Good News

At the very least, it means the returns of two of their best players are imminent. Gordon shot around at Monday’s practice, while Villanueva was having his nasal fracture repaired and his septum realigned. The next step is fitting him with a Rip Hamiltonesque mask. Tayshaun Prince even shot around without any noticeable tentativeness, though he wasn’t engaging in much that would test the ruptured disc in his lower back that would approximate game action.

“It’s feeling pretty good,” Gordon said of his sprained ankle suffering last Wednesday against Cleveland. “Trying to see if I can practice tomorrow. If it continues to progress the way it has been, hopefully I’ll be able to play on Wednesday.”

“Hopefully, we’ll get some good news,” said John Kuester, who visibly cringes whenever he’s asked for an injury update, as if talking about it will delay the returns or perhaps put another player in the crosshairs. “We’ll find out soon. It’s interesting, being put in this position where all of a sudden you continually talk about who’s going to play and who’s not going to play. I wish I knew, but I saw what you saw – they were shooting. And we did get some good news on Charlie.”

The Pistons were feeling pretty good Monday after snapping their seven-game losing streak with an improbable Sunday win over an Atlanta team that came into the game with a 12-4 record. The news on the injury front should boost their psyche even more. The standings don’t even look that bad, as their 6-11 record has them near the teams occupying the final few Eastern Conference playoff seeds.

Up ahead is a series of four games against teams that figure to be slugging it out with them for those berths – at Chicago on Wednesday, followed by Friday and Sunday Palace dates with Milwaukee and Washington, and then a trip to Philadelphia next Wednesday.

Will Kuester trot out the same starting lineup against Chicago that beat Atlanta, a lineup that included Chucky Atkins and Jason Maxiell if Gordon and Villanueva can’t go?

Probably safe to assume Maxiell will stay in the lineup, but Kuester at least hinted that Atkins would be returning to the bench when he said, “what we’re going to do is look at matchups and what is going to be in the best interests of the team.”

Atkins matched up well with Atlanta’s Mike Bibby, but he’d have a tougher time coping with Chicago’s backcourt of athletic point guard Derrick Rose and 6-foot-7 shooting guard John Salmons. If Gordon can’t play, Kuester could choose to go with 6-foot-11 Austin Daye against Salmons.

But before looking ahead, let’s take another look back at Sunday’s lineup and let’s start with this: There are 71 NBA players, by unofficial count, who’ll make more than $9.2 million this season. Every team in the league has at least one, except for Portland and Oklahoma City, and both will have multiple players making more than that as soon as their rookie deals expire.

Seven teams – Dallas, Denver, New York, Phoenix, San Antonio, Utah and Washington – have four players who make more than $9.2 million this season. Ten others, the Pistons among them, have three such players.

The trouble is, not one of those three Pistons – Hamilton, Prince and Gordon – were in uniform Sunday. So the starting lineup Kuester fielded consisted of Ben Wallace and Atkins, whose cap charge to the Pistons is $1 million apiece, the veteran’s minimum; plus Rodney Stuckey at $1.8 million, Jonas Jerebko at $400,000 and Maxiell at $5 million, for a grand total of … yup, $9.2 million.

Villanueva, the next highest-paid Piston after the big three, came off the bench in Sunday’s unlikely win, but he left for good with his broken nose with 9:30 to play, and the starters finished the game with the exception of Will Bynum taking Atkins’ spot – which made the Pistons an even more economical bunch, Bynum making $825,000 this season, meaning the Pistons finished the game with a lineup making just a shade north of $9 million combined – or less than any of three Atlanta players: Joe Johnson, Josh Smith and Jamal Crawford.

Here’s another sequence of facts that Maxiell might find eerie: First the Pistons lost Hamilton, their highest-paid player this season at a reported $11.6 million, to an ankle sprain. Then they lost Prince, No. 2 on their payroll at a reported $10.3 million, to a back injury. Then came the ankle sprain to Gordon, No. 3 at a reported $10 million. And finally, the injury that sidelined Villanueva, No. 4 at a reported $6.5 million. No. 5 is Maxiell. Step lightly, Max.

If there’s a lineup any NBA team fields this year that makes less, it’s hard to imagine it. Even the 0-17 New Jersey Nets when they were missing Devin Harris fielded a more pricey starting lineup than that with Rafer Alston earning $5.2 million and Trenton Hassell $4.3 million alone topping the combined Pistons starting five’s salary.

The Minnesota Timberwolves played a few games without both Al Jefferson and Kevin Love, who make about $16 million combined. But their starting five still was about a $13 million enterprise with Ryan Gomes at $3.9 million, Jonny Flynn $3 million, Corey Brewer $2.9 million, Ryan Hollins $2.1 million and Nathan Jawai $740,000.

The Sacramento Kings have been without both Kevin Martin ($10.2 million) and Francisco Garcia ($5.2 million), but just point guard Beno Udrih ($6 million) and first-rounder Tyreke Evans ($3.6 million) put them over the $9.2 million threshold.

The mid-level exception that teams over the cap can use to sign free agents – by definition, the average NBA salary – is $5.8 million for the 2009-10 season. That means the Pistons on Sunday fielded a starting lineup that makes less than two average NBA players.

If the Pistons line up on Wednesday at Chicago without Hamilton, Prince, Gordon and Villanueva, they’ll have more than $37 million in street clothes. But maybe things are starting to turn. The Bulls announced Monday that Kirk Hinrich would miss at least a week with a sprained left thumb.