Empty the Bench

It has to feel at least a little bizarre walking onto an NBA court as a rookie and for the first time playing against an NBA Icon you grew up controlling in video games and watching on TV.

Could you imagine actually getting out there, cameras flashing and drunken face-painters screaming, and really guarding, say, Steve Nash in the open court? Or hunkering down on the blocks as a 20- or 21-year-old kid with Shaquille O’Neal, a guy who’s first NBA game you saw as a preschooler? I mean, I’m sure it all becomes old hat rather quickly, but still… it’s got to be weird the first few times around.

Though Nash isn’t the first NBA player (or star) they’ve each respectively guarded, Detroit Piston rookie guards Arron Afflalo and Rodney Stuckey must have had one of those surreal moments Monday night at the Palace during the Pistons’ 110-105 overtime win. Drafted 27th overall last June and averaging 3 points and 1.5 rebounds on the season, Afflalo—the reigning Pac-Ten Player of the Year—was asked to step into the starting lineup with Rip Hamilton sitting out with a sore hip. You wouldn’t know it from his paltry averages, but Afflalo has shown excellent instincts as a man defender and held his own against both guards and small forwards during the spot minutes he’s getting off Flip Saunders’ bench.

Tayshaun Prince and Rodney Stuckey Photo Credit: Icon SMI

Saunders assigned him the challenge of matching up with Steve Nash instead of Raja Bell, and in the first half the rook wasn’t phased (unlike Rowan on office-training day). Though Nash is clearly much quicker, Afflalo did a bang-up job of staying in front of him nearly every time the Suns PG tried to get to the hole. But Nash earned back-to-back NBA MVP awards based in large part around his prolific offensive talents—as soon as Afflalo made a mistake (slipped on a juke, took too long going over a pick, flat out left him open) Nash made him pay. To the rookie’s credit, however, those mistakes were the only ones Nash scored on in the first half. For the game, Afflalo had 6 points, 4 boards, 3 assists, and a steal in 21 minutes.

Stuckey, my point guard candidate for this season’s All-Rookie First Team, also benefitted from Hamilton’s absence in logging a career-high 30:12 minutes, the bulk of which came in the second half. He’s quicker and smaller than Afflalo, but Nash was still able to blow by him a few times and get into a groove in the fourth, finishing with 23 points and 9 assists. Still, Stuckey held his ground admirably for the most part, especially given the crunch-time minutes he was playing against a proven crunch-time closer. He had a very strong offensive game going too, finishing with 13 points, 3 rebounds, 2 steals, and an assist on 50% FG. He just missed two difficult shots after making two semi-acrobatic drives to the basket, makes that would have given him a career-best 17.

Afflalo and Stuckey both already faced these Suns back on February 24th when the Pistons embarassed the Suns on national television 116-86 in one of O’Neal’s first games as a Sun. Neither player had an especially big impact, however… certainly nothing close to what they did the second time around against Nash and O’Neal, two veterans who were at one time hopping aboard NBA team planes for a road game while these two rookies were riding the school bus and thinking about playing NBA Jam after school on their Sega Genesis.

Tags: Steve Nash, Arron Afflalo, Rodney Stuckey