Pistons Experimenting

82games.com mostly tells you why teams are winning, rather than helps so much predict why teams will win. The stats are heavily weighted to how important a player is to his team, rather than how he rates against others.

That said, over the last 30 days, Billups was up 193, Nowitzki up 106, and James up 106 while on the court. While we are at it, every member of the Pistons starting five plussed Nowitzki, while the only significant player at Detroit in negative points was Arroyo. But you have to expect that if Pistons are up, the other guys are going to leave their first unit in while the Detroit second unit goes on the floor.

Part of the Flip Saunders, Chauncey Billups laboratory test of how badly the Pistons can play and still win [loss to NJ showed there were limits] has been limiting starters playing time. So the raw plusses for Billups also reflect reduced time on court.

The experiment in reduced play continued in Philadelphia Friday night. With no Iverson, this should have been a romp rather than a competitive game. In the first quarter, Chauncy continued the experiment of not shooting at all, in the last quarter he experimented with not hitting any of the shots he took. Hamilton also experimented with not making any 3's. Still, they killed Philadelphia off the boards, not something Iverson would have much to do about, and won by holding Philadelphia to 80.

All said, the Dodger would have been just as happy if these guys stayed home rather than played the all-star game. The other day, sports talk radio asked what was a better honor, all star game or national team. Many callers missed the no-brainer - on the National team, they actually play to win.