otherwise. Both coaches and players can definitely be evaluated more accurately than before.

For example, remember at the beginning of the season, during November, Iverson was point guard for Detroit? With the month breakdown, you can see how he did while he was designated PG. And you can see how the other players did while he was PG. Then you can compare all of that to another month, January for example, when Iverson was 2-guard again.

The Pistons have made so many starting lineup and rotation changes this year that everyone's head is spinning. But I have just the medicine: monthly Real Player Ratings, which if you are smart will suggest reasons why some starting lineups and rotations were and are better than others.

DETROIT PISTONS
REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Quality of Players
DURING NOVEMBER 2008

Amir Johnson 0.830
Allen Iverson 0.753
Will Bynum 0.752
Rasheed Wallace 0.749
Tayshaun Prince 0.740
Rodney Stuckey 0.635
Jason Maxiell 0.629
Walter Hermann 0.628
Richard Hamilton 0.600
Kwame Brown 0.591
Aaron Afflalo 0.405

When using the ratings and the scale below, do not forget that the smaller the number of games included, the more a player may be above or below his long term career rating. For example, Amir Johnson was a star player during November 2008, but he may or may not be a star player for the season as a whole, and he may or may not be a star player for his career as a whole.

SCALE FOR REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Perfect Player? Is there Such a Thing? 1.000 and more
Historic Super Star 0.950 and more
Super Star 0.850 0.949
A Star Player; An Extremely Good Starter 0.775 0.849
A Great Player; A Solid Starter 0.700 0.774
Major Role Player 0.650 0.699
Role Player 0.600 0.649
Minor Role Player 0.550 0.599
Very Minor Role Player 0.500 0.549
Poor Player at This Time 0.450 0.499
Very Poor Player at This Time 0.350 0.449
Extremely Poor Player at This Time / Disaster and less 0.349

DETROIT PISTONS
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Quantity of Players
DURING NOVEMBER 2008

Rasheed Wallace 364.90
Tayshaun Prince 359.05
Allen Iverson 305.05
Richard Hamilton 289.95
Jason Maxiell 168.70
Rodney Stuckey 154.25
Amir Johnson 147.05
Kwame Brown 105.45
Aaron Afflalo 96.85
Walter Hermann 86.10
Will Bynum 72.80

DETROIT PISTONS
DEFENDING SUBRATING
Tracked and Hidden Defending
DURING NOVEMBER 2008

Amir Johnson 0.572
Kwame Brown 0.499
Rasheed Wallace 0.443
Allen Iverson 0.387
Will Bynum 0.377
Tayshaun Prince 0.304
Rodney Stuckey 0.295
Jason Maxiell 0.195
Richard Hamilton 0.155
Aaron Afflalo 0.121
Walter Hermann 0.093

DETROIT PISTONS
OFFENSE SUBRATING
All Tracked Offensive Actions
DURING NOVEMBER 2008

Will Bynum 0.535
Walter Hermann 0.535
Tayshaun Prince 0.490
Richard Hamilton 0.479
Allen Iverson 0.471
Amir Johnson 0.453
Jason Maxiell 0.437
Rodney Stuckey 0.430
Rasheed Wallace 0.366
Aaron Afflalo 0.287
Kwame Brown 0.242

PISTONS NOVEMBER 2008 GAMES
Sat, Nov 1 Washington W 117-109
Mon, Nov 3 @ Charlotte W 101-83
Wed, Nov 5 @ Toronto W 100-93
Fri, Nov 7 @ New Jersey L 96-103
Sun, Nov 9 Boston L 76-88
Tue, Nov 11 @ Sacramento W 100-92
Thu, Nov 13 @ Golden State W 107-102
Fri, Nov 14 @ LA Lakers W 106-95
Sun, Nov 16 @ Phoenix L 86-104
Wed, Nov 19 Cleveland W 96-89
Thu, Nov 20 @ Boston L 80-98
Sun, Nov 23 Minnesota L 80-106
Wed, Nov 26 NY Knicks W 110-96
Fri, Nov 28 Milwaukee W 107-97
Sun, Nov 30 Portland L 85-96
==================================================

