Posted by McK1:

Posted by TrueBlue:

Posted by McK1:

Posted by TrueBlue:

Posted by King1:

I want to trade down to nine and get Ray Felton somehow. No way he will work in LB system and all the UNC point guards play fast.

Actually Felton will work great for LB if he gets him to play a little better defense. Felton can play halfcourt ball A LA Billups.

Billups hated playing for LB. Their respective concepts of what a point guard should be was as contrasting as night and day

Billups gave LB 100% credit for making him become a better point guard and he also said Marbury should have listened to LB instead of clashing with him. Billups won an NBA Finals MVP under LB.

Rip and Billups hated his coaching style but stated they came to appreciate what he taught them and saw his way works if you listened to him. Reggie had his difficulty with LB also but as myriads of others stated LB' s Top Notch coach and he knows what he's doing.

[Edited by - TrueBlue on 06-18-2008 7:51 PM]

billups is admitting the obvious. you can see to this day his decision making in pressure situations is underwhelming sans Brown
and his crediting LB for making him better still doesn't=billups and brown were even the pathmark brand of riley and earvin

From Indomitable Spirit to a Dominant Player

By LIZ ROBBINS
Published: January 19, 2006

AUBURN HILLS, Mich., Jan. 17 - In the sculptured strength of his arms, Chauncey Billups speaks of his success. The tattooed words that scroll down his left triceps read, "No Pain." His right arm completes the thought: "No Fame."

These days Billups's arms move in concert, high-fiving his Pistons teammates as he directs their early-season joy ride through the N.B.A.But he knows his odyssey of rejection and resilience - one that has taken him through six cities and six coaches - has not quite ended.Billups owns an N.B.A. championship and the Most Valuable Player trophy from the 2004 N.B.A. finals. As the point guard on the league's best team - the Pistons were 30-5 with one game to go before meeting the Knicks on Thursday - he has even vaulted to a shortlist of regular-season M.V.P. candidates.

And yet, curiously, one honor still eludes him: Billups has never been an All-Star. "It's crazy," he said, smiling, after a Pistons practice. "I'm just happy we're having a good year."
Actually, in his ninth season, Billups, 29, is having a career year.

"I'm validating what I always felt about myself," he said, "that I could be dominant and one of the best players at my position in this league. But, obviously, I wasn't as good as I am right now."

Larry Brown molded Billups into his ideal point guard in Detroit before moving to the Knicks this season. Now, Brown's replacement, Flip Saunders, has given Billups freedom to be more of an offensive force again. Under Saunders, who five years ago in Minnesota gave Billups his first starting job, he is averaging 8.6 assists, third best in the N.B.A. and several assists more than he averaged under Brown. And Billups is averaging 19 points, after averaging 16.9 and 16.5 when Brown was in charge.

"Before the season, it's like, 'Larry's not here anymore and Chauncey's going to be shooting 25 shots a game,' " said Billups, who is actually averaging half that amount. "I think I've been able to show people my maturation, seeing that I could run a team, and get people involved and still score at the same time.

"Where last year I did those things but I wasn't credited for it; it was L. B.," Billups said, referring to Brown. "He had a lot to do with that. But I don't really get my just due some-times, for some reason."
This is the motto of the Pistons, who feel overlooked as individuals because of their team success. No one epitomizes that struggle for recognition more than Billups.

He is fourth among Eastern Conference guards in All-Star fan voting (behind Allen Iverson, Dwyane Wade and Vince Carter), but because coaches usually reward the team with the best record, they will most likely name him a reserve.

"Chauncey just believes in himself," guard Richard Hamilton said of Billups, who is known as Mr. Big Shot for his late-game accuracy. "I love it; you need somebody that confident at your lead guard. I haven't played with someone like that before who just wants it."

Billups's confidence is rooted in his family, including his high school sweetheart and wife, Piper; his mother, Faye; and his father, Ray, who wakes up at 3:30 a.m. to work in a grocery-chain warehouse. After every trade and disappointment, Faye Billups said she repeated the same advice: "Just move on."

