Strange how there’s been a training-camp feeling to this Pistons team the last few weeks – when it should be fine-tuning things for the homestretch to the playoffs.
But this has been anything but a typical season, and certainly nothing first-year head coach John Kuester expected.

And, for that, assistant coach Brian Hill, who has been around the game for 39 years – and three times has been an NBA head coach (Kuester was his assistant in Orlando) – feels for Kuester.

“John is a really good basketball man,” Hill said at a recent practice. “He’s thorough, a good teacher, and he’s going to do a great job as a head coach. It’s just a shame that in his first year, this team has gone through something from an injury standpoint they haven’t experienced in the last six, seven years.”

Kuester had a plan heading into the season; he knew what he wanted to accomplish on the floor. But with the run of injuries to Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Ben Gordon and Will Bynum – you never knew on a given night who was available – that plan had to be altered.

“It’s the most frustrating thing you can go through as a head coach,” said Hill, a head coach with the Magic (1993-97), Vancouver Grizzlies (1997-99) and again with Orlando (2005-07). “You plan your season, look at your pieces and what you think you can do, how you’re going to organize a team offensively and what schemes you can use defensively, and all of a sudden it all gets thrown to the wind as you start losing guys.”

“Especially when (the injuries) overlap. You lose a couple guys for five or six weeks, they come back, and you lose a couple more guys for two weeks. It’s hard to get to get any type of continuity or rhythm at either end of the floor.”

“You can only talk about that stuff. There’s really not a whole lot you can do about it. The main thing is you have to stay the course and try to get across the core principles that you want to teach all year long, regardless of who’s on the floor.”