DETROIT PISTONS
REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Quality of Players
DURING DECEMBER 2008

Rodney Stuckey 0.882
Allen Iverson 0.802
Antonio McDyess 0.698
Amir Johnson 0.673
Richard Hamilton 0.653
Rasheed Wallace 0.648
Tayshaun Prince 0.637
Jason Maxiell 0.452
Kwame Brown 0.439
Arron Afflalo 0.347

When using the ratings above and the scale below, do not forget that the smaller the number of games included, the more a player may be above or below his long term career rating. For example, Amir Johnson was a star player during November 2008, but he may or may not be a star player for the season as a whole, and he may or may not be a star player for his career as a whole.

SCALE FOR REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Perfect Player? Is there Such a Thing? 1.000 and more
Historic Super Star 0.950 and more
Super Star 0.850 0.949
A Star Player; An Extremely Good Starter 0.775 0.849
A Great Player; A Solid Starter 0.700 0.774
Major Role Player 0.650 0.699
Role Player 0.600 0.649
Minor Role Player 0.550 0.599
Very Minor Role Player 0.500 0.549
Poor Player at This Time 0.450 0.499
Very Poor Player at This Time 0.350 0.449
Extremely Poor Player at This Time / Disaster and less 0.349

DETROIT PISTONS
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Quantity of Players
DURING DECEMBER 2008

Allen Iverson 383.35
Rodney Stuckey 375.90
Tayshaun Prince 335.85
Rasheed Wallace 258.05
Richard Hamilton 237.60
Antonio McDyess 164.85
Arron Afflalo 91.45
Jason Maxiell 76.60
Amir Johnson 71.45
Kwame Brown 30.60

DETROIT PISTONS
DEFENDING SUBRATING
Tracked and Hidden Defending
DURING DECEMBER 2008

Amir Johnson 0.534
Kwame Brown 0.416
Rasheed Wallace 0.414
Allen Iverson 0.390
Rodney Stuckey 0.327
Tayshaun Prince 0.314
Antonio McDyess 0.307
Jason Maxiell 0.203
Richard Hamilton 0.141
Arron Afflalo 0.101

DETROIT PISTONS
OFFENSE SUBRATING
All Tracked Offensive Actions
DURING DECEMBER 2008

Rodney Stuckey 0.649
Richard Hamilton 0.547
Allen Iverson 0.521
Antonio McDyess 0.417
Tayshaun Prince 0.371
Amir Johnson 0.298
Rasheed Wallace 0.289
Jason Maxiell 0.251
Arron Afflalo 0.250
Kwame Brown 0.085

DECEMBER 2008 PISTONS GAMES
Tue, Dec 2 @ San Antonio W 89-77
Fri, Dec 5 Philadelphia L 91-96
Sun, Dec 7 @ NY Knicks L 92-104
Tue, Dec 9 @ Washington L 94-107
Fri, Dec 12 Indiana W 114-110
Sat, Dec 13 @ Charlotte W 90-86
Wed, Dec 17 Washington W 88-74
Fri, Dec 19 Utah L 114-120 OT
Sun, Dec 21 @ Atlanta L 78-85
Tue, Dec 23 Chicago W 104-98
Fri, Dec 26 Oklahoma City W 90-88
Sat, Dec 27 @ Milwaukee W 87-76
Mon, Dec 29 Orlando W 88-82
Wed, Dec 31 New Jersey W 83-75
===========================================

DETROIT PISTONS
REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Quality of Players
DURING JANUARY 2009

Will Bynum 0.889
Rodney Stuckey 0.729
Rasheed Wallace 0.687
Antonio McDyess 0.673
Tayshaun Prince 0.653
Kwame Brown 0.647
Jason Maxiell 0.638
Allen Iverson 0.637
Richard Hamilton 0.622
Amir Johnson 0.587
Arron Afflalo 0.238

When using the ratings above and the scale below, do not forget that the smaller the number of games included, the more a player may be above or below his long term career rating. For example, Amir Johnson was a star player during November 2008, but he may or may not be a star player for the season as a whole, and he may or may not be a star player for his career as a whole.

