Rodney Stuckey: Pistons’ decline started with Chauncey Billups trade

Rodney Stuckey believes that the Chauncey Billups trade strated the Detroit Pistons’ collapse.

The Detroit Pistons used to be one of the powerhouses in the NBA, but that all changed very quickly. New Indiana Pacers’ guard Rodney Stuckey was on both the successful teams and went through the depressing collapse, and he has some insight on what happened to Detroit. It’s always intriguing to hear players weight in on teams and what happened to start a franchise’s major collapse.

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Stuckey spoke to Pacers.com about the old Pistons and he opened up about what happened to start the collapse.

“Once Chauncey was traded, everything went downhill from there. Chauncey was the glue who held everything together. Once he was traded, it was a domino effect. One thing after another. Something happened, then this happened, that happened. So it was tough, you know? You go from this guy who’s been an All-Star and Finals MVP to a guy like Allen Iverson who’s a completely different type of player. Chauncey was the leader, the role model. Allen Iverson was a scorer, a guy who just gets buckets. He can give you 40 if you want him to. And then you have Rip (Hamilton) on the other side that you need to get the ball to and you can’t forget about Tayshaun (Prince). It was a tough situation. It was a lot that was thrown at one person at one time. I was just trying to figure stuff out. But it happened the way it happened. You learn from each experience.”

It makes a lot of sense, especially due to the role that Chauncey Billups played as the floor general in Detroit. He was the player that took big shots in the clutch, and he was the coach on the floor that kept everyone in line and doing what they were supposed to do. Trading him for a player like Iverson who simply wasn’t a true point guard and focused on scoring more for himself.

That being said, it didn’t help that the other players that surrounded Billups when he was in Detroit began playing poorly. No one was ever the same after Billups was traded, and it wasn’t simply because he wasn’t the point guard anymore. Hearing that everything started when Billups was traded isn’t too surprising though.

Detroit finally appears to be back on the map in the Eastern Conference, and Stan Van Gundy might be the guy to take them back to the postseason. It’s a completely new era of basketball in Detroit, but the powerhouse of the Billups time period hasn’t been forgotten.

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