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Rasheed Wallace has missed the last two games for the Pistons, and Antonio McDyess has combined for just four points and eight rebounds trying to fill Rasheed's spot in the starting lineup. The Pistons have been in pretty rough shape, then, huh? Actually, no, not at all.

Picking up the slack from the bench has been the freakishly-long Jason Maxiell and the suddenly-young Dale Davis. For much of the season, their spot in the rotation has been an either/or scenario, but the two actually played their best ball of the weekend while on the court at the same time and had a large role in beating the Nets and Sonics.

On defense, it was a throw-back to Detroit's dominance of 2004 with Maxiell and Davis holding their ground and blocking or altering just about any shot in the vicinity of the paint. On offense, the two simply dominated the glass, grabbing eight offensive boards apiece against the Sonics. Maxiell finished that game with 17 points -- including the game-winner jumper -- and 13 boards in 32 minutes. Cue the confused Sonics coach Bob Hill:

"I think it was that 6-11, 280 pounds or whatever Maxiell is. They just moved us right out of the way and Maxiell jumped right over top of us."

Umm ... yeah. That's the beauty of it: Maxiell is actually 6-7, 260. His wingspan must be damn close to seven feet and he's strong as an ox, but really, he's the same height as Rip Hamilton.

As for the suddenly rejuvenated Davis, your guess is as good as mine. I've always known him to be extremely well conditioned, but the guy is 37 years old and playing like he's in his prime. My only guess is that spending almost all of last year on the bench has done more good than we'll ever realize.

So where does Detroit go from here? Before Davis started playing like he's figured out how to age backwards, I just took for granted that at some point the Pistons would move his expiring contract ($3.5 million) in a trade at some point this year. Now, I don't know. If he can stay healthy (a legitimate question for anyone his age), he'd be great to play at center in tandem with Nazr Mohammed for the rest of the season, and the Pistons could certainly use the cap room this summer to re-sign Chauncey Billups and make any other necessary roster moves.

Joe Dumars has explicitly said he's not going to make any trades just yet: the season is still too young to really judge what's needed to get that extra oomph heading into the playoffs. But at the same time, there does appear to be at least one team with a potential interest in Dale Davis: the Sonics, the team he just victimized for six points and 13 boards in 23 minutes last Saturday.

From the Tacoma News-Tribune:

General manager Rick Sund and director of player personnel David Pendergraft, both of whom were at The Palace of Auburn Hills on Sunday night, are evaluating talent and making calls to other general managers in an effort to pry loose a player that could help them. A player such as Detroit's Dale Davis is a perfect candidate.

"Until our young bigs improve a little – and by young I mean Petro and (Mouhamed) Sene – a veteran big guy would give us a better chance to win," Pendergraft said. "If we had Robert (Swift), we wouldn't be having this discussion. He is a legitimate starting center in the NBA."

I'm not going to comment on Pendergraft's assertion that Swift is a legitimate center. For one, it doesn't really matter, because Swift is out for the year after his knee blew up in the preseason. But I will point out that Sund is intimately familiar with the Pistons front office -- he spent six years in Detroit's front office from 1995-2001 working as the VP of player personnel. That has to count for something, at least in terms of his willingness to call up Joe Dumars and casually gauge interest.

Second, Seattle has what I feel Detroit really needs: a legitimate backup point guard who can handle the ball and has guts on defense. His name is Earl Watson, and as Kelly Dwyer pointed out in a recent SI.com article, he's not really a fit in Seattle. Dumars really wants to give rookie Will Blalock a look and downright disputes the notion that the team needs any backcourt help. Considering he traded Carlos Arroyo and went into the postseason last year with Lindsey Hunter as their primary backup at point guard, Dumars might just believe it. But work with me here ...

Dealing Davis for Watson won't work straight-up, but a deal could work if Dumars convinces Sund to take back Flip Murray for a second tour of duty. It might be a hard pill to swallow (and the TradeFlipMurray.com folks won't be happy) but Murray will almost certainly opt out of his contract at the end of the season anyway, which means Seattle could pick up two expiring contracts while getting out from under $18.6 million owed to Watson over the next three years. Are they eager to do that? I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised since Luke Ridnour is the starter and owed roughly the same amount over the same period. I don't see losing Murray as a loss for the Pistons, either, since it solves the problem of finding more playing time for Carlos Delfino, who has just as streaky of a jumper but is at least a defensive upgrade.

But why would Detroit want to commit that much money to a backup point guard when re-signing Billups will be a priority this summer? Yeah, I'm struggling with that, too. It comes down to how much Detroit wants to gamble on Billups staying healthy. The Pistons could still make the playoffs if he went down, but they probably wouldn't get home court advantage in the first round and they certainly wouldn't be a legitimate title contender. Of course, the same can be said for any team that loses an MVP candidate (which, stats be damned, Billups is this year, at least strictly talking about Most Valuable to his own Team).

So does Detroit actually want Watson or not? If you believe every word coming out of Dumars' mouth, then no -- or at least, not until Blalock proves he can't handle the pressure. All I really know is that I want Dumars to want Watson, who provides insurance in case Billups gets hurt this year or *gulp* leaves this summer.

But I also know that the Sonics aren't going to make the playoffs this year, and if the Pistons wait until February to seriously consider a deal like Dumars has said he plans to, Seattle might be so far out of the race they won't even go through the motion of addressing their weakness in the middle -- or worse yet, they will have already done something about it by picking up a guy like Jamaal Magliore or P.J. Brown.

It's a crap shoot of a deal. It could backfire if Detroit pursues it, and it could backfire if they don't. But as much as I enjoyed watching Maxiell and Davis on the court together, I know that a healthy Wallace, a thawed-out McDyess and a quirky Flip Saunders will put the kibosh on those two seeing too much time together as the year wears on, so I'd rather strike while Seattle is impressed and commit to filling (what I perceive to be) the team's biggest void.