SCALE FOR REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Perfect Player? Is there Such a Thing? 1.000 and more
Historic Super Star 0.950 and more
Super Star 0.850 0.949
A Star Player; An Extremely Good Starter 0.775 0.849
A Great Player; A Solid Starter 0.700 0.774
Major Role Player 0.650 0.699
Role Player 0.600 0.649
Minor Role Player 0.550 0.599
Very Minor Role Player 0.500 0.549
Poor Player at This Time 0.450 0.499
Very Poor Player at This Time 0.350 0.449
Extremely Poor Player at This Time / Disaster and less 0.349

DETROIT PISTONS
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Quantity of Players
DURING JANUARY 2009

Rodney Stuckey 351.05
Tayshaun Prince 333.45
Allen Iverson 299.15
Antonio McDyess 228.75
Rasheed Wallace 225.70
Richard Hamilton 178.80
Jason Maxiell 145.00
Amir Johnson 101.85
Kwame Brown 66.15
Arron Afflalo 48.50
Will Bynum 47.70

DETROIT PISTONS
DEFENDING SUBRATING
Tracked and Hidden Defending
DURING JANUARY 2009

Kwame Brown 0.525
Amir Johnson 0.499
Rasheed Wallace 0.427
Antonio McDyess 0.379
Will Bynum 0.376
Allen Iverson 0.339
Tayshaun Prince 0.300
Rodney Stuckey 0.295
Jason Maxiell 0.183
Richard Hamilton 0.139
Arron Afflalo 0.014

DETROIT PISTONS
OFFENSE SUBRATING
All Tracked Offensive Actions
DURING JANUARY 2009

Will Bynum 0.680
Rodney Stuckey 0.529
Richard Hamilton 0.518
Jason Maxiell 0.457
Allen Iverson 0.413
Tayshaun Prince 0.404
Rasheed Wallace 0.317
Antonio McDyess 0.315
Kwame Brown 0.267
Amir Johnson 0.262
Arron Afflalo 0.230

PISTONS GAMES IN JANUARY 2009
Fri, Jan 2 Sacramento W 98-92
Sun, Jan 4 @ LA Clippers W 88-87
Wed, Jan 7 @ Portland L 83-84
Fri, Jan 9 @ Denver W 93-90
Sat, Jan 10 @ Utah L 82-99
Tue, Jan 13 Charlotte L 78-80
Wed, Jan 14 @ Indiana L 106-110 OT
Fri, Jan 16 @ Oklahoma City L 79-89
Sat, Jan 17 New Orleans L 85-91
Mon, Jan 19 @ Memphis W 87-79
Wed, Jan 21 Toronto W 95-76
Fri, Jan 23 Dallas L 91-112
Sun, Jan 25 Houston L 105-108
Wed, Jan 28 @ Minnesota W 98-89
Fri, Jan 30 Boston L 78-86
==================================================

DETROIT PISTONS
REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Quality of Players
DURING FEBRUARY 2009

Allen Iverson 0.789
Richard Hamilton 0.768
Antonio McDyess 0.733
Rasheed Wallace 0.719
Tayshaun Prince 0.640
Amir Johnson 0.583
Rodney Stuckey 0.439
Jason Maxiell 0.426
Walter Hermann 0.245
Arron Afflalo 0.131

When using the ratings above and the scale below, do not forget that the smaller the number of games included, the more a player may be above or below his long term career rating. For example, Amir Johnson was a star player during November 2008, but he may or may not be a star player for the season as a whole, and he may or may not be a star player for his career as a whole.

