After starting the season 4-20, the Detroit Pistons have improved their last-place record to 16-29. So basically once every team in the League saw a 4-20 awful team on their schedule, the Pistons have then been able sneak up on teams to the tune of winning 12 of their last 21. Despite this overwhelming success story, however, there are still some rumblings of Piston players who wouldn’t have necessarily minded being traded last week even though they weren’t. The reason Joe Dumars said they weren’t traded though, in part, was because they weren’t being disruptive enough about it.
This from The Detroit Free Press:
Charlie Villanueva, Austin Daye and Will Bynum aren’t in the playing rotation and all are quite open about their displeasure with the situation. Daye and Bynum have admitted they wouldn’t be opposed to a change of scenery.
Villanueva is the team’s third-highest paid player this season at $7.5 million and is on the books for roughly $16 million over the next two seasons. Daye is the 2009 first-round pick who is still trying to establish himself. Bynum hasn’t seen this little playing time since his first season with the Pistons in 2008-09.
So why weren’t any of them moved before Thursday’s trade deadline?
Pistons president of basketball operations Joe Dumars said Friday at US Airways Center that no deals presented themselves. Plus, he didn’t feel compelled to move anyone because no one is being disruptive.
“For the guys who aren’t playing, we don’t have any headaches here, any guys who are causing issues here,” Dumars said. “For other teams, I don’t know if that was their issue but it’s not for us.”
Somewhere Stephen Jackson is saying that’s what you get for being professional about it, you guys. And memo to anybody who plays under Dumars moving forward who might want not to play under him anymore: if you really want to be traded, give Joe and everybody else out there a massively hard time about it. Because if you become a disruptive headache, then he’ll probably trade you. Otherwise, he’ll just keep you on the team and not give you a chance to play.
