Could it have been too many cancers on the Pistons bench?
Rip says MC lied to both him and AI about coming off the bench. I'm not a MC fan but I'm sure he did what he could to try to appease both players.
Rip says him and AI were close and they loved him and he loved us, If anyone is stretching the truth is Rip.
http://www.commercialappeal.co.../bad-rep-or-bad-rap/

I think there is a little bit of truth in what everybody is saying. I think the thing that isn't being discussed is the role Joe Dumars played in this. I believe he though Michael Curry would hold players accountable. BUT in the same vein, I think there are two things that Joe maintained he wanted to happen.

1. He wanted Stuckey to absolutely play a vital role on the team last year.
2. Do what you can to make Prince an All-Star this year.

The reason I say #2 is because Tayshaun was NOT himself last year. He should have spent some time on the bench, and his role with all the other scorers on the court could have been a bit of scoring, rebounding, defense, assists. Instead Curry tried to shove him into a scoring role. A role he wasn't ready for.

So Curry started having to do weird things to the lineup while having to manage Joe's two suggestions. Perhaps what the best thing to do for the season was to play Stuckey off the bench the entire year. If the fear was we don't have a point guard, well we still don't have a point guard.

Who I won't blame is players. It's easy to see that nobody knew their role, and in that, players got frustrated.

I think its a true mark of the talent we actually had when Curry could have botched the season so bad and we still made the playoffs.

I have always been of the opinion that Curry would tell each player what they wanted to hear and at gametime he'd break out all these bizarre lineups. Result: Players confused and distrustful.

Curry wanted to empress Iverson, Joe D and He wanted to make the players respect him. He failed at having a back bone and he failed being a leader. Ppl don't want to play for a coach who can't stick to his own rules. every week he chaged his tune.

Small ball, nomore small ball, benching Rip for the remainder, Benching Iverson... who knows what would've happened had Dumars nit stepped in and shut down the AI project.

You couldn't put Tay on the bench more last year. We got killed when we went with three guards. It didn't make any sense, we should have been an offensive juggernaut, but it just didn't work. Tay had to be on the floor a lot.

Say goodbye to any coaching career Michael Curry's future holds. He won't get hired for any job now.

The only thing I don't understand is why Dumars did not say one single thing during the season. I think had he made some statements or press conferences we could have righted the ship sooner.