SCALE FOR REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Perfect Player? Is there Such a Thing? 1.000 and more
Historic Super Star 0.950 and more
Super Star 0.850 0.949
A Star Player; An Extremely Good Starter 0.775 0.849
A Great Player; A Solid Starter 0.700 0.774
Major Role Player 0.650 0.699
Role Player 0.600 0.649
Minor Role Player 0.550 0.599
Very Minor Role Player 0.500 0.549
Poor Player at This Time 0.450 0.499
Very Poor Player at This Time 0.350 0.449
Extremely Poor Player at This Time / Disaster and less 0.349

DETROIT PISTONS
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Quantity of Players
DURING FEBRUARY 2009

Richard Hamilton 281.75
Antonio McDyess 275.20
Rasheed Wallace 266.20
Tayshaun Prince 262.85
Allen Iverson 241.95
Rodney Stuckey 132.15
Jason Maxiell 83.10
Amir Johnson 44.15
Walter Hermann 13.25
Arron Afflalo 10.75

DETROIT PISTONS
DEFENDING SUBRATING
Tracked and Hidden Defending
DURING FEBRUARY 2009

Amir Johnson 0.508
Rasheed Wallace 0.417
Allen Iverson 0.385
Antonio McDyess 0.300
Tayshaun Prince 0.276
Rodney Stuckey 0.243
Walter Hermann 0.147
Jason Maxiell 0.145
Richard Hamilton 0.108
Arron Afflalo 0.049

DETROIT PISTONS
OFFENSE SUBRATING
All Tracked Offensive Actions
DURING FEBRUARY 2009

Richard Hamilton 0.698
Allen Iverson 0.513
Antonio McDyess 0.461
Tayshaun Prince 0.417
Rasheed Wallace 0.365
Rodney Stuckey 0.295
Amir Johnson 0.287
Jason Maxiell 0.283
Walter Hermann 0.098
Arron Afflalo 0.086

PISTONS GAMES IN FEBRUARY 2009
Sun, Feb 1 Cleveland L 80-90
Wed, Feb 4 Miami W 93-90
Sat, Feb 7 @ Milwaukee W 126-121 OT
Sun, Feb 8 Phoenix L 97-107
Tue, Feb 10 @ Chicago L 102-107
Wed, Feb 11 Atlanta L 95-99
Tue, Feb 17 Milwaukee L 86-92
Thu, Feb 19 San Antonio L 79-83
Sun, Feb 22 @ Cleveland L 78-99
Tue, Feb 24 @ Miami L 91-103
Wed, Feb 25 @ New Orleans L 87-90
Fri, Feb 27 @ Orlando W 93-85
===============================================
For reference, the ratings for all the 4 months combined into the 2008-09 ratings through Feb. 25 are here. Rodney Stuckey was .800 on Feb. 8 and dropped like a rock to .700 as of Feb. 25:

DETROIT PISTONS
REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Quality of Players
2008-09 REGULAR SEASON
THROUGH FEB. 25 2009

Allen Iverson† 0.744
Antonio McDyess 0.712
Rodney Stuckey 0.700
Rasheed Wallace 0.697
Amir Johnson 0.688
Tayshaun Prince 0.680
Richard Hamilton 0.638
Kwame Brown 0.580
Jason Maxiell 0.558
Arron Afflalo 0.321

DETROIT PISTONS
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Quantity of Players
2008-09 REGULAR SEASON
THROUGH FEB. 25 2009

Tayshaun Prince 1287.65
Allen Iverson† 1207.25
Rasheed Wallace 1088.90
Rodney Stuckey 994.85
Richard Hamilton 932.20
Antonio McDyess 651.20
Jason Maxiell 461.80
Amir Johnson 382.85
Arron Afflalo 256.20
Kwame Brown 215.45

DETROIT PISTONS
DEFENDING SUBRATING
Tracked and Hidden Defending
2008-09 REGULAR SEASON
THROUGH FEB. 25 2009

