Riding Chauncey

I spent 2002-2006 in The Mitten getting an education/getting drunk/trying to get laid. If I wasn't busy writing this blog post I'd make a pie chart in Excel breaking down how I spent my time. The largest pieces of the pie would probably be Sleeping and Watching Animal Planet, one of the smallest would be Studying for BioChem, and somewhere in between would be a smallish but significant sliver called Watching Pistons Games. I was in Michigan surrounded by yet-to-be-devoted fans when Chauncey, an underperforming No. 3 pick, was signed in the summer of '02. I was there as the team came together, embarrassed the Lakers in '04 and established itself as one of the greatest units in NBA history.

And then Chauncey went to Denver. OK, Detroit's demise has more to do with the aging of Big Ben, Rasheed forgetting how good he could be, the starting five getting bored with eachother, and the rise of LeBron. But I'm pretty sure the Pistons could have competed with Cleveland this year if Joe Dumars didn't (wisely) swap him for A.I. Chauncey was the driving force of that very very good Detroit team (6 appearances in a row at the Conference Championships!). Everyone else got a bit of credit, and for good reason, but now it's obvious who made that team roll. And now he's doing it again, and this time with a team that's arguably more stacked than the Pistons ever were.

Danger. Denver is rolling. Melo is gonna put up a ton of points. Nene might prove his first two rounds and $10 mil salary aren't flukes. JR Smith's spark off the bench will be bright. Still, nothing presents more of a challenge to the Lakers than Chauncey's leadership. We had trouble matching up against lesser PG's. Now we have to buckle down against the second best PG in the game (Sorry Deron, you've been demoted). Billups is going to very quietly get 20 and 10. He's going to slash, stutter, and elevate over whoever LA puts on him to drain jumpers at the line. He's going to penetrate and dish to Kleiza and JR at the arc. He's going to slice razor passes into Nene and K-Mart on the low post. The most reliable point guard of the decade is going to get his, and he's going to give his teammates a great chance at getting theirs. We can only hope to find a strategy of keeping Mr. Big Shot from making any big shots. Or maybe we've just gotta put the Nuggets in a place where there's no such thing as a big shot... 10 points down with 2 minutes to go.

Tonight should be fun. NBA fans forget Chauncey over the course of the regular season and remember him when the post season rolls around. Prepare to get a lesson in how to ball. Hopefully tonight the Lakers will take his former lessons to heart.