Billups always knew when he was to be traded; he reads people the way he reads defenses. The Celtics took him out of the University of Colorado with the No. 3 pick of the 1997 draft. But in training camp, Billups sensed that the team's coach and president, Rick Pitino, had already lost faith in him. The Celtics traded him 51 games later to Toronto, starting the unraveling of his early career.

Three intersections later, when Billups was a free agent after two years in Minnesota, Joe Dumars, the Pistons' president, sensed his potential. He signed him to a six-year, $33.7 million contract in 2002.
"I thought he had N.B.A. talent, but more so than that, he never gave up," Dumars said. "When you see that in a person, you know that there's something special there. People keep telling him he can't get it done, that he's not a true point guard. I like guys like that. He's a nonstop fighter."

Early in his career, Billups rarely turned down a shot. The pressure to prove his talent peaked in his hometown, where Billups, playing a backup role for the Denver Nuggets (his third N.B.A. team), never seemed to fit.

"He was just taking so many shots," said Antonio McDyess, Billups's friend since they were on the Nuggets. "He would get into the lane, and because he didn't have anyone to pass to, he'd throw it to himself."
When Dan Issel, the Nuggets' coach and president, reassured an injured Billups that he would not be traded, Billups knew. "I came home to my wife and said, 'Baby, we're out of here,' " he said. The next day, he was traded to Orlando.

There, Magic Coach Doc Rivers saw something in Billups, even though he was still sidelined with a separated shoulder. "The one thing that stood out was that he made every practice, every game and in every team meeting he spoke up," said Rivers, now the Celtics' coach. "And he never put on a Magic uniform."

When Minnesota signed Billups in 2000, Saunders started him for the injured Terrell Brandon and reined in Billups's aggressive mentality.When Billups got to Detroit, Dumars made sure Billups knew his starting job was secure. With that pressure alleviated, Billups continued his progression as floor leader under Coach Rick Carlisle. Then Brown arrived and hammered the point home.

"The biggest thing with Larry, I learned I could dominate a game without scoring 25 points," Billups said. "I learned how to feel good about that."

Now he feels even better. Billups is expanding his reputation as one of the league's friendliest players by dispensing advice, joking that he should charge by the hour. He specializes in Brown interpretation.
Knicks point guard Stephon Marbury, learning to live with Brown, called Billups before the season, and they have stayed in contact; Marbury's teammate Jamal Crawford contacts Billups on a two-way pager.

"I told Steph the day Brown took the job he's got to be patient," Billups said, recalling how the Indiana Pacers' Reggie Miller and Mark Jackson gave him the same advice when Brown was hired in Detroit.
Billups warned Marbury and Crawford. "I told them that the first month, 'If you got hair, it's going to fall out,' " Billups said. "But after you start to understand Larry, understand what he wants, he's talking so much, you have to learn what to take in and when to say, 'Whatever.'

"When you understand that, your game will take off and your team is a lot better. It's going to be all right. Larry knows what he's doing."

Brown, McDyess said, helped turn Billups from good to great when the Pistons won in 2004. "He's really blossomed," McDyess said. "He thinks about winning more than numbers." Billups can have both. He registered a career-high 37 points and a career-high 19 assists in separate games this season.

"I don't think his game has changed that much since when I had him," Saunders said. "He's gotten confidence, he's more mature, he's in a perfect situation."

Quick and bruising at 6 feet 3 inches, Billups knows when to penetrate and where to find his teammates. Hamilton curls off screens; Ben Wallace grabs offensive rebounds and sends them back to Billups beyond the arc; Rasheed Wallace rolls off picks to drain 3-pointers; and when Tayshaun Prince seems forgotten, Billups finds him in the corner. Everyone can play like an All-Star with Billups on the court, maybe even Billups, himself, this season. Detroit Pulls Away

Posted by McK1:

blue you highlighted part of this quote, why not the rest of it:

"Where last year I did those things but I wasn't credited for it; it was L. B.," Billups said, referring to Brown. "He had a lot to do with that. But I don't really get my just due some-times, for some reason."
This is the motto of the Pistons, who feel overlooked as individuals because of their team success. No one epitomizes that struggle for recognition more than Billups.

please break down the "i don't get my just due" statement. billups sounds just like bill davidson when he said there was too much larry brown and not enough pistons and thats why i wanted him gone

I wonder why brown wanted out of the most successful place of his nba career after 2 years, 2 finals trip, 1 title and why the players were so outgoing with their praise of the offensive freedom they experienced under flip, especially billups, if there was all this player-coach chemistry going on? he gave indy and philly how many years while achieving less.

