Holding Judgment on the Iverson-Billups Trade

I read this when David Berri posted it Feb. 24, but I didn't think much of it at the time. The main point - that the Billups for Iverson trade can't be fully evaluated from the Pistons' perspective until we see what they get with the money they'll save when Iverson comes off their books - is good, but relatively trivial. Few people who have studied the actual performance of Billups and Iverson over the last few years believed that Joe Dumars would be foolish enough to think that this trade would have an immediate positive impact on his team.

Now, however, I'm rethinking this post. The reason: we've had a couple of games now to see how the Pistons will play without Iverson, who is currently out with an injury. This afternoon, without Iverson, and with Rip Hamilton restored to his rightly place in the starting lineup, Detroit shocked the NBA by beating the Celtics 105-95. That was their second straight win without Iverson, on the heels of an 8 game losing streak with him.

Just this Friday, John Hollinger wrote a column on the Pistons' troubles since Iverson joined the team. In that he calls their next two games, at Orlando on Friday and at Boston today, "near-certain defeats." And, Hollinger was right. By any analysis, the Pistons should have been expected to lose those games.

But with Iverson out, Hamilton back in the starting lineup, and Iverson's shots and minutes thus going to more effective and more efficient players, the Pistons have re-discovered their winning ways.

Admittedly, this is a decidedly small set of data. Two games don't usually tell us very much. Anyone can beat anyone on any given night, times two. But having watched both of those games, I can tell you what should have been obvious: The Pistons are a much better team without Allen Iverson's missed shots, turnovers, and defensive lapses.

That doesn't make them a playoff team, much less a championship contender. (Hollinger's Playoff Odds currently project them to finish 8th in the East, with a 61.2% chance of making the playoffs. Much better than the 44.3% chance they had before their two-game resurgence, but by no means a lock.)

They have some real problems. Not least of which is a head coach who can't identify is most productive players. Not only have they been starting Allen Iverson over Hamilton until his recent injury (the Pistons are now 19-15 with Hamilton in the starting lineup this year. They were 4-12 during their recent misguided experiment of starting Iverson over Hamilton. Did it really take 16 games to figure out that wasn't working?!?), but they have also been consistently giving fewer and fewer minutes to their most effective post player (Jason Maxiell is somehow getting only 16.6 minutes per game on a team that sometimes has to start Kwame Brown!).

I don't know what the future holds for the Pistons. But if they can beat the Magic and the Celtics in consecutive games without Iverson, they may yet be able to compete in the East once they replace him on their roster with whoever they can get for the roughly $20 million that come off the books when his contract expires at the end of this season.