Stuckey came into the league relatively under-the-radar from Eastern Washington. He made a splash at the end of his first season with the Pistons in the playoffs when Chauncey Billups when down with a pulled groin. That performance led Joe Dumars, Pistons President, to trade Billups for Allen Iverson and his expiring contract.
Since then Pistons fans have had high expectations for the young guard, and rightly so. Stuckey seems to posses every physical tool to be a perennial All-Star, but has not yet reached that pinnacle. Coach John Kuester recently made his feelings known about Stuckey, saying "(Stuckey) has a chance to be one of the best defensive guards I’ve ever been around because he’s so strong, he’s got size and he’s athletic."
Sean Deveney of Sporting News acknowledged in a recent article, that it's not the tools he lacks but the "team-running instinct" that is missing. Here's what Deveney ultimately sees as the problem with Stuckey and the Pistons line-up:
At 6-5, with outstanding athleticism, there are times when Stuckey looks like a top-notch point guard. He has the size and speed to get into the lane and the strength to finish once there. But he is not an instinctive passer, and if he doesn’t show some improvement in running the offense this year, the Pistons will have to wonder whether he should be moved to shooting guard.
That would create a huge problem—the Pistons just gave a five-year, $55 million contract to Ben Gordon and awarded Richard Hamilton a three-year, $34 million extension last November. In other words, Detroit has too much money in their shooting guards for Stuckey not to be a point guard.
This seems like this would be a reasonable concern, but there are a few reasons that his assertions are overblown.
The biggest reason that Deveney is wrong to raise these concerns now is simply that he is premature. Detroit has played eight regular season games, six of those games have came without Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince, not to mention that the entire team consists of eight new players. So not only is he extrapolating from a small sample size, he is basing his conjecture on a largely incomplete and new line-up.
With the injuries that have hit the Pistons early, Kuester has been forced to fill holes creatively. This means that Stuckey has spent an extended amount of time playing wing positions, which has eaten into his time running the point.
Looking at his stats it's easy to see how that might be the case with his rebounds going up and his assist per game going down. So far this season he is averaging 16 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 4.1 assists per game. Last year he put up 13.4 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 4.9 assists.
When Hamilton comes back, Stuckey's role will change again and his stats will most likely reflect that change.
Actually it might change sooner with Kuester gaining confidence in his Jonas Jerebko and Austin Daye to stay on the floor in crunch time.
In the game against Charlotte, Stuckey spent much more of his time running the offense and it showed. He racked up seven assists and did a great job finding people open.
Stuckey is showing signs of improving, it might not be turning up in the boxscore just yet, but his game is moving in the direction the Pistons want.
This brings me to my second point about Sean's fears, Stuckey does not need to be a "true" point guard for Detroit to succeed. The way that the Pistons are constructed a primary ball handler who sets the offense every play is not needed. Between Will Bynum, Ben Gordon, Stuckey, Prince, Daye, and even Hamilton, there is plenty of distribution skills on this team that makes the absence of an elite passer not a huge concern.
Detroit is a team based on versatility, with almost all of its players able to play multiple positions. The idea behind this is that it keeps opposing defenses guessing where they are going to be attacked from.
The real question here is whether or not Detroit can keep the ball moving and not rely so heavily on one-on-one basketball, and if the game against Charlotte is any indication it seems that Detroit might be making progress with a season high 26 assists.
On a side note here's a video of Bynum's dunk on Tyson Chandler... I just can't get enough of it:
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