AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – When a point guard survives 17 NBA seasons – 16 of them extending into the postseason – while witnessing dozens of young whippets come and go, you can safely assume his basketball IQ would make Einstein blush. Basketball people spotted Terry Porter’s savvy long before his playing days ended, which explains why one year after he retired he was named Milwaukee Bucks head coach – and guarantees that he’ll be somebody’s head coach again someday soon.

Until that day, he’ll be at the right hand of Flip Saunders, available to give him insights like this one: When you embark on a West Coast trip, make sure your starters get plenty of rest by utilizing the bench, but do your utmost to get that trip off to a good start.

Chances are Saunders and Porter will discuss something along those lines as the Pistons take flight to Utah, where on Monday night they’ll open a four-game stretch of games spread over six days and two time zones.

“Most of the time you get a concentration of games – four in five days or something like that,” Porter said. “That’s really tough. Go back-to-back, get a day off, back-to-back again. You don’t get a day off between games a lot of times. It puts a lot of pressure on your bench. You’ve got to make sure you rest guys. That’s the biggest thing.

“And you really want to try to get off to a good start on these road trips. Win the first one to set the tone, maybe win the second one. You really want to do that. The last one of that road trip is always a tough one. Everybody knows you’re going to go home. A lot of times, the team you’re playing, they’ve rested for a day or two and they’re really waiting for you.”

Porter knows, because he played in Portland for his first 10 seasons, well aware of where Eastern Conference opponents were in the course of their road trips.

“You always want to jump on them early to see if they have the will to spend all that energy involved in trying to get back in that game,” he said. “You always want to see how much fight they have left after that long road trip before they go back home.”

Hit a weary team with a five-minute flurry to start the game, their knees would often buckle.

“The good teams always made a good run,” Porter said, “but there were a lot of teams you could do that to.”

Timing plays a huge factor in the success or failure of a West Coast swing. What type of schedule has the home team just played? How are your games spaced out? How arduous is the travel to get from one city to the next in the far-flung West? Who’s injured?

Both Porter and fellow Pistons assistant coach Ron Harper agree on one thing: It’s better to get one of the two long West Coast trips out of the way early in the season, as the Pistons are doing.

“We felt when those East Coast teams would come out there later on during the season during these long years, they were tired, they were fatigued,” said Harper, who spent nine of his 16 NBA seasons playing in Los Angeles – six with the Clippers early and three with the Lakers prior to retirement – in addition to his stints with Cleveland to start his career and Chicago during the Jordan heyday. “If you go out there early, guys are fired up to go play basketball. If you get them later on, it’s the dog days and teams are like, ‘Let’s get these games over with.’

“When you’re on the East Coast, you want to get one out early in the year because that means you only have to go back one more time. It’s great we get three games in the East and then go out West – that means we get them out of the way. It’s great timing.”

Well, maybe, according to Saunders. All depends on the pulse of your own team at the time.

“You don’t mind going out there as long as you’re playing well,” he said. “They’re tough trips, especially early. Everyone right now thinks they’re pretty good. They all can win games. Sometimes late in the year, if you get a team that’s not playing very well, if you get up on them they might roll over. That’s not going to happen early in the year.”

It’s also not bad timing – but not great timing, either – that the first game is against Utah. Utah’s more deliberate style might mean the Pistons can ride their starters longer than they otherwise would in order to better the odds of getting the trip off to a good start, but the Jazz to into the game 3-0 with a Friday night road win over Phoenix and a Saturday night hammering of Golden State among their wins.

“It’s different than going out there and making that first game against Phoenix,” Porter said. “That’s a lot different. To some degree, you can give your starters a little more minutes in that type of game as opposed to opening up against Phoenix and knowing you’ve got three more games on that road trip.”

Saunders and Porter also think an early West Coast trip is good for establishing a sense of camaraderie. The Pistons have their veteran core intact, but this will be the first extended time together with key newcomers Nazr Mohammed and Flip Murray.

“What I like about it is you get your team together,” Saunders said. “We’ll be together for a week. You’ll find out some things. It’s going to be a big test for our young guys, Jason (Maxiell) and Carlos (Delfino) to see how they in environments that are not going to be conducive, as far as people cheering for them.”

“You like to get at least one of those (West Coast swings) out of the way early because it tests your squad,” Porter said. “As a coach, teams are really built on the road. You get a chance to get away from home. You have to hang out more, get a chance to know each other. These guys have been together for so long, a lot of that stuff is already established.

“I think they look at it as the road is where they get their toughness. You go into enemy territory, noise levels, all that stuff. I always liked going into the West Coast and getting some of those road rips done early. Of course, I haven’t always had the best teams to go out there with but I always enjoy it.”