Amir Johnson 0.534
Kwame Brown 0.495
Rasheed Wallace 0.426
Allen Iverson† 0.373
Antonio McDyess 0.331
Tayshaun Prince 0.304
Rodney Stuckey 0.294
Jason Maxiell 0.186
Richard Hamilton 0.135
Arron Afflalo 0.083

DETROIT PISTONS
OFFENSE SUBRATING
All Tracked Offensive Actions
2008-09 REGULAR SEASON
THROUGH FEB. 25 2009

Richard Hamilton 0.539
Rodney Stuckey 0.501
Allen Iverson† 0.480
Tayshaun Prince 0.427
Antonio McDyess 0.407
Jason Maxiell 0.374
Amir Johnson 0.335
Rasheed Wallace 0.330
Arron Afflalo 0.242
Kwame Brown 0.218
===================================================

PREVIOUS SEASON DETROIT PISTONS
And the 2007-08 Pistons; you can see how many of them are not as good this year as they were last year. By the way, Chauncey Billup's latest 2008-09 rating with the Nuggets is .859, so he is down too.

DETROIT PISTONS
REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Quality of Players
2007-08 REGULAR SEASON

Chauncey Billups 0.930
Rasheed Wallace 0.793
Amir Johnson 0.761
Richard Hamilton 0.734
Tayshaun Prince 0.724
Rodney Stuckey 0.648
Antonio McDyess 0.648
Jason Maxiell 0.620
Ronald Murray† 0.586
Jarvis Hayes 0.531
Arron Afflalo 0.486

DETROIT PISTONS
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Quantity of Players
2007-08 REGULAR SEASON

Chauncey Billups 2188.85
Tayshaun Prince 1714.30
Rasheed Wallace 1710.55
Richard Hamilton 1673.60
Antonio McDyess 1394.10
Jason Maxiell 1063.90
Jarvis Hayes 675.60
Rodney Stuckey 627.05
Amir Johnson 530.35
Arron Afflalo 407.35
Ronald Murray† 203.25

DETROIT PISTONS
DEFENDING SUBRATING
Tracked and Hidden Defending
2007-08 REGULAR SEASON

Amir Johnson 0.468
Rasheed Wallace 0.453
Antonio McDyess 0.337
Tayshaun Prince 0.335
Arron Afflalo 0.275
Rodney Stuckey 0.270
Chauncey Billups 0.264
Jason Maxiell 0.245
Richard Hamilton 0.185
Jarvis Hayes 0.151
Ronald Murray† 0.124


The User Guide for Real Player Ratings, and for the Defensive Adjustments, is located here. You must consult the Guide in order to fully understand the ratings and the value of them, and to understand how to make the best use of them.

Detroit Pistons 2002-2008 R.I.P., and Joe Dumars' Perfect Career is History

DETROIT PISTONS 2008-09 SUMMARY
The Pistons, one of the very best NBA teams since the turn of the century, started 2008-09 with the core of Chauncey Billups, Rasheed Wallace, Richard Hamilton, and Tayshaun Prince, champions all, and with an assumption among their fans that they would be winning at least two playoff series, enough to reach the East finals (presumably against the Celtics). But they ended the season in complete disarray and obscurity, routed by LeBron James and Cleveland 4 miserable routs to zero.

So what in the hell is going on in Detroit and who is most responsible for this rapid and chaotic downfall?

JOE DUMARS: A BRIEF HISTORY
Detroit Pistons General Manager Joe Dumars is basketball royalty and until now has seemingly had an almost perfect career both as a player and as a manager. Drafted 18th overall in the first round in 1985 he played for the Detroit Pistons for his entire career, from 1985 to 1999. He won two championships as a player in 1989 and 1990, and was voted the 1989 Finals MVP, averaging 27.3 points per game as the Pistons swept the Los Angeles Lakers in four games. The following year, he won accolades during the Eastern Conference Finals when, with Dennis Rodman, he was a cornerstone of coach Chuck Daly's "Jordan Rules" defensive playbook, which forced the Chicago Bulls to change their offensive strategy to include less of Michael Jordan and more of the other members of the team. According to Jordan, Dumars was the best defender he faced in the NBA.

