When you're an NBA player, expected to run up and down 94 feet several dozen times a night, get leaned on by 240-pounders for 2½ hours at a time, swivel your neck and twist your spine scores of times a game, and jump up and down with its resulting torque on the back upon landing, can a ruptured disc - large, small or medium sized - be anything but a serious injury?

Losing Prince for a matter of weeks, as appears possible, leaves John Kuester with one obvious lineup decision to be made upon Rip Hamilton's return from a sprained ankle, which doesn't appear likely for Sunday's matinee against the 76ers: start Hamilton at Prince's small forward spot and leave Ben Gordon in the lineup at shooting guard; or return Gordon to the bench and let the rookies - Jonas Jerebko, Austin Daye and perhaps even DaJuan Summers - continue to share Prince's position until he can get back in the lineup.

Coming into the season, Kuester had five veteran perimeter players in whom he displayed complete trust: Prince, Hamilton, Gordon and point guards Rodney Stuckey and Will Bynum. With all five healthy, Kuester had the luxury of knowing he wouldn't have to use his rookies for anything but garbage time, a scenario made possible by his faith in the ability of not only Hamilton but of Stuckey, as well, to play small forward.

Now, unless Kuester wants to play all four nearly 40 minutes a game, he's going to need to incorporate Jerebko and Daye into the rotation. Based on what the kids have shown the past three games, in Jerebko's case, and the past two, in Daye's, that won't necessarily cripple the Pistons.

But look at the schedule. After a relatively tame week ahead - Philly and Charlotte at home this week, at Washington next Saturday - the Pistons face a daunting six-game stretch: home against Dallas, a four-game Western road swing that starts with a back-to-back against the Lakers and Portland and ends with another back-to-back at Utah and Phoenix, returning home to face Cleveland.

Among the small forwards the Pistons face in that stretch are Thaddeus Young, Gerald Wallace, Caron Butler, Shawn Marion, Ron Artest, Grant Hill and LeBron James.

Translation: Yikes!

Losing Prince hurts at both ends of the floor, of course, but mostly for his defensive intelligence. Kuester's defensive system depends heavily on all five players thinking as one. When he had Prince and Ben Wallace, he knew he'd have two players who'd not only carry out their assignments with consistent precision, but make it their mission to put teammates in the right spots, too.

The way Jerebko held up defensively against players like Vince Carter and Hedo Turkoglu in his first extended minutes was a revelation, and Daye's wing span gives him a chance to play off of more explosive opponents and still contest shots. But you don't take a perennial All-Defensive team member out of the lineup and not suffer the effects.

Maybe the 22-point fourth quarter Charlie Villanueva put up at Orlando on Friday signals his offensive awakening, which would be great news for the Pistons. Another consistent offensive contributor gives them a little more wiggle room defensively at a time they can use the margin for error.

Kuester has been invariably upbeat since the day he was hired, and I suspect his inclination is to look at Prince's absence as a great challenge for his team and a great opportunity for the young players.

It's an attitude that's permeated the whole of his team, evidenced by the comeback win over Orlando at The Palace and spirited rallies from large deficits to press both Toronto and Orlando on the road. And it will serve the Pistons well as they go into these next nine games and beyond.

But on the whole, it's a challenge and an opportunity the Pistons would have rather avoided - or at least delayed.