So the Pistons got another guard... WTH?!?

In the 2011 NBA Draft, the Detroit Pistons drafted Kentucky guard Brandon Knight with their 8th overall pick. Other players they picked up in the draft are Duke forward Kyle Singler, and Florida F/C Vernon Macklin.

The Pistons missed out on getting Congolese heir apparent to the Ben Wallace mantle Bismack Biyombo after Charlotte jumped them to pick him up. So what do they do? They picked a guard with their top pick?!? What was on Joe D's mind?

Who Will Take the Mantle of Pistons Head Coach?

It's been about a week since the unlucky John Kuester was let go by the Pistons organization after two years of bad and worse seasons. Last week it was announced that Kuester would no longer man the sidelines of the Pistons bench for the upcoming season, raising new questions as to who will take on the team composed of players who tuned out and rebelled against their coach all while under the cloud of uncertainty caused by a pending sale of the team and, now, the looming lockout.

Names that have popped up are current Milwaukee Bucks assistant Kelvin Sampson, former Atlanta coach Mike Woodson, and two Pistons greats Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer. Another name I read in ESPN.com is current Celtics assistant and former Nets coach Lawrence Frank.

Pakitang Gilas

In the recently concluded 22nd FIBA Asia Champions Cup, the Philippines saw a number of things that herald the coming of something good for Philippine basketball in the international arena.

First, the very fact that the Philippines competed really well during the week-long tournament, sweeping their group games, only to fall in the semis to dethroned champions Iran and bronze medal game to Qatar. Throughout the classification phase, Gilas really showed promise,

Let the Rebuilding Begin on Auburn Hills

A new owner. Same Joe D. No more Johnny Kue.

Let the rebuilding for a championship begin. This past week saw the most "positive" developments in Detroit in recent history. Tome Gores was finally introduced as the new owner, freeing up the hands of Joe Dumars to come up with a plan to bring the Pistons back to NBA elite level. A few days after, unsuccessful two-year coach John Kuester was let go.

The Detroit Pistons are now primed to start the team from scratch.

Bird vs. Magic 20 Years Later

So Miami took Game 1 in the 2011 Best of 7 NBA Finals via a pretty convincing 92-84 win over Dallas just yesterday. The game began what I have personally dubbed as the Vindication versus Redemption Series: if the Heat bring home the Larry O'Brien trophy, the coming together of the three big names in LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh will have been proven the right move to make, and would further the cause of high-value NBA Superstars to discuss amongst themselves where they would want to play. On the other hand, if the Mavericks take home the title, they would avenge an NBA Finals meltdown that occured five years ago against, who else, the Miami Heat.

But there is another theme that could also be plastered on to this series. This series shows us the year 21st century versions of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson going at it to determine who gets their first trophy. The two players I'm talking about, of course, are Dirk Nowitzki and James himself. True that Dirk and LBJ have not really been labeled as rivals since their college years (Dirk was in Germany and James never went to college) and prior to this series, I never really really thought about comparing the two to the 1980's rivals of the storied Boston-LA championship bouts.

Take a closer look, though, at the makeup of the two players and what makes them the great players that they are, and you see the similarities with the game of the two legends.