Spend enough time reading message boards, you'd think the Pistons are in deep, deep trouble

Frequent message boards often enough, and you'll be amazed at what you'll see posted. The Pistons are 29 - 5. And this is what you'll read...

Trade 'Sheed and/or Darko for Bosh/KG/Any Youngish Big Time Player.

OMG! TEH BENCH IS TEH SUXORS!!1! :-(

The starters play too many minutes, what is Flip thinking!?

Where's the LB style defense?

Let's take this one by one...

First off, any GM that would trade a Chis Bosh or Kevin Garnett for a much older Rasheed and/or never-will-be Darko should be fired on the spot and run out of town on a rail. Why trade 'Sheed anyway? He's all of 31, he has some productive years left, and he's playing well. The Pistons championship window will be open for at least another year or two. You don't fix what ain't broke. The Pistons ain't broke. In a couple of years, then we'll talk. Joe Dumars watched the Bad Boys team grow old around him, he won't let that happen to this group. It'll be much easier to trade 'Sheed (Or McDyess/Arroyo/name your current Piston) and his contract when it's closer to expiring. We all know that expiring contracts are more valuable than actual players in the current NBA, don't we? Darko won't get you squat at this point, I can see Dumars riding out this season with him and then exploring trade options in the off season. Any man that can get good value for Rodney White and Mateen Cleaves can get something for Darko, if he sees fit...

The bench. The webziens are bitching and moaning about the bench. Lindsay Hunter and his defense will be back in a week or two. Dice is a solid 6th man, no worries there. Arroyo, who would start for several teams, is uneven, but he's getting only 12 - 15 minutes a night while backing up a legitimate MVP candidate. His assist to minutes ratio, which I'm too lazy to look up, is damn good. (I just looked... Arroyo is #2 in the NBA in assists per 48 minutes and #4 in assists per turnover. Yeah, he definitely blows...) Defino and Evans? Would you rather see Darvin Ham still on the floor? Didn't think so. The bench is fine.

Now we have the minutes issue, which is exascerbated by our memories of seeing Larry Brown run Tayshaun Prince into the ground last season. Pure and simple, Flip Saunders put it best. All star quality players play 35 + minutes a night. On every team. The Pistons have arguably 5 starters of all star quality. You don't sit them for the sake of sitting them. You pick their spots, which Flip has done, and they'll be fine come playoffs.

Defense comes down to numbers. You score more points (Which we all wanted to see), you give the other team more posessions, the odds are they will score more. Trust me, in big situations, the Pistons can turn the defensive heat up a couple of notches. They just shut the Spurs down in two recent meetings. So what if Charlotte scores 91 points? The Pistons are still blowing teams out. The turn the screws defense will be there when needed.

The Pistons sure look like a team that needs to listen to a wannabe message board GM's advice...