The Pistons will enjoy it more if they come back from the West Coast with a winning record, and with Utah the only one among the four opponents considered a likely playoff team, their prospects could be worse. Here’s a game-by-game look at what they can expect:

Monday at Utah – The Jazz might continue to play the disciplined, deliberate style of Jerry Sloan even in the newly up-tempo NBA, but the front office is providing Sloan a little better class of athlete these days.

Second-year shooting guard C.J. Miles, a second-round pick out of Dallas Skyline High School in 2005, won the starting job out of training camp. This year’s first-rounder, Ronnie Brewer of Arkansas, is another slasher.

The Jazz have an interesting mix of talents in their frontcourt with ex-Piston Mehmet Okur at center flanked by the versatile Andrei Kirilenko and Carlos Boozer, who put up 24 points and 19 rebounds in Utah’s season-opening win over Houston and has three double-doubles in three games.

Second-year point guard Deron Williams, who took Illinois to the 2005 NCAA title game, became a solid NBA starter as last season played out and is off to a good start. The bench is anchored by veterans Derek Fisher and Matt Harping with interior help from Jargon Collins and rookie Paul Millsap.

Utah comes into the game off the same back-to-back games on Friday and Saturday as the Pistons, with both having Sunday off – a travel day for Detroit, while Utah spent Saturday night in their own beds after hosting Golden State.

Wednesday at Sacramento – Still early enough in the trip that fatigue shouldn’t be a problem, especially with Tuesday being an off night and the Pistons enjoying a clear edge in depth over the Kings.

A few years ago, Sacramento enjoyed the type of bench strength that Dallas has most recently boasted, but look at what the Kings have at the disposal of first-year coach Eric Musselman – other than Shareef Abdur-Rahim, the only players who’ve solidified a spot in the rotation are castoffs John Salmons (76ers) and Maurice Taylor (Knicks) along with disappointing second-year swingman Francisco Garcia.

Brad Miller and Kenny Thomas give the Kings some inside punch up front and Ron Artest and Mike Bobby have All-Star ability, but shooting guard Kevin Martin is often overmatched and the Pistons should be able to exploit his matchups with Rip Hamilton.

The Kings will be making a similar trek across the country to get back home, too. They have weekend games in Chicago and Milwaukee before hosting Minnesota on Monday night leading to their date with the Pistons.

Friday at Los Angeles Lakers – The Lakers are supposed to be a team that struggles to make the playoffs even with Kobe Bryant in the lineup, yet they got off to a 2-0 start while Bryant rehabbed a knee that was surgically repaired on July 15, then made it 3-0 as Bryant scored 23 points in his debut, a 118-112 win over Seattle on Friday night.

Even with Bryant’s return, there are holes in this lineup: at point guard where Smush Parker, who went from the inactive list in Detroit and Phoenix two years ago to the starter here last season, is still the man by default; at center, where second-year high schooled Andrew Bynum, who might have a bright future but isn’t ready yet, must play while Chris Mimi and Kwame Brown are out with injuries; and, perhaps, at small forward, where it remains to be seen if Luke Walton has the stuff to be an NBA starter.

Ex-Piston Maurice Evans shared time with Sasha Vocalic at shooting guard in Bryant’s absence, putting immense pressure on power forward Lamar Odom to produce – and he did, averaging 28 points, nine rebounds and seven assists on 54 percent shooting in the 3-0 start.

The bench, too, is underwhelming – Vladimir Radanovich, Brian Cook, Ronny Triad and Jordan Farmer. No wonder Phil Jackson took a page from Larry Brown’s book and had hip replacement surgery on the eve of the season.

As for the schedule, again, not so bad. The Lakers, like the Pistons, have Thursday off after a Wednesday road game in Portland.

Saturday at Golden State – This is the first game where circumstances conspire against the Pistons. Not only are the Warriors off on Friday while the Pistons will be playing a few hours away by air, but they also play an up-tempo style under new – and old – coach Don Nelson.

You can bet that Saunders and his coaching staff will hammer home the importance of not getting into a running game with the Warriors, both to spare their legs and to exploit the Pistons’ interior advantage.

The Warriors figure to be extremely vulnerable to teams that can score in the post this season. Troy Murphy, a shooter with range but ill-suited to defend post scorers, is the starting center; Mike Dunleavy, who’s been mostly a small forward and sometimes a shooting guard over his first four seasons, has slid to power forward; and young European Andris Biedrins and undersized Ike Diogu are the only bench alternatives.

The Warriors can kill you on nights both Baron Davis and Jason Richardson are percolating, and the conditions here could be ripe for one of those nights.

Interesting sidenote: Free agent rookie Anthony Roberson of Florida made the final cut, meaning the Warriors have two players from Saginaw – Richardson, the former Michigan State, being the other.