Joe Dumars and the Dark Side of the Force
by Mike Payne on Feb 22, 2010 10:37 AM CST
in News
387 comments
In the late 1970s and early 80s, George Lucas made a brilliant, visionary trilogy of films that redefined the genre of science fiction. Star Wars was one of the most successful titles in film history, seeing a greater return on investment than any other film of its time. Lucas fought so hard to get this film made that he waived a director's fee with the studio, asking instead for licensing rights which the studio thought to be worthless. These rights have earned Lucas hundreds of millions of dollars-- and ownership over the most valuable franchise in science fiction history.
22 years after Lucas introduced Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader to the world, he tried his luck again with a new series of films. While before Lucas was forced to rely on ingenuity, crafty production techniques and no-name actors, he now had a billion dollar budget to play with. He spent this budget on bad acting, poor direction, no discernible storyline and lots of special effects and marketing. The result alienated the fans of the original trilogy, angered critics and made "Jar Jar Binks" a household name.
George Lucas and the studio had hoped to create a market success based on the cult success of the original Star Wars trilogy. When compared to Lucas's original works of genius, the new films were a failure. But hey, this is a basketball blog. You're here to read about basketball.
Here's for a quick transition: Joe Dumars is the George Lucas of basketball.
In the 2000-01 NBA season, Joe Dumars inherited a 32 win team as the President of Basketball Operations. Within four years, he turned the tide of the teal years and created an underdog champion out of undervalued, over-achieving, no-name stars. He did so with crafty trades, visionary draft picks and brilliant moves in free agency. The team Joe Dumars built was one play away from being an NBA dynasty, a team that dominated the Eastern Conference for six straight seasons.
Where George Lucas rode his original stroke of genius for 22 years, Joe Dumars needed to change very little to maintain his team of contenders. Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and Rasheed Wallace remained together for nearly six years, winning 256 regular season games for a 71% record. Joe had afforded himself the luxury of standing pat, where developing draft picks, fighting for free agents and upgrading by trade were not a necessary part of his presidency. Joe's genius had built the most dominant defensive force of the last decade, a team that would tie the record for six straight conference finals appearances.
Today, the Pistons are on-pace for a projected 28-54 record, the worst record the franchise has seen since the 1993-94 season. Joe Dumars himself was that team's scoring leader, putting up 20 points a game in a backcourt with a soon-to-retire Isiah Thomas. It took 10 years for that team to get back to a championship, and sadly there is little conclusive evidence to suggest that this Pistons team is any closer to the same kind of return. Of even greater concern is that the man responsible for the Pistons dominance of the last decade is equally responsible for its downfall.
Somewhere in all that winning, it would appear that Joe lost his edge. In time, the complacency that kept the Pistons from the NBA finals was one of management, not of personnel. Something needed to change, and Dumars was ultimately responsible for righting the ship. Yet the changes he made, and the lack of vision behind them, have led to the greatest reversal of success in recent NBA history. It has become clear that the man in charge of these Pistons is a very different executive than the architect of the Going to Work Pistons of the 2000 decade.
Since the 2004 championship, Joe has had three primary successes as GM:
- Acquiring Antonio McDyess as a free agent in the summer of 2004.
- Hiring Flip Saunders as head coach in the summer of 2005.
- Drafting Rodney Stuckey with the 15th pick in the 2007 NBA draft.
Several of Joe's minor successes have become failures themselves:
- Joe selected Arron Afflalo with the 27th pick in the 2007 NBA draft. This summer, Joe traded Afflalo to Denver for a second round pick in 2011. Arron Afflalo now starts for the Denver Nuggets, shooting 45% on 3-pointers. Meanwhile, the Pistons are the worst 3-point team in the league, shooting 29.1%
- Joe selected Jason Maxiell with the 26th pick in the 2005 NBA draft. A week before trading Chauncey Billups, Joe offered Jason a $20 million, four year contract. This contract is far above market value for a player of his production, in a league stacked with undersized, energy-player power forwards.
Noting those successes, the list of failures in judgement by Dumars is staggering:
- Made a draft-day trade of DJ White for Walter Sharpe in the 2008 NBA draft. Joe acquired Walter Sharpe, a narcoleptic who played 12 games in a college season before receiving an academic suspension (this stuff writes itself!), over DeAndre Jordan, Mario Chalmers, Chris Douglas-Roberts and Luc Mbah a Moute.
