Saturday, February 25, 2011
Posted: 5:28 p.m.Updated 9:40 p.m.
By Dei Lynam
CSNPhilly.com
The team the Sixers thought they were playing Friday night at the Wells Fargo Center was not the team that showed up. Those Pistons didnt show up in the game or the morning shootaround.
Four players who started for Detroit against the Pacers on Tuesday were not in Fridays starting lineup, including Tracy McGrady, Rodney Stuckey, Tayshaun Prince and Ben Wallace. Three of the four skipped shootaround along with Chris Wilcox, Austin Daye and Stuckey getting to the morning session just in time to catch the bus back to the hotel.
Was the absencetardiness of the Pistons an organized protest against their coaches circulated in numerous reports? Or as Coach John Kuester tried to explain, was it because of various illnesses?
This we know, whatever ailed T-Mac, Wallace, Stuckey and Wilcox was gone by the opening tip. They were all in uniform and on the bench along with Daye, but none of them saw action.
The Pistons instead went with a six-man rotation, all six of whom participated fully in the morning practice.
NBA
To add to Detroits drama, Kuester expressed enough anger toward the officials to get tossed out of the game with 2:58 to play in the second quarter only to leave the court as his players on the bench snickered.
Its hard to imagine that Kuester will take the team plane back to Detroit. Instead he could drive to his offseason home here in Philadelphia and wonder how it all went south before he completed his second year as an NBA head coach.
Doug Collins felt for his colleague.
This business can be very lonely, Collins said prior to his team taking the court. There are a lot of highs and lows, thats why you have to have great people around you. I am very blessed because I do have great people around me. And I am sure Kuester does too.
Collins said a player mutiny never would have happened during his playing days because the power was in the hands of management. That simply is not the case in todays game.
There is so much amount of money in the sport and it gets very, very hard, Collins admitted. Every night I go home and count my blessings that I have a group in that locker room that trust in me to coach them and try to do what is right and I know how fragile it is.
The Pistons entered Friday with a record of 21-38, having lost two straight. If in fact Detroits players were not on the same page as their coach it may very well be because the losing has gotten the best of them.
When you are losing I can tell you this it is no fun, Kuester said pregame. What we have to do is try to get on the right track. We played our fannies off against Indiana and did a great job and almost had a chance to win that game, but we have to regroup and be ready to go. Thats what tonight is all about.
Kuester was hired as the Pistons head coach in July of 2009 where he replaced current Sixers associate head coach Michael Curry. Prior to that he was a longtime NBA assistant coach for various teams, including two stints in Philadelphia, once a member of Larry Browns staff and then on the staff of Maurice Cheeks.
E-mail Dei Lynam at dlynam@comcastsportsnet.com
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