Photo courtesy of Keith Allison under a Creative Commons license.

The tough negotiations between restricted free agent guard Rodney Stuckey and the Detroit Pistons has been centered mostly about the money. The fact that a fourth-year guard who still has holes in his game turned down a five-year, $45 million contract is certainly what fans are gravitating to. But there is another aspect of the story that could be just as important — the fact that Stuckey has missed nearly all of training camp.

The abbreviated schedule means that teams are cramming a lot of practice time into a short window, with the Pistons first game Dec. 26, less than two weeks away. And also consider that the Pistons have a new coach and a new offensive and defensive scheme to learn. Every team was allowed a certain number of “two a days,” basically extended practices, and head coach Lawrence Frank has been frontloading his two-a-days into the early portion of training camp as part of a crash course.

It is not a subject lost on the other players. Will Bynum spoke with Vincent Goodwill of the Detroit News from the perspective of being a player who went through his own drawn out contract squabbles with the Pistons last offseason. But Bynum, who ironically would be first in line to start if Stuckey isn’t ready, talked about how important training camp was.

Bynum’s contract — a sticking point because of his long road to the NBA — was resolved before training camp, so even he can’t fully understand what Stuckey’s feeling.

“For him, training camp’s almost over with,” Bynum said. “To miss all this time, with whatever decision he makes, to miss all this time is kind of critical.”

If and when Stuckey signs, he’ll have to adjust to a new coach and probably experience even more of a crash course than his teammates have with Lawrence Frank.

“Learning your teammates and developing a new style, new defensive principles, you could possibly be so far behind,” Bynum said. “When you do come, everything’s going to be that much more compact whenever you do decide or whenever he does decide what to do.”

Of all the positions, it is most important that the point guard have a good handle on the offensive system. Especially a system such as Frank’s which is not iso-heavy. And Stuckey, for all of his skills, has never shown the natural instincts of being a distributor on the floor. With the exacting nature of Frank in the early goings of the Piston practices, I can’t see him giving the keys to the offense to a player who hasn’t been around to learn the ropes. Perhaps that is why the Pistons have categorically ruled out the prospects of a sign-and-trade deal. If Detroit entertains the notion that it is willing to look for a sign-and-trade then it will drag this process out even further. And if the trade doesn’t materialize, Stuckey will be WAY behind in a season with few scheduled off days and little time to practice. He with have no chance of catching up and mastering the point guard duties that Frank will expect.

Then again, is he even a point guard?

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