Rodney Stuckey

After spending his first seven NBA seasons with the Pistons, Stuckey arrived in Indiana this offseason to help cushion the loss of Lance Stephenson. Paul George will miss the entire 2014-15 season, making Stuckey the favorite to start at shooting guard this season. Essentially, the 6-5 combo guard will now compete with C.J. Miles and Solomon Hill for what seems to be two starting spots on the wing at shooting guard and small forward. Even if Stuckey doesn't crack Frank Vogel's initial starting lineup, 20-25 minutes per game is a realistic expectation for Stuckey this season. His role will be established during camp, but Stuckey ultimately has the potential to see ball-handling duty with the reserves, as well as meaningful minutes at shooting guard. In 27 minutes per game with the Pistons last season, Stuckey averaged 13.9 points and 2.1 assists per game. Matching that type of production in 2014-15 seems like a reasonable possibility, which would make him a fringe option in standard leagues.

After a turbulent yet productive 2011-12 campaign, Stuckey took a big step back last year. He spent most of the season being deployed as a combo guard off the bench, finishing the year with averages of 11.5 points, 2.8 rebounds and 3.6 assists while shooting just 40.6 percent from the floor in under 29 mpg. He'll get a chance to compete for the starting shooting guard gig in camp and may be considered the current favorite for the job, but Stuckey's strengths are as a slasher, which doesn't fit the Pistons' needs from the position. Stuckey is also entering the final season of his contract, so there's a chance he could be dealt during the season. With his long-term future on the squad in question, Stuckey makes for a risky fantasy option.

Stuckey wasn’t particularly consistent in 2011-12 in the scoring department, but seemed to hit his stride in March, putting together five 20-plus point performances over a six game span. However, he suffered toe and hamstring injuries shortly thereafter and wasn’t the same when he returned, averaging just 10.4 points per game on 36.4 percent shooting in April. The injuries caused Stuckey to miss 11 games, his second consecutive season of missing 10 or more games. That doesn’t make Stuckey as big of a health-risk as some other highly-rated shooting guards (Eric Gordon, Kevin Martin, and Dwyane Wade have all missed more games), but it remains something to be wary of. Perhaps more concerning for Stuckey is the challenge posed by Brandon Knight as the team’s alpha dog in the backcourt. While Stuckey faltered down the stretch, Knight played his best ball of the season in April, averaging 13.6 points per game on 46.5 percent shooting and chipped in 4.1 assists per contest. Expect the 20-year-old Knight to shoulder more of the scoring burden in his second year in the league, though that doesn’t mean Stuckey will be rendered obsolete. If he can avoid having his season curtailed by injury, Stuckey has a chance to slightly bump up his scoring and return to his career assist and rebound averages after falling off a bit last season.

While he’s never experienced the full-scale breakout some pundits have expected, Stuckey has managed to develop into one of the Pistons’ better producers over the past few seasons. He averaged 15.5 points, 3.1 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 1.1 steals in 31 mpg in 2010-11. The 25-year-old combo guard had the most effective campaign of his career, hitting 43.9 percent of his field goal attempts and 86.6 percent of his free three shots. Stuckey will be part of the Pistons’ main three-guard rotation, putting him in prime position to continue the development he’s shown in his first four seasons with the team.

Joe Dumars built the Pistons' championship teams with savvy acquisitions like Rip Hamilton, Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace. But his moves of more recent vintage have done little to enhance his reputation. Case in point… the trade of Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson was – very clearly – a salary dump. But at the time, Dumars also sold it as a way to open up the point guard spot for Stuckey. All Stuckey has done since then is convince most observers that he's best off playing the two spot, but that's where Hamilton and Ben Gordon are playing. For as long as Stuckey is miscast as the Pistons' floor leader, he should produce decent numbers – he improved his averages to 16.6 points, 4.8 assists, 1.4 steals and 3.8 boards last season – but we'd love to see what he could do playing at his natural position.

Joe Dumars traded Chauncey Billups to Denver, in part, because he believes Stuckey has the potential to be a special player. Did he make the right call? The jury is still out. The second-year pro out of Eastern Washington was hit-and-miss in his first season as the Pistons’ lead guard, finishing with averages of 13.4 points, 3.5 boards, 4.9 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.7 turnovers per game, while shooting 43.9 percent from the floor and 29.5 percent from three. He showed promise… but was inconsistent, and by April was occasionally losing crunch-time minutes to Will Bynum. Some observers believe Stuckey’s future is as a two guard, not at the point, and that Detroit’s long-term plans would be best served by dealing Rip Hamilton for a more traditional point. Of course, Dumars’ long-term commitment to Ben Gordon puts that plan on indefinite hold. New Pistons coach John Kuester is supposed to be an offensive guru; hopefully he’ll find a way to work all three scoring guards into the rotation, though it’s rumored that Gordon might even see some run at the point – possibly cutting into Stuckey’s minutes.

When Stuckey was drafted in 2007, he was trumpeted as the best Pistons draft pick since Darko Milicic. We all now how that turned out. Seriously though, Stuckey was expected to contribute immediately, and he might have done just that if he hadn't broken his hand a week before the opener. Stuckey missed the first 25 games of the season. Although he struggled his first few months in the league, he stepped his game up in the final two months, averaging 10.0 ppg, 3.0 apg, and shooting 44% from the field and 85% from the line. He's the heir apparent to Billups, who, it should be said, had similar numbers his first year in the pros.

The Pistons’ first-round draft pick (15th overall) projects as an electric scoring wing with the ability to play both backcourt positions. This year, though, he has to be considered a high-risk/high-reward option. Stuckey obviously isn’t unseating Chauncey Billups or Rip Hamilton any time soon, which means he’ll be in the mix with Flip Murray and possibly Jarvis Hayes for minutes off the bench.