I know this is some exciting news for the legions of Walter Herrmann fans in Pistons Nation; Walt tore it up last night at the Pistons open scrimmage held at Oakland University.  According to reports, Big Herm was knocking down trey’s from all over the court.

Big ups for Walter from Sheed:

“Lighting it up,” said Rasheed Wallace, referring to Herrmann’s shooting. “Herm did good. That’s the best I’ve seen Herm shoot for a practice since he’s been here.”

If last season was any indication Pistons fans will be yearning for their favorite Argentinian to get some burn.  I hope M.C. is good at shuffling because it seems he’s got a stacked deck in this year’s Pistons bench.

Another Walter, rookie Walter Sharpe, was also a pleasant surprise at the inter-squad  showdown.  The Walters will be competing for the same playing time at SF.

Take a look at this pic from Thursday’s
open practice. It looks as if Rasheed Wallace
is trying to channel his Interplanetary alter-ego
with all the extra sweat bands.

Here’s a look around the net:

Open practice video from Pistons.com

Keith Langlois from Pistons.com

Jarvis Hayes, as billed, displayed a nice outside shooting touch and also made a nice penetration move and feed for a layup. Arron Afflalo, who did not shoot well in the Summer League, made his first two perimeter jumpers. Cheikh Samb had two clean blocks and a third that was ruled a goaltend. He also displayed his deft shooting touch by hitting both of his foul shots.

Krista Jahnke from Detroit Free Press

All four of the Pistons rookies – Stuckey, Arron Afflalo, Cheikh Samb and Sammy Mejia – wore white headbands with the word “Rook” written on them.

My impressions were that coach Flip Saunders is right to be happy with the overall conditioning of the team. For early in training camp, they’re in good shape, even if that still means the legs look a little tired near the end of a scrimmage.

A. Sherrod Blakely from mLive

The battle to see who will play behind Tayshaun Prince at the small forward position appears to have been won by Jarvis Hayes. The 6-foot-8 Hayes was impressive in Detroit’s White-Blue scrimmage Thursday night with his ability to make shots while coming off screens.

Daiblo c/o Detroit Bad Boys

Amir Johnson played decent, at times it seems liked he got lost in the middle of the paint. Ive heard rumors about him being faster than Rip and i wouldn’t say those rumors are far off, it seemed liked he would be flying down court on Every fast break opportunity. I definitely see him getting alot of his points off of transition breaks and offensive tip-ins.

I’m trying to rearrange my schedule so I can get up to OU tomorrow to see the Pistons open practice. If I make it there I’ll have pictures and a full report for the readers of PN. If not I’ll have to rely on second hand information. While we wait to see which of the two happens I’ll tell you a little bit about my experience with my first open practice back in 1999.

Me and my girlfriend (now my wife) got up to the Palace of Auburn Hills pretty early. Back then I couldn’t afford to go to many Pistons games so I was all in for the Pistons comping us for an inter-squad scrimmage. Like I mentioned, we were got there early, a few hours before they were letting people in. Actually, I wasn’t even sure I had gotten the day right because the parking lot was pretty barren. Slowly but surely fans started showing up and eventually they let us wait inside the Palace because this was on October 20th and it was a bit nippy out.

We did a speed walk once they opened the gates, I think we were the second people in line so we were able to get right in the FIRST ROW! As you can see by the pics they only had one half of the arena open. That was understandable. There wasn’t a lot of excitement like there is now for Dee-troit Bas-ket-ball. The league was just coming off the lock out year and this Pistons squad was barely a .500 ball club (they finished 42-40).

I was excited though. I’ve always loved the Pistons, even in teal….I think. Plus I’m in the first freak’n row! Right in front of me are the likes of Eric Montross, Mikki Moore, Loy “Low Volt” Vaught, Chrissy Laettner, Jud “The Stud” Buechler, Willie “Mr. Basketball” Mitchell, and Lindsey Hunter (v 1.o).

So they break up into two groups and start scrimmaging. Sitting not too far behind us was an old heckler taylor made for an event you don’t have to pay for. He seemed to be a big Terry Mills guy, or as he chanted every time T-Mills touched the rock “3 Mills a day baby”. He apparently wasn’t so big on Eric Montross though. Every time they fed it down low to Eric he’d yell “don’t give it to Montross, that’s an automatic loss”. I thought to myself that it would be a whole lot funnier if Montross wasn’t a Piston. This was a preseason inter-squad scrimmage so he was essentially rooting against one of our guys. Where’s the hope in that? At least wait until the regular season starts.

I don’t recall if the black practice jersey Pistons won, or if it was the white ones? It was probaby the white seeing as how they had Grant & Stack.

After the scrimmage they opened up the court to autograph seekers, which of course meant me. I rushed the court with little regard for my girlfriend’s safety. I basically left her to fend for herself.

I tore off my Pistons shooting shirt and rushed the players like a crazed groupie. I got Lindsey, Montross, T-Mills, and then jumped into the Grant Hill mosh pit. Come to find out my girlfriend also got some sigs on the back of her Pistons shirt. I don’t remember who all she got except Terry Mills. I remember that because she told me he kept trying to sign the front of the shirt. He was try’n to get his feel on.

It was a real good time all in all. I expect a lot more people there on Thursday then there was back in ‘99. Hopefully I’ll be one of them.