Pistons guard Richard “Rip” Hamilton corroborated an account by Allen Iverson earlier this month in an interview with Scoop Jackson, where he confessed that last season was his worst as a pro.
“Oh, by far,” Hamilton said when asked if last season was the worst he’s experienced as a pro. “By far. When you have a coach that you’ve played with when I came to Detroit that lies to you, straight dead to your face, with all the things that I did here, that’s a tough pill to swallow.
Hamilton and Iverson both say that then-coach Michael Curry came to the both of them and promised that they’d both be starters. Hamilton originally started the season on the bench to accommodate Iverson; later, Iverson was relegated to the bench, sending him into a season-ending tizzy that caused the Pistons not to re-sign him in the offseason.
“I don’t believe that the guys here believed that I should have come off the bench and I don’t believe that guys thought Allen should come off the bench,” Hamilton said. “I heard Allen made the comment that guys came to [Curry] and told him they don’t want to play if Rip ain’t starting. I spoke to Allen and he told me the same thing, but I told him that’s tough to believe when nobody was speaking [to Curry]. Nobody [was] communicating with this coach.
Pistons GM Joe Dumars fired Curry on July 1 this year, after realizing the extent of the damage he’d done in the locker room to his reputation.
For his part, Hamilton sounds ready to move on past last season and focus on the upcoming year:
“I’m past it. Far past it. My dad would always tell me [last season]: ‘Don’t get into it. Don’t get into the media and yell and scream and cry. Just play.’ And that’s what I did. You come play basketball and people respect that and that’s all I tried to do.”
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 9:40 pm by bryan
Pistons PG Rodney Stuckey combined with guards Will Bynum and Ben Gordon to score a combined 68 points for the Pistons in their 113-104 preseason win over the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night.
The 6’5” Stuckey, who usually plays point for the Pistons, played small forward along with the 6’ Bynum and the 6’3” Gordon in the fourth quarter in a new-look lineup for Detroit.
“We’ve never tried that before, not even in practice, but I thought it was great,” said Stuckey. “I’m not worried about guarding bigger people — I can handle myself out there.”
“Those three guys are going to stretch a defense, and give Tayshaun [Prince] and Rip [Hamilton] a chance to save their legs and have more explosiveness,” Pistons head coach John Kuester said. “I’m sure teams will try to post them up when we play that group, and that’s where we will have to get help from our bigs.”
The game wasn’t without drama though, as the referees botched a free throw call on a 3-pointer in the first quarter. Initially, the refs ruled that Ersan Ilyasova was fouled on a jumper and awarded him two free throws; during the next timeout more than 90 seconds later, they decided the jumper was actually a three-pointer and awarded him an extra shot.
However, Prince jumped in and pointed out that the error was only correctable within 24 seconds. Prince also “had to remind [the ref] to tell the scorer’s table to take it back off the board.”
The Pistons’ first round pick, Austin Daye, experienced his own kind of drama, being thrown out in the fourth quarter along with Carlos Delfino for fighting. Fellow rookie Jonas Jerebko was ejected from Monday’s win against Miami for fighting.
“I have no idea what I got thrown out for — I was getting ready to shoot the technical free throws when they told me was I was gone,” Daye said. “I know I didn’t throw a punch — it would have been stupid to do that after Jonas got thrown out of the last game.”
Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 7:36 pm by bryan
With Ben Wallace back on the sidelines, and free agents Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva joining the Pistons this year, head coach John Kuester is willing to take the preseason one step at a time, considering the team’s had 10 practices together at this point. The Pistons turned Kuester into a debut winner on Monday night, as they beat the Miami Heat 87-83 in both teams’ preseason opener.
“This is a work in progress, and we’ve only had 10 practices,” Kuester said. “Still, no matter what the situation is, you want to win games.”
Rookie Austin Daye made the biggest splash of the night, running down what looked like an uncontested layup for Dwayne Wade to lay down a monster block on the All Star.
“He told me ‘nice hustle’ after I blocked it,” Daye said. “I had just turned the ball over, so I was trying to make up for it by getting back on defense. I guess Detroit is the perfect environment for the fans to appreciate a play like that.”
Gordon scored 11 points as did PF Chris Wilcox, who left the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Pistons in the offseason. The Pistons led by as much as 17 in the second half, with Miami closing the gap in the final minutes.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 9:36 pm by bryan
In a candid interview with ESPN’s Page 2 columnist, Scoop Jackson, Allen Iverson gives a tell-all account of exactly what went wrong in Detroit last year. Pistons fans – cover your eyes and ears.
“They told me, straight up, ‘Allen we would never disrespect you or your career like that’ by making me come off the bench,” Iverson said. “That’s what they told me to my face. And after that, I never thought about it again. I just went back to playing. Then, they came to me saying that they felt it would be in the ‘best interest of the team’ if I came off of the bench behind Rip [Richard Hamilton].
“… After that, they told me that if I didn’t come off the bench — the team was going to lie down [not play] on me.
“… When he told me that, that’s when I felt that this was the worst career move I’d ever made and it was the worst year of my career.”
After Denver traded Iverson for PG Chauncey Billups straight up on November 3, 2008, Iverson recalls being excited to join his new teammates in Detroit. He began souring on the experience when he started to hear rumblings that the Pistons were juggling with the idea of him coming off the bench – he has started 824 of 829 career games.
“If you are a head coach and you feel strongly about this, what would make you think that I want to be around these guys?” Iverson said to Jackson. “Especially if you are telling me that they don’t want to be around me like that?”
The 34-year-old Iverson signed a one-year, $3.1 million contract with the Memphis Grizzles in the offseason.
Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 7:54 pm by bryan