- Hired Michael Curry as head coach. I could stop this article right here.
- Traded Chauncey Billups and Antonio McDyess for Allen Iverson. This was billed as a "reload, not rebuild" acquisition, and failing that, an opportunity to become the top player in the 2009 free agent market. The "reload" was a failure, in terms of record and roster morale, and the Pistons were swept from the first round of the 2009 NBA playoffs.
- Immediately extended Richard Hamilton with a three-year, $34 million contract. This alone would have been entirely acceptable, but shortly after...
- Signed Ben Gordon to a $55 million, 5-year contract. That's $89 million between two players that play the same position. Both players are slightly overpaid in contrast to their production, with the former having little trade value at this point in his career.
- Drafted four small forwards in the 2009 NBA draft. He drafted Austin Daye over Ty Lawson, DaJuan Summers over DeJuan Blair, and traded the Chase Budinger pick to Houston.
- Turned down a trade of Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and Rodney Stuckey for Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen. Note that aside from the talent element of this trade, both Celtics players were expiring contracts, alleviating the failure above of doubling-down $22M/yr. on two shooting guards. (note- Adrian Wojnarowski, linked above, was perhaps this summer's earliest and most accurate source of player transactions. If someone in the Pistons organization passed on a trade, Dumars is ultimately responsible.)
Before exploring what could-have-been, it's important to note that the above failures are not forgivable in hindsight. In terms of the 2009 NBA Draft and the way Joe Dumars used his free agent budget last summer, a large contingent of fans and sports writers were against the acquisition of Ben Gordon or the draft picks Dumars chose. This is a case of an historically below-average draft GM and one who has never had a significant free agent budget to play with. All of the moves in recent years came to a climax this summer-- Joe swung hard, and missed even harder. The community here, by committee, would have handled this summer far better than the man who actually pulled the trigger.
So in light of these failures in judgment, how would the Pistons roster have looked today if the right decisions above were made? Here's a depth chart:
| PG | Rajon Rondo | Ty Lawson |
| SG | Ray Allen | Arron Afflalo |
| SF | Jonas Jerebko | Chase Budinger |
| PF | David Lee | DeJuan Blair |
| C | Ben Wallace | DeAndre Jordan |
What's noteworthy about that lineup? All of these players except for David Lee and Ray Allen were on rookie or vet minimum contracts. The flexibility there is staggering. Detroit would have still had plenty of 2009 free agent money to play with, and plenty more for 2010 with Ray Allen's $20M expiring. A core of Rajon Rondo and David Lee, both top 5 in their positions according to PER, could be worthy of contention with wise tertiary moves.
The most disappointing truth is that far beyond a reasonable doubt, this could have been our roster going in to the 2009-10 NBA season. It must be mentioned again, this is not a case of "hindsight is 20/20". A large contingent of Pistons fans, here and elsewhere, begged for these very moves before Joe even pulled the trigger on his own.
Last week, the trade deadline for the 2009-10 NBA season passed, without a whimper from the Pistons' front office. The time for looking back at what could have been is over. If a lesson is not learned by these failures, however, history is doomed to repeat itself.
Joe Dumars was a brilliant, visionary GM. He built the most dominant defensive team of the last decade, earning a championship in 2004 and barely missing another in 2005. He's had recent successes in Jonas Jerebko, Ben Wallace and MFWB (to the padawans, that stands for the Midichlorian Force of Will Bynum). Fans need to understand, however, that the mistakes Dumars has made in recent years cannot be undone, and that the Pistons' hopes for redemption now reside solely in the fate of numbered balls bouncing around in a lottery machine. Even then, should those numbers produce a favorable pick, it is less than likely that a draft decision will be made wisely.
Let's face it. A team built around Rodney Stuckey, Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva is likely to never reach contention. Change is needed. With the passage of the 2009 trade deadline, I, no longer trust the Joe Dumars of today to manage that change.
Building one of the greatest teams in franchise history is a stunning achievement. Like George Lucas, however, Joe Dumars has ridden that success to a point where he has tarnished his own image and the value of the franchise he represents. It is 2010, six years since the Pistons won an NBA title. Dumars' moves in the last two years show no shred of hope that the Pistons will get there again in another six.