During his career, he was selected to the All-Star team six times, and to the All-Defensive first team four times. In 14 seasons, all with the Pistons, Dumars scored 16,401 points, handed out 4,612 assists, grabbed 2,203 rebounds and recorded 902 steals.

As if that player history was not enough, then you have to really respect the manager history up until recently anyway. Dumars became the Pistons top manager in 2000, and consider the following remarkable history of playoff series wins:

For the record, and keeping in mind that if you win four playoff series in a row you have won the ring, the seven year Pistons greatness run was as follows:

2001-02: Won 1 Series, Lost Semifinal
2002-03: Won 2 Series, Lost East Final
2003-04: Won 4 Series, Won the Quest for the Ring
2004-05: Won 3 Series, Lost the NBA Championship
2005-06: Won 2 Series, Lost East Final
2006-07: Won 2 Series, Lost East Final
2007-08: Won 2 Series, Lost East Final

In summary, the Pistons with Dumars as top manager won 16 playoff series in 7 years, 2.3 per year, in a League where more than half the franchises are incapable of averaging even one playoff series win per year, and in a League where it sometimes seems as if the Boston Celtics, the San Antonio Spurs, and the Los Angeles Lakers account for more than half of all the playoff series wins.

For the complete and I do mean complete statistical record of all of these good 2001-2008 Piston teams, visit the best (and easiest to use) statistical site.

DUMARS FINALLY MAKES SOME BIG MISTAKES, AND UNFORTUNATELY THEY ARE WHOPPERS
Can someone who has apparently had an almost perfect career suddenly make a bunch of big mistakes? You or I might assume no, but the answer is clearly yes.

Dumars is more to blame than anyone for the Pistons having tanked so badly in 2008-09. He jumped the gun on rebuilding too quickly, both by trading Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson in early November, and also by running his mouth way too often and way too soon about how "nothing was off the table" as far as sending any and all Pistons to other teams in exchange for God only knows who and for God only knows what draft pick to be taken later.

Unfortunately for Dumars and Detroit, basketball players, like the stock market, hate uncertainty. So the Pistons responded to the total uncertainty and the total lack of loyalty promoted by Dumars by raising the white flag and by packing it in for the season.

Although Richard Hamilton may have been extra negatively affected by not having Chauncey Billups to pass him the ball at all the right times and places and by the Allen Iverson thing, and although now fired rookie coach Michael Curry made a complete mess of things by not being able to settle on a starting lineup, or even on a type of starting lineup ("To be small or not to be small, that is the question, and I know not how to answer it" laugh out loud) it was Dumars who did the most damage of all.

The Quest Real Player Rating system reveals that that several veteran Pistons were no where near as good in 2008-09 as they were just one year previous, which spells out to me that those players decided it was not worth maximum effort in 2008-09.

So in short, the 2008-09 Pistons tanked, and they tanked badly.

The Iverson mess, which if you read or have read Quest reports you know all about, was the mess inside the mess. Pistons reporters and writers including yours truly often could not decide what is more important to spend time on, the Iverson mess or the overall Pistons mess. It ended up to be too much mess to take in at once. So those free to move on, including yours truly, did just that; the 08-09 Pistons were not really worth covering after the All Star Break.

Always remember this if you are a team manager (or a coach who the players know influences the manager): Never, ever, ever even hint that you are going to smash up a team and start over, because you are unnecessarily risking your players ramping back to "standard effort" rather than "maximum effort," whereas the latter is often the only thing that can win you even one playoff series let alone more than that. Another reason to never do what Dumars did is that you reduce your team's bargaining power when it actually comes time to sign and trade for players, both because you have come across as desperate, so teams think they can beat you in a trade, and because no one wants to play for a General Manager who appears to not be very stable or loyal.