The Detroit Pistons, the best team in basketball, the team that became even better after Larry Brown left as coach, visits the worst team in basketball tonight, the team embroiled in a high-stakes feud between Brown and point guard Stephon Marbury.

Like salt in Brown's self-inflicted and Stephon Marbury-inflicted wounds, the Pistons present him with a prickly reminder of the spoils he once had with Detroit and the spoiled season he has endured with the Knicks.

"I am very surprised that it's gotten to this point — team-wise and with Stephon," Pistons point guard Chauncey Billups said yesterday after practice in Manhattan. "I'm really saddened by it. I know I couldn't play with that. I know it's just taken a toll on everybody."

As the Knicks (18-45) sink into chaos, the end of the season cannot come too soon. The Pistons (51-12) are also eager for it to end, so they can start the playoffs and try to recapture the title they won in 2004 under Brown.

"He drove this Rolls-Royce," Billups said, referring to Brown and the Pistons. "He chose to change up. It is what it is. I just never thought it would ever get this bad."

Brown and the Pistons will forever differ over the semantics, Brown saying he was fired, the Pistons saying he wanted out.

He started secret negotiations for a job in the Cleveland Cavaliers' front office during the 2004-5 season, which infuriated the Pistons' ownership when the news became public. Brown and the Pistons negotiated a $7 million buyout that freed him to take the Knicks' job at $10 million a year for five years.

The simmering tension between Brown and Marbury blew up this week as they lobbed cannonballs at each other through the news media. Billups recalled his own struggles with Brown, who he said made him a better player.

"There was a time where of course I was frustrated and wanted to sound off, but I wouldn't do it," Billups said. "There's a right way to do it. Me and Larry, we had our conversations. I voiced my opinions and he voiced his, and after we walked out of there, it was just it."

Billups said that had he clashed publicly with Brown, his teammates and the team president, Joe Dumars, would have quelled it. Then again, Billups said: "That's just not our culture. I just couldn't see that happening here." Billups said he had advised Marbury to be patient and to let Brown's criticisms "go in one ear and out the other."

"I don't have no advice for this," he added. "I don't know. I've never been through that, and I hope I never do."

The coach-point guard relationship is the axis of every team. Billups learned to work with Brown and endorsed the Pistons' hiring of Flip Saunders, his former coach with Minnesota. Marbury, who also played in Minnesota, considers Saunders his favorite coach.

"Having coached Steph for three years, his main thing is that he's unbelievably competitive," Saunders said. "And he can be very stubborn."

Marbury is different from Billups.

"Chauncey's a guy you can sit down and talk," Saunders said. "With Steph, your sit-downs, you're going to have to have a few of them to convince him. Once he believes in it, he goes overboard."

Marbury has never fully believed in Brown's system. When Saunders became Detroit's coach, guards Billups and Richard Hamilton praised him for giving them more freedom.

Marbury took his campaign for more freedom to the news media, saying Brown's criticism was personal.

Saunders said the New York stage and the Knicks' losing record had heightened the feud.

"I think what happens sometime is frustration creeps in a little bit and it's sort of a he-said, she-said situation," Saunders said. "There's no question that Larry can help Steph, and if Steph does things right, he can help their team."

Speaking of Marbury, Saunders said: "He wants to win. I know the losing right now is killing him."

Posted by TrueBlue:

If Larry get's Felton to play dominating the game just by conducting offense, gets Charlotte to the playoffs within 2yrs, and possibly gets Felton some All-Star consideration...He will have done a good job similar to what he did when he was with the Pistons and Billups.

Mcdyess' words>>>>>>>>Yours


Always and Forever!!!!!