Bynum is going back to Pistons.

[ace3g]

Marc Stein STEIN_LINE_HQ

Will Bynum's agent, Mark Bartelstein, tells ESPN.com that Bynum is going back to Pistons. Three-year deal worth $10.5 million. Link on way

STEIN_LINE_HQ

ESPN.com link to Will Bynum's return to the Pistons: http://es.pn/9bPwsL

[JamStone]

Ugh! Fuck my life!

What other teams even wanted this ball hog???

Why does Dumars outbid himself???

Not happy about this at all.

[aad]

not a bad deal

[Pistons < Spurs]

Not real happy about it, but also not pissed off either. I didn't want him back, and I think 3.5M per year is about a million too much IMO. But it's about what I expected, and fits with current market for backup PG's.

[Vinnie_Johnson]

Great lets just throw money at so so players that will get us to the eighth seed.

[Darrin]

Maybe there's hope we can get all our guards traded and keep Will Bynum.

[Pistons < Spurs]

I'm hoping now that the Bynum deal is done, Joe will move onto the trade front. I wouldn't be surprised to hear of a deal being done in the next day or so.

[Kriz-Maxima]

i was hoping we would pass on Will and give a try on someone a little different as a back up. But at least he can produce (offensively), and lets hope that now that he has his contract he will focus more on running the offense rather than try to get his. I don't like his height, particularly paired with Gordon off the bench.

At least he got the going rate for a back up PG on the market, for a moment I thought Joe would vastly overpay.

[aad]

Originally Posted by Pistons < Spurs

I'm hoping now that the Bynum deal is done, Joe will move onto the trade front. I wouldn't be surprised to hear of a deal being done in the next day or so.

I was saying the samething yesterday.I hope a trade happen today

[Pistons < Spurs]

Where There’s a Will...


If any Piston should feel comfortable with how their team is perceived this year, it’s Will Bynum.

“That’s good,” Bynum said about the fact that most analysts peg them outside the playoff field for the coming season. “I like that we’re not talked about like that – everything we do will be that much more shocking to them once we do it. I think we have a great team right now. I’m sure we’re not finished – there’s a long way before the season starts. But we’ve got a great chance. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem at all to make the playoffs this season.”

He said that while dabbing at his arm, where he’d just been poked by a needle for blood work as part of the physical examination required before formalizing the contract agreement Bynum and the Pistons reached on Wednesday that binds them for three more years.

He’s used to being poked at. Just as the Pistons have been written off before the season begins, so has Bynum been fighting skepticism about his place in the NBA since going undrafted out of Georgia Tech in 2005. He’s faced doubters so long – too small, too much of a scorer and not enough of a playmaker – he’s not sure what to make of the new-found sense of calm the security of his three-year deal affords him.

“I feel relaxed,” he said. “My whole career, I’ve been playing on the edge. I don’t know if it was good or bad. I just know I’m going to be a whole lot more comfortable out there, like I’m allowed to lead because I know that I’m going to be here now. I’m secure in a situation now. I know everybody. I know the city. The fans love me.

“It’s just a great opportunity for me and I’m more comfortable. I’m ready to start. I was ready to start the season when LeBron signed. I was ready to play.”

Bynum had a cup of coffee with Golden State in 2005-06, but spent most of that year in the D-League. He followed up with two seasons for Euroleague power Maccabi Tel Aviv when Joe Dumars called with an offer to play for the Pistons’ 2008 Summer League team – no promise of even an invitation to training camp. He earned that in Las Vegas, though, along with a two-year NBA minimum contract, leaving an offer five times that big from Spain sitting on the table.

After a dynamic finish to his first season with the Pistons, when Bynum began getting playing time over the final 20 games after Allen Iverson cut short his season with a back injury, Bynum started his second season with a prominent role off of John Kuester’s bench. But he turned one ankle in November and the other in December, missed 19 games and only late in the season began to feel like he could trust his ankles to handle the torque he puts on them.

Bynum went from averaging 14.9 points on .504 shooting and 4.4 assists in 28 minutes a game over the first 11 games before first turning an ankle, to season averages of 10.0 points on .444 shooting in 26.5 minutes a game.

Widely known as one of the NBA’s ultimate gym rats, Bynum has worked for the last two summers under acclaimed Chicago-based trainer Tim Grover. Grover scolded Bynum last year to be smarter about the way he pushes himself. Bynum, though it goes against his nature to pull back, says he’s heeding the advice.

“I think I’m there,” he said. “I have been (taking Grover’s advice). Instead of going back to the gym twice or three times a day, I’m going one time. But I’m mixing up my one time and I take breaks. I’m still in the gym five or six hours a day, but I’m taking breaks and it’s a whole lot better on my body, so I guess it is working.”

He had a long talk with 16-year NBA veteran Juwan Howard, like Bynum a native Chicagoan, about the rigors of travel and the demands of the 82-game schedule. He cut his regimen down to five days a week from six. He became less inhibited with his diet, a year after cutting out all beef and pork, and found he wasn’t cramping up as much for lack of protein.

“And the last time I checked, I weighed 178 – that’s less than last year,” he said. “I reported at 185 last year and I played at 193. I’m much quicker and everything is easier now.”

Bynum says he’s kept in contact with his teammates, though he purposely avoided discussing his contract status, and says he’s gotten a strong vibe from everyone regarding their expectations for next season.

“I think I’m speaking for everybody,” he said. “Guys definitely want to avenge what happened last year and show that was a fluke. I’m a firm believer that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That was a situation where you have to go through some things to succeed. That was the process that was going on here. The Pistons as an organization had 10 spectacular years, so to go through that time for one year, we’ll take that. But we’ll definitely bounce back.”

As Joe Dumars and Mark Bartlestein, Bynum’s agent, talked several times a week for much of July, Bynum maintained his usual rigorous workout routine against the wishes of his closest advisers, who feared an injury could scuttle the best chance Bynum would ever have of landing a lifetime-securing deal.

“I was fighting with all the people in my inner circle because of how much I was working out,” he said. “They were telling me to slow down, but I’ve never slowed down. I don’t know what slowing down is.”

Which should allay any and all fears that now that his security is assured, Will Bynum will coast.

“I wasn’t expecting anything (regarding dollars or terms of the contract),” he said. “I’ve always been like that. I try to stay in between, so I don’t fall too far or be up too high. I’m truly blessed to be in this situation. I can’t ask for anything more than this opportunity.

“People wrote me off not to even be at this point. I’m ready to excel at what I do. I’m not content with being average or just being a player to come off the bench or the spark plug. My goal is to be the starting point guard for the Pistons. That’s my goal. I’m willing to sacrifice and do anything for us to win, but that’s one of my main goals. I’ve been working my tail off. I want to master this game. I’m not comfortable with just being regular or being normal or average. I feel like I’m truly blessed to do the things I can do on the court and I’m going to make the most out of it.”

http://www.nba.com/pistons/features/....html?rss=true

[aad]

Originally Posted by Pistons < Spurs

http://www.nba.com/pistons/features/....html?rss=true

If he start I know we wont be going anywhere anytime soon.But hes a nice bench player