Bullets Forever, a Washington Wizards community

Vincent Goodwill from the Detroit News:

Tayshaun Prince playing power forward was arguably the centerpiece of the Pistons' 102-92 victory over the Cavaliers on Sunday, but don't expect him to embrace doing it full-time...

"It worked today," said Prince, placing emphasis on "today." "We had a little success before the half with it. I was able to use it to my advantage."

Kuester said he would like to go to it again.

"I would like to use it a lot," he said at Monday's practice. "It did some great things for our team and that's the most important thing."

Oh noes. The return of SMALL BALL!!!!111

Also Wednesday night, I ran into a guy I know who used to pitch in the minors. One of his minor-league managers is now a major-league manager, and recently my guy went to a game and afterward hung out with his old skipper. As my guy tells the story, his old manager was bemoaning today's young players, who care about little except their stats (and their salaries) and scoff when asked to (for example) move a runner from second to third with a tidy little grounder to the right side.

Now, leaving aside that giving yourself is a give-up play, of course I figured this was just another example of good-old-days-ism. I also figured I might as well check. I mean, I might as well ask another guy I know to check ...

In 1977 and '78, batters moved the runner -- runner on second base, nobody out -- to third base with a grounder to the right side 12 percent of the time.

In 1987 and '88, they moved them over 13 percent of the time.

If 1997 and '98, they moved them over 12 percent of the time.

In 2007 and '08, they moved them over 12 percent of the time.

(No editorial comment here. Sometimes the data does all the talking.)