Pistons Opening Night thread

[Trots]

The NBA season begins tonight in Detroit with the Pistons hosting the Pacers and ex-Piston coach Rick Carlisle. The keys to the season, imo, are Tayshaun Prince and Memet Okur. If they can both make significant contributions, night in and night out, the Pistons may be even better than last year. If not, the Pistons could be a very inconsistent team in '03-'04.

Btw, how many of you wish Carmelo was a Piston right now and not Darko?

[Tigers#1]

OK game tonight with the loss. But an opening night loss bye 2 points with a new coach is nothing to get upset over.

I'd still take Darko over Caramello. I still see Anthony as another Glenn Robinson. While Darko's talents are limitless. I would like to see Larry Brown try to do something different with Darko though. Maybe add a new position for 7'0''+ guys who have an outside shot.

[Trots]

I'm not sold on either Carmelo or Darko. I'll give Joe D. the benefit of the doubt. In the long run, however, Joe put his job on the line with the Darko pick.

I think you summarized Opening Night pretty well. Rip and Chauncey were awful, but the odds of both of them playing that poorly at the same time are small. I liked what Campbell, Memo and Tayshaun brought.

[Tigers#1]

I'll make a prediction right now. They'll win 46-48 games, finish second in the division, but make it to the finals. There's a lot of "if's" though throughout the league. If the Pistons have one big injury(which they were fortunate enough not to have last year), it could ruin the season for them. They really need someone to step up and take a leadership role that they lost with Robinson, Curry, and Barry. Either Rip or Chauncy are problably the main people everyone's looking at to do that.