Woman: (with unbridled entitlement) This is a company party our CEO is here and you STOLE our pizza.

Paul and Kosuke continue apologizing.  They offer to pay for the two slices.

Woman: (didactically snobbish) We don’t want your money. No.  Enjoy the pizza, but you can’t steal other people’s things.  You can’t take what’s not yours

Again the duo continues their apologies.  Kosuke tries to turn the situation around and befriend them.

Kosuke: What company do you guys work for?

Woman: We work for Limewire.

<Long pause>  Kosuke’s eyes go wide.  Anger festers in his pupils.

Kosuke: Oh ok.  Well I work at a record label so fuck you.  You’ve stolen from us enough. (Bites pizza. Begins to walk away.)

rickwebb: This is awesome.

kellyreeves: OH wow. Classic.

Clearly the funniest story of the day.

Later, working on a story for a magazine, I asked Dumars why he had decided those were the two guards [Billups and Hamilton] who would make the most sense for his team.

Dumars’ answer was very clear, and represented a real philosophy: Those were two guards who could help the team without needing possession of the ball.

Hamilton could run around a thousand screens and force the defense to chase, hedge, and help all over the place. Such movement has the potential to get easy buckets for any and all Pistons, from the guy setting the pick to the guy spotting up behind the 3-point line.

Billups, meanwhile, is a good enough shooter to keep a defender near. The team could run its offense with Billups at the top of of the circle. Now and again the ball would be kicked out to him, and he had the skill and mentality to drain the shot if it was open, or swing the ball to the opposite side if he wasn’t.

It worked.