So now the Pistons lie in ruins, their 2002-2008 run over and done. Even Dumars himself is warning in advance that the Pistons are probably going to be losers over the next (who knows how many) seasons.

THE NEW PISTONS
Since life goes on, let's check out the Pistons transactions since the end of the season:

July 14, 2009 Acquired a future second round draft choice from the Denver Nuggets for guard Arron Afflalo, forward Walter Sharpe and cash considerations.
July 10, 2009 Named John Kuester coach.
July 9, 2009 Detroit signed guard Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva to a five-year contract.
July 1, 2009 Fired coach Michael Curry.
June 25, 2009 Detroit traded the draft rights to forward Chase Budinger to Houston for a future second-round pick and cash.
June 23, 2009 Milwaukee traded traded center Fabricio Oberto to Detroit for forward Amir Johnson
April 29, 2009 Excercised the the 2009-10 option on the contract of guard Will Bynum.

OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE TRANSACTIONS
Afflalo had an extremely low .386 Real Player Rating for the Pistons this past season, and Sharpe is a D-League type, so the July 14 transaction was a low level deal where Detroit is rebuilding and Denver is making sure they stay clear of the luxury tax despite all their expensive acquisitions doing the boom years.

The Nuggets decided not to give Dahntay Jones a contract, despite the fact that Jones was the 2-Guard starter both in the regular and in the playoffs, once again showing you that in Denver the right hand (the management) can and often does completely undo what the left hand (the coaches) have done. More specifically, the management loves 2-Guard J.R. Smith while the coaches (at least George Karl) hates him, although probably not as much as before.

Unfortunately for Denver, you will never win the Quest for the Ring unless the coaches and the managers are on the same page, with each taking actions that complement the others' actons, rather than cancelling out the other's actions. You have to have as many meetings as are necessary to make sure the coaches and the managers are on the same page. You can bet your last dollar that the Lakers do this.

RECENT ACQUSITIONS OF VETERANS
CHARLIE VILLANUEVA
REAL PLAYER RATINGS (RPR)
Career RPR: .751 Outstanding Player / Solid Starter Level

2008-09
RPR: .825: Star Player / Well Above Normal Starter Level
TRPP (Production): 1727.71
Offensive Sub Rating: .571
Defensive Sub Rating: .254

First Thoughts That Comes to Mind: This is a well above average player, more so offensively than defensively. You can imagine him on a Championship team, but a little more likely as a fantastic sixth man than as a starter.

BEN GORDON
REAL PLAYER RATINGS (RPR)
Career RPR: .706 Major Role Player / Good Enough to Start

2008-09
RPR: .737 Major Role Player / Good Enough to Start
TRPP (Production): 2210.55
Offensive Sub Rating: .540
Defensive Sub Rating: .197

First Thoughts That Comes to Mind: Good enough to start, but not good enough to start in a Championship. Not very good defensively.

FABRICIO OBERTO
REAL PLAYER RATINGS (RPR)
Career RPR: .572 Marginal Role Player

2008-09
RPR: .501 Major Role Player / Good Enough to Start
TRPP (Production): 339.05
Offensive Sub Rating: .353
Defensive Sub Rating: .148

First Thoughts That Comes to Mind: I simply don't understand the Amir Johnson for Fabricio Oberto trade. Looking at the ratings, this trade is grossly in Milwaukee's favor. Oberto actually came from the Spurs. San Antonio was cleaning house and considered Oberto as a bust they had to dump off. Tack on some more losses for Detroit in the upcoming season.

SCALE FOR REGULAR SEASON REAL PLAYER RATINGS ADJUSTED FOR HIDDEN DEFENDING
Perfect for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.100 and more
Historic Super Star 1.000 1.099
Super Star 0.900 0.999
A Star Player / A Well Above Normal Starter 0.800 0.899
Outstanding Player: A Solid Starter 0.750 0.799
Major Role Player / Good Enough to Start 0.700 0.749
Good Role Player / Often a Good 6th Man 0.640 0.699
Satisfactory Role Player 0.580 0.639
Marginal Role Player 0.520 0.579
Poor Player 0.460 0.519
Very Poor Player 0.400 0.459
Extremely Poor Player and less 0.399

The User Guide for Real Player Ratings, and for the Defensive Adjustments, is located here. You must consult the Guide in order to fully understand the ratings and the value of them, and to understand how to make the best use of them.

ROOKIES FROM THE DRAFT
Austin Daye F, 6-11, Gonzaga (first round)—Very versatile offensive player whose lack of strength will be a liability defensively. He’ll be an upgrade at the backup small forward spot.

DaJuan Summers(notes), F, 6-8, Georgetown (second round)—The Pistons view him mainly as a small forward, though he played a lot of power forward in college last season. Isn’t afraid to mix it up but needs to become a better ball-handler.

Jonas Jerebko(notes), F, 6-9, Sweden (second round)—The Pistons were impressed with his all-around game and size during a team workout and believe his best position is power forward. Can bull his way onto the roster with a strong summer-league showing.

Quest does not yet have a good, scientific way to evaluate college players, and we don't usually make subjective comments about player styles and personalities. So the above comments are those at Yahoo Sports.

Although drafting and having good rookies is important, and is untimately a necessary component to winning the Quest, rookies can not possibly by themselves dig Detroit out of the hole it is currently in.

HAMILTON FOR A FRONT COURT PLAYER?
Since Rasheed Wallace bolted for Boston and Antonio McDyess bolted for San Antonio, the Pistons are grossly small up front until they get another front court player, which they are scrambling to do as we speak. Detroit has relatively limited resources for this task, so don't expect anything big, and specifically you can rule out the idea that Hamilton will be traded.

THE NEW COACH
As for the other Pistons transactions, they have a new Coach, John Kuester, who has been an assistant Coach in the NBA for 14 years, but will be the second rookie Head Coach in as many years for the Pistons, who decided they could not afford Doug Collins or Avery Johnson or certain others who would have come with a much higher price tag but also a much higher chance of long term success.

Dumars in the last three years has now cemented a reputation for being a manager who doesn't know what he wants in a coach, and/or a reputation for being a manager who doesn't give the coaches he hires enough time or enough rope to do their jobs. Three quality coaches: Rick Carlisle, Larry Brown, and Flip Saunders took care of the first seven Dumars years, but now Dumars seems to be drawing blanks and coming up more or less empty on the coaching front, which of course normally means losing seasons are on the way.

I don't know much about Kuester, but I do know that whenever a team "settles" for a head coach, meaning that it does not consider the position to be crucial for winning, it is asking for trouble and failure. So until proven otherwise, the default view of the Kuester hiring has to be that Dumars has made another serious blunder, which in turn suggests that Dumars had better start to think about early retirement so that someone else can take over before the Pistons become the Grizzlies of the East.

THE OVERALL VERDICT AS OF NOW
The Pistons are going to be a fairly major losing team this year, and they will probably be so far in the hole by next April that top free agents will be very wary of going to Detroit. Dumars should have kept his mouth shut and/or he should have kept Chauncey Billups.

And Dumars should have consulted a basketball economist, such as the one on staff here at Quest, about what the 2009-10 salary cap might be. The NBA caused a lot of scrambling among certain unprepared (in the dark?) front-office executives by lowering the salary cap to $57.7 million, $1 million less than a year ago. Dumars had projected the cap would remain status quo.

These days, Dumars is living in fear that the 2010-11 salary cap will be lower still, which will throw yet another huge monkey wrench into his grandiose and so far disastrous "Pistons Rebuilding Project" The funny thing is, the whole thing could have been put off for one or two years. And the other funny thing is, instead of changing the Pistons one careful step at a time, Dumars with his big mouth ended up blowing up the whole team as if it had been losing for years and years, the opposite of what the situation was.

So Dumars' perfect career would appear to be history, and the hole he has dug would appear to be a deep one.