Pistons start camp with familiar faces

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Pistons forward Antonio McDyess could only grin and laugh.

Asked if he was surprised that the core of Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace, Tayshaun Prince and himself remained intact on the eve of training camp, all McDyess could say was: "I'm surprised, yeah. I'm definitely surprised at that.

"Going through four years in a row and not getting back to the finals three of those years, it is surprising because anyone else would pull the trigger any time."

The main news at Monday's media day at the Pistons' practice facility was no news. The team will have pretty much the same lineup entering camp as it had in previous seasons—despite Joe Dumars' declaration that there were no sacred cows after the Pistons were eliminated from the Eastern Conference finals by the Boston Celtics last season.

It marked the third consecutive year the Pistons' season ended at that point, but Dumars' frustration as president of basketball operations came out at the season-ending news conference.

That set off a summer of trade speculation surrounding the core group, but Dumars has said he didn't get a sufficient deal to break up the veteran group.

"If there was a trade out there that was going to make us better, he was willing to do that," new coach Michael Curry said. "But the deals we discussed, nothing close came across his desk that would make us better without taking two or three of our guys so it wouldn't have made us better."

The Pistons are hoping the continued maturation of young players Rodney Stuckey, Arron Afflalo and Jason Maxiell, the addition of free-agent power forward and former No. 1 draft pick Kwame Brown and a new voice on the bench in Curry will be enough to get the team back to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2005 — and possibly grab another title to go with the one won in 2004.

The team captain endorsed the non-moves.

"I love playing with those guys," point guard Chauncey Billups said. "We've been to the top of that mountain together. With a few different change-ups now we can get back there so I was definitely happy to see this team didn't change."

Billups took the trade rumors in stride, saying that playing for four teams the first six years of his NBA career had prepared him well for this summer.

"It wasn't really different," he said. "I just had forgotten about (it) because it had been so long.