Profile of Pistons Rookie Guard Rodney Stuckey

Breaking into the Pistons' playing rotation is not an easy thing to do and hasn't been for a while. The starting 5 is reduced for established veterans with tons of playoff experience like Rasheed Wallace, Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Antonio McDyess, and Tayshaun Prince. Starting spots are almost impossible to come by.

But even the bench has had a hard time getting many minutes in recent years as well. Because the starters work so well together and complement each other so nicely on the floor, they've had a history in the recent past of playing together a lot of minutes both in the NBA's regular season and playoff season.

In the past couple years, however, that has begun to change as the Pistons have brought in a lot of young talent from the NBA Draft. One such talent is Rodney Stuckey. He was picked out of Eastern Washington by Detroit with the 15th pick overall in the first round. Stuckey is valuable to Detroit because he brings the one talent to the table that no one else on the Pistons' NBA roster brings: the ability to drive into the lane at will.

Stuckey grew up idolizing Dwyane Wade (or at least did while Wade was in college and Stuckey was a bit younger) and it shows quite a bit in his game. Stuckey is very creative with the ball in his hands and uses hesitation moves galore and crossovers to slide his way into the lane with ease. He and Wade are also built similarly, both at about 6-foot-4 with strong upper bodies for their sizes and compact frames. Another comparison would be Randy Foye of the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves. Stuckey's main problem so far in the league is that he hasn't been able to finish a lot of his drives. Wade is so unique in his ability to hit bank shots and also to explode to the basket for dunks that his lack of ideal NBA shooting guard size is no problem. Stuckey on the other hand is not quite as good of an athlete so a lot of his shots have been swatted.