Pistons must keep fighting, but not among themselves

Sporting News, The, March 1, 1999 by Dave D'Alessandro

The thought does not go away that somewhere, Doug Collins is laughing his tail off.

The Pistons are beginning to look like the league's most dysfunctional family again, judging by the events of the past week.

It's the same old stuff, really only one element has changed: Their fingers are pointing in more than one direction.

In the span of just five days, Grant Hill ripped Bison Dele for being a wimp; Jerry Stackhouse called Hill a "ball hog"; Mark Macon went from starting point guard to being waived; and Alvin Gentry is dusting off his orchestra-conductor-on-the-Titanic routine.

OK, maybe that last part is exaggerated, but it's beyond debate that Detroit remains the home of internal combustion. The biggest dispute centers around Hill's suggestion that Dele should be benched. "If he doesn't play, we have to put him down," Hill said last weekend, after his team was flogged by the Knicks, Nets and Heat. "We could put Mikki Moore out there and he'd at least give us some energy. If Bison doesn't want to put out the effort and energy, we should sit him down."

You've probably never heard of Mikki Moore. He's a rookie center whose first name is pronounced "Mikey." His last name is pronounced "More," as in, "He won't be around anymore, because he's been cut." But it says a lot that Hill would prefer a guy not good enough to stay on the roster to someone he has concluded is incapable of earning his $45 million.

For the record, Dele's response was that one guy can't be blamed for the team's problems, and that the team doesn't play as "a cohesive unit anymore." (Idle thought: Anymore?) It was at that point that Stackhouse-as part of this cohesive unit--picked up the loose bail and ran with it.

Stackhouse said Hill dominates the ball too much, and that the Pistons "need him to be more of the triple-double guy he used to be.' This repudiates Gentry's grand scheme, which was based on the premise that Hill is probably the best player in the league, if not also the most unstoppable scorer when he puts his mind to it, and that it was time for him to average 30 points if it would help the team.

It helped the Pistons start 3-0. Then came the 0-5 stretch, when Hill was carrying the team because of the physical absences of Joe Dumars (hamstring) and Lindsey Hunter (flu), and the mental truancy of Dele and Stackhouse.

"Grant has been on a tear and that's been great for him," Stackhouse said. "But I don't think it's been so great for our team. I think we become stagnant in watching him. If you're coming down the court and you haven't touched the bail the last two or three limes down, it's hard to go down and chase a guy and do all the little things you have to do. I want the ball more."

Curiously, Stackhouse uttered these remarks during a three-game stretch in which he shot 7-for-35-a hideous trend he insisted wasn't a lack of focus caused by his sister's death just a week earlier. No, he stressed, Hill is the problem.

Gentry was incensed at the notion that Hill was responsible for too much of his team's offense. "That's a ridiculous statement," said the coach, further inconvenienced by Loy Vaught's inconsistency. "Was Michael Jordan responsible for too much offense? Grant shoots 20 times a game. That's not it at all."

Incidentally, opposing coaches who watch 12 hours of tape per day tend to agree: "There are a lot of guys in this league who should shoot less, and Grant's not one of them," Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy says. "I'll tell you what, that guy plays the game right."

This was supposed to be Hill's season. He entered the league billed as a player who would revolutionize the league, a guy whose game had a very special rhythm, and one who could, drop a triple-double on you on any given night. That share-the-wealth philosophy hasn't gotten him too far, however. Here's the most compelling statistic associated with Grant Hill: In his five seasons, his team has yet to win a single playoff series.

So Gentry removed "ball distribution' from Hill's job description, management tried to entice Kevin Johnson to sign up so they could maintain some credibility at the point, and even though that failed, Hill was off and running. He dropped 46 on Washington. Through the first two weeks of the season, he was averaging around 30 points. Even Stackhouse seemed keen on this style, because he was averaging 24 himself. He even liked the idea that some hyperbolic TV guys were starting to compare them to Jordan/Pippen. At the very least, Hill seemed to finally have a sidekick with whom he could grow, something he had been deprived of since the departure of Allan Houston.

Then it all started coming apart. But even though this still doesn't look like a strong playoff contender--we still think Orlando's talent and Boston's tenacity will nail down the last two seeds in the end--it doesn't mean Detroit's problems are irreparable. Nor should its goals change.

This is, realistically, no more than a .500 team--just like the Orlandos and Bostons and a few others--and when it all shakes out, the Pistons will be one of four or five clubs fighting for the last three playoff berths. But nobody expected them to make a run at anything significant this season, not with Vaught coming off back surgery and Christian Laettner still a month away after tearing his Achilles' tendon.