It

Yes, that's a Genesis song title.

Can't believe I forgot
Chauncey had 8 turnovers in the first half yesterday. Yeah, 8 of them. This prompted me to look up the record for such a thing in a game at half time, as I know all of the other single game records (100, 55, 30, 17, 11) but I didn't know this one. The record for turnovers in a game is 14, by John Drew. Fortunately, Chauncey had no turnovers in the second half, but obviously it was too late for that. This also prompted me to think about something else. The stats after two games for the great Piston backcourt:

Chauncey: 86 minutes, 12-26 (46.2%) from the field, 32 points (1.23 PPS), 10 turnovers, 11 assists
Rip: 90 minutes, 15-43 (34.9%) from the field, 37 points (0.86 PPS), 2 turnovers, 10 assists

Now, seems to me that Chauncey is scoring the ball well (helps that D. Jones is guarding him most of the time) and not handling it that well. On the flip side, Rip is handling it well and shooting it poorly. They say Rip's hamstring is a bit dinged, that might have something to do with it. It looks like he's been moving fairly well with that, but maybe there's something I don't see. So, perhaps Chauncey should start focusing on scoring and Rip should start focusing on distributing. Makes sense to me. Also, Ben (who has 17 points on 22 shots) should stop shooting as much. But that's not as important as the first part.

Brown sick
Bulls Blog also sick of Brown, but that's beside the point. Yes, most of it is speculation, but it's not too hard to believe. We know Brown's missed a bunch of time because of his health and we know he doesn't want to coach much longer. I'm starting to think that LB probably won't be back behind the Piston bench after all next year. It's too bad Woodson took off to coach the Hawks, he usually did a pretty good job in Brown's absence last year. Yes, the Hawks were horrible this year, but look at their roster. The only guy above a 16 PER played with them for 2 games. But going back to Brown and his possible absense, I wonder who the Pistons would turn to if he happened to be gone. Probably not Heard, as he didn't do such a good job in Brown's absence (part of that was because of Ben being gone for the early one, I know). Maybe they could get Laimbeer instead of the Knicks. Just think of the story if Joe D became interested in bringing him in as heach coach. "Former Bad Boy backcourt mates battle for former Bad Boy center". Could be funny.

Mocks that are only a slight mockery
Not bad overall... as to why Lawrence and Mejia have the Pistons taking a C and a PF at the 26 spot respectively, I don't know. Can't say I'm familiar with Joey Graham, so I'll have to get back to you on that one. I am familiar with Sean May though, and I find it humourous that his predicted spots are 4, 24 and 13. I think the Doyel's 13 is the most accurate for him. Similar can be said for McCants, who is listed at 12, 29 and 20. Difference is that Lawrence's 12 is probably the most accurate there. Also, Stoudamire is at 15 on Doyel's list, 29 on Lawrence's and nowhere to be found on Mejia's. I'll go for Lawrence's there. But enough of that. Overall, I think that Doyel's is the most accurate. I guess we'll see in about a month.

Dickie V has a take on the draft, unsurprisingly
I know I said that I'd try to write next to nothing on college ball as I'm not much of a fan of that, but as far as I'm concerned, it stops being college related when draft day is approaching. Yes, expect a lot more draft coverage in the coming days. Now, for the link. While I disagree with the Ex-Piston coach's pick placement after the #1 spot, the article is good. Bogut should fit right in with the Bucks, as he and Gadzuric will be a very potent duo on the glass and on the interior D. Bogut's passing skills will help Mason and Redd (if he's there) a bunch too. Even if they can't bring Redd back, it's not like there aren't other SGs they put in his place, as I detailed a few weeks back. I'm starting to lean more towards selecting that big man with the top selection.

Bogut, Williams likely to be gone by fourth spot
In related news, water is wet. It's pretty clear that those two will be done sometime in the top three picks. What's also pretty clear is that Bristow is a jive turkey. A quote:

Bristow said the Hornets will be inviting the three top-rated point guards in the draft for workouts slated for next week, along with a couple of high school prospects and several others.

But Bristow said the Hornets still intend to bring back Dan Dickau, a free agent, and may also keep Speedy Claxton.

"We said all along we want to carry three point guards," Bristow said. "Because we might bring in a rookie point guard, it might take some time. So it wouldn't necessarily mean we'd have to do something with either" Dickau or Claxton.

Yeah, sure. You're going to keep two decent young point guards and then draft a point guard with the number four pick. Unless you're going to run some sort of two-point offense or you're the '96 Suns, your count of PG's you're going to play will decrease to two somewhere along the line. As I said before, I think the Hornets should take a big man and I stand by that. Andriuskevicius ought to be around, as will Vazquez, Frye, Taft, etc. I guess you could include May, but unlike Lawrence from earlier, I don't think a team that high will take a chance on him. I probably shouldn't include the centres, but perhaps they could run a twin towers type thing with Magloire. He's quick enough to move to PF in the future, I think. Granted, he's played just about all of his time at centre the last three years (82 Games ought to put links to the player's past stats on the player's personal page), so I can't prove that. But, it's a personal belief! I doubt that the Hornets agree with me, though. All of the big man talk quickly erases if Paul happens to fall to the four spot, though. But, like the odds on Phoenix reaching a game seven this season, that's pretty unlikely. So, think about a big man. Andriuskevicius (I love typing that) sounds like a good choice to me. Or, if they don't want to replace PJ quite yet, Gerald Green sounds like a good one.

All time great, but few MVPs
Going by the stuff noted, he probably should've won in '94 and '01, as well as when he actually did win. Obviously Shaq's biggest problem is the injury trouble, but that'll happen to a guy who has weighed around 330 pounds for the latter part of his career. Lack of MVP's or no lack of MVP's, he's still one of the best to ever play the game. Maybe I should throw together an all-time All NBA team. That would be original! Maybe in a few posts.