A number of Detroit Pistons were rumored to be leaving the team around the trade deadline, but not like this.

Tracy McGrady, Tayshaun Prince, Richard Hamilton and Chris Wilcox missed the team's shootaround Friday morning before that night's game against the Sixers in Philadelphia, and team sources told multiple media outlets that the players were staging a protest.

Sources told the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News that the shootaround boycott was directed at second-year coach John Kuester, who has clashed with players in the past.

Sources close to the situation told ESPN.com that Pistons veterans tried to organize a teamwide boycott of Detroit's shootaround before its last game prior to the All-Star break.

But the walkout was called off, sources said, when some Pistons players were told that Kuester was about to be dismissed during All-Star Weekend. Detroit went out that night and scored a 115-109 overtime victory at home over a hot Indiana team.

Before Friday's game in Philadelphia, sources said, similar attempts were made by the same veterans to organize a teamwide no-show at the morning shootaround again, presumably in response to the fact that no trades were made before Thursday's 3 p.m. trade deadline and the fact that Kuester was not let go.

But six Pistons players attended the shootaround in Philly and were the only players Kuester used in the defeat: Will Bynum, Ben Gordon, Jason Maxiell, Greg Monroe, DaJuan Summers and Charlie Villanueva.

Two more, Rodney Stuckey and Austin Daye, showed up at the end of the shootaround but were held out of the loss to the 76ers, along with Ben Wallace, Hamilton, McGrady, Prince and Wilcox.

Team spokesman Cletus Lewis said that McGrady had a headache, Prince an upset stomach and Hamilton and Wilcox missed the bus from the team hotel.

Stuckey and Daye also missed the bus, but they arrived toward the end of a media session, Lewis said.

Lewis said Wallace was dealing with a family matter, as he has over the past month.

"We'll go with the group that was here," said Kuester about facing the 76ers, according to the Free Press. "We got a number of guys that have a bug, but these guys went through shootaround the way it was supposed to. We have some things, some excuses, not excuses, but absences because of headache and stuff like that.

"We'll go with this group right here because they went through shootaround."

Later in the day, Kuester backed off those comments, saying he expected "everybody to be available."