It's not up to us to weigh Joe's fate. That old cliche says "basketball is a business", and it'll be tough for the future buyer of this team to determine that business has been good under Dumars as this new decade begins. So I ask you-- has business been good? That's not an easy question to answer without talking about what Joe did six years ago.
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Before I even read this
Thanks, MFMP, for posting this (and for taking all the time it obviously took to put into it)
Time to get cathartic.
ugh
So is this the official call for Jod’s head? One more draft? Can we afford on more Jod draft? Maybe that Isiah Thomas fellow is available.
I don't trust Joe with the draft
and I didn’t even mention Darko once in the article! There’s a lot more evidence against Joe managing the draft than there is for it.
Aminu, here we come!!11
provocative
It’s hard to be hard on Joe, he is such a legend both as a player and a GM, but I have to agree that he’s been stinking up the joint big time as of late. I hope more people will start getting real about his performance, if only to give him a kick in the ass. I’m not quite ready to call for his head, but the pistons better not be a sub .500 team for years to come.
Trying not to flame here, honest.
This summer, I took a lot of heat for linking to an article that suggested that the Pistons as currently constructed would win ~28 games. This prediction was made before the Benaissance and Need4Swede; IME, those two things have mitigated our injuries substantially. Couple that with our record when healthy, and I don’t think the “injury” argument really works anymore.
I’m also not trying to say, “I told you so,” because I’m not like that. For real.
I’m only mentioning this at all because I hope this season teaches Joe Dumars a lesson (as if he reads my comments ;) ). You can’t build a winning team out of “scorers.” It simply cannot be done. The team of the early 90’s that Joe played on, that MFMP referenced, should have been enough to teach him that. Obviously, it was not. Here’s hoping that this season (and likely, the next 2-3 seasons to come) drive the point home beyond question.
Barring a miracle trade or blind luck, our franchise is in some serious trouble. There’s just no escaping that.
by brgulker on Feb 22, 2010 11:10 AM CST reply actions 1 recs
looking back to the beginning
The only way we find our way out of this is if Joe starts making some good decisions again — we were just as bad in 2000 when he took over, it seemed just as hopeless then too. How long should we give Joe to redeem himself?
I assume mid 30s
before any injuries. Granted, I expected Gordon and Villanueva to deliver, but both have significantly digressed over last year (even after my early-season lovefest of Charlie, who at the time certainly deserved it). I think its likely we’ll hit 30 this season, although at this point I’m hoping for a pick…
Aminu, here we come!!11
IME, the unexpected productivity of Big Ben and JJ sort of mitigates the failings of other players, due to injury or underperformance.
I don’t know how to quantify that exactly, and I’m sure the injuries have cost us a couple wins here and there, but subtract those two players, and a sub-30 win team is a real possibility, I think.
/deadhorse’d
I'm still in favor
of nuking the internet.
Matt Watson has the launch codes, and he’s a peace-loving hippie. You’ll have to take them by force; I’ll see you in the bunker.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
we will not strike
until we see the whites of their loading screens!
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
good article mp
the lucas comparison is spot on. now jod just needs to grow a weird flesh bag on his neck and rock flannel shirts.
cv might as well be frozen in carbonite for all the good he's done this year.
by dandresden on Feb 22, 2010 11:57 AM CST reply actions 2 recs
At least being frozen in carbonite might explain his lack of hair…
Jonas Jerebko once killed a charging female rhinoceros in heat protecting its young with nothing more than a hook shot.
Also, great post
I posted my own reaction/thoughts but failed to give props. It’s well-done, and although it’s critical, it’s very fair criticism. It’s obvious that this isn’t just some type of fanboy anger or something (not to imply DBB ever is); it’s a well-reasoned, honest assessment (as always).
Were there enough parentheticals in there to confuse me with him who shall not be named?
by brgulker on Feb 22, 2010 12:09 PM CST reply actions 1 recs
A point that bears repeating
For me, this is what drives the point, as MP says above:
Fans need to understand, however, that the mistakes Dumars has made in recent years cannot be undone, and that the Pistons’ hopes for redemption now reside solely in the fate