http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/langlois_blog_070713.html Stuckey flashes great promise in first days as a Piston What a Week by Keith Langlois Friday, July 13, 2007 LAS VEGAS – Joe Dumars is a little amused, a little amazed and maybe a little perturbed even, that the world expressed surprise at how seamlessly Rodney Stuckey took to playing point guard for the Pistons’ Las Vegas Summer League team. Coming into the draft, the general consensus of analysts was that Stuckey was a shooting guard. “The general consensus hadn’t seen him play,” Dumars said through a wry smile as he watched Stuckey the other day during a scrimmage with Phoenix, “ and we had. We scouted him all year. We watched him play a ton of games. We watched everything he did. So it’s not surprising to us. It might be surprising to people who formed impressions before they’d ever seen the kid play. We’ve watched hours and hours of him play. We had him in to work out. So now we’re the last people to be going, ‘Wow, we’re surprised.’ ” The general rule of thumb in summer leagues is you find out who can’t play, not necessarily who can. But Stuckey, the 6-foot-5 guard from Eastern Washington Dumars made the 15th pick in the draft, is giving the Pistons every indication that he’s everything they envisioned: a guard perfectly comfortable playing both backcourt spots, with excellent size, explosive playmaking ability off the dribble, a reliable perimeter jump shot and the demeanor to grow into a solid defender. And those are just the bullet points among the realm of the tangible. It’s perhaps even riskier to extrapolate meaning relative to intangibles from summer play, but it was hard to ignore the way Stuckey owned the fourth quarter through his first three summer league performances. After a slow start in the opener, Stuckey played well in the second half of an overtime win over Philadelphia, finishing with 14 points. Then he was the dominant player in a comeback win over Memphis on Monday, orchestrating everything down the stretch, and followed up with another command fourth-quarter performance in a win over Washington in which the Pistons won the fourth quarter 35-13. He balanced aggression with prudence, exploiting openings without tiptoeing over the line to recklessness. He played with remarkable poise for a rookie getting his first taste of NBA action, especially for someone who hadn’t played five-on-five basketball since early March. “He’s doing a great job of using his body to get in the paint and finish layups and draw fouls and create for others, as well,” fellow first-round rookie Arron Afflalo said of Stuckey after the win over Washington. “You saw it last game and you saw it tonight. He’s playing great.” If the sort of progress he displayed in his first week can be trusted, Stuckey figures to have a rapid learning curve. And he admits the amount he must learn caught him a little off-guard. “It’s just a lot to learn,” he said. “The game is so much faster and guys are so much stronger. If you’re in the wrong position at the wrong time, it’ s a big difference than when you’re in college. You have to be in the right position and the right time – and if you’re not, you’re going to get burned. “It’s just all part of being a rookie. You’ve got to learn and every game, I’m learning something. Having (assistant coaches Terry) Porter and (Michael) Curry and all those guys on the bench is really helpful because they ’ve been in the league for a while. Hearing what they have to say, you take that in and try to put it in your game.” But Stuckey would like to dispel the notion that he has more catching up to do because he played at a small Division I school in the Skyline Conference as opposed to fellow draft choices Arron Afflalo and Sammy Mejia of UCLA and DePaul. In summer pickup games at the University of Washington in his native Seattle and throughout his high school AAU experiences, Stuckey got plenty of court time with high-end talent. Among those on his AAU team were Marvin Williams, the No. 2 pick in the 2005 draft; Oregon guard Aaron Brooks, drafted in this year’s first round by Houston; Marcus Williams, a high second-round pick of San Antonio; highly recruited C.J. Giles, who transferred from Kansas to Oregon State; and Gonzaga big man Josh Heytvelt. Stuckey wasn’t overwhelmed by that level of talent, nor was he uncomfortable not being the clearly dominant force, the role required of him at Eastern Washington, where he averaged right around 25 points a game in each of his two seasons. “Carrying the load, that’s what I had to do for my team in order for us to win,” he said. “I took on the challenge and I thought I did a pretty good job of doing that. But I’m not really worrying about doing that now because you’ve got guys around me who can play. It’s going to be an easy transition. I played AAU with a bunch of good players and I didn’t really have to do a whole lot, so I’m used to doing both things – carrying the load or not.” “I think Stuckey is going to be great,” Curry said. “Seeing him in person, the saying is, ‘This kid has done that before.’ When someone has scored the amount of points he scored in college, he knows how to find ways to score the basketball. The beauty of it that I’ve seen so far is he doesn’t appear to be a big-time scorer with some of the habits they have – take bad shots. He takes great shots, gets his teammates involved. “He has a nose for the ball. He probably had more offensive rebounds than anyone here in the first few days of practice. One thing I told him is if you rebound well for a guard, there’s always playing time for you.” If Stuckey has a forte from what appears a well-rounded resume at this point, it’s his ability to beat the first line of defense and get inside the lane, where his upper-body strength allows him to absorb contact and finish the play, often drawing the foul. If he’s solid in the other areas of the game – as he’s given every indication he will be – then Stuckey will give the Pistons an element they’ve sought the past few seasons: a perimeter player who can break down the defense and create shots for himself. “He’s strong,” said Jason Maxiell, who came to Las Vegas in large measure to mentor the rookies and start their bonding process with the veteran core. “I love his athleticism, his strength to get to the basket and finish.” Though the Pistons are likely to go into next season with veteran Lindsey Hunter on the roster – and perhaps Flip Murray, as well – Stuckey’s showing in Las Vegas makes him the heavy favorite to be the primary backup to Chauncey Billups at point guard. That would free the Pistons to use Hunter sparingly as a defensive specialist, though it also appears that Afflalo – whose greater size would make him a better fit against shooting guards than Hunter – could usurp some of that role. （進攻交給Stuckey，防守交給Afflalo，那獵人...） And while there wasn’t much in the way of analysis of Stuckey’s defensive capabilities leading to the draft, Stuckey scoffed when told that on draft night one of the ESPN talking heads said he didn’t show much at that end. “I didn’t hear that,” he said. “People talk. They can say whatever they want. I’m just going to come in and work hard and prove people wrong, prove to people that I can play defense.” “He can defend,” Curry said. “He understands concepts – the big part of it is following the rules. The other part is having the desire to compete against a guy and then maybe some intangibles. I think he definitely has the desire. I think he’s definitely shown he can follow a defensive scheme. Now it’s on us as a coaching staff to teach him those intangibles to make him a good defender.” The only surprises from Rodney Stuckey now would be if he doesn’t become the terrific all-around guard Joe Dumars envisioned long before he made the call to draft him. “He’s all the things that you’re hearing and seeing,” Dumars said. “We’ re not showing up here like, ‘Omigod, we didn’t know.’ ” But Joe D will go this far in his first-week assessment of Stuckey: It’s good to have all of those things the scouting process suggested affirmed once you get that player in your team’s environment. “Now that part, yeah, you do want it to translate to what you do as a team., ” he said. “Once you put him in a game setting and start running your plays and put him in your system, that he can show some signs of success, that does make you feel good.” Maybe even better than good. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.nba.com/summerleague2007/players/summer_league_rankings_071207.html NBA官網 Maurice Brooks 依照到目前為止夏季聯盟的新秀表現做了排名 Posted Jul 12 2007 8:36PM 3. Rodney Stuckey, Pistons PPG RPG APG SPG BPG FG% 19.3 4.0 2.7 1.7 0.0 .487 Detroit has played three games and when the final horn sounded in each, they walked off the court as winners. Stuckey has been better than advertised. 6. Jason Maxiell, Pistons PPG RPG APG SPG BPG FG% 19.0 6.3 1.0 0.3 1.3 .553 Stuckey has been the man for Detroit on the perimeter, while Maxiell has handled all of the dirty work in the paint. --

※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 61.229.129.207 ※ 編輯: Afflalo 來自: 61.229.129.207 (07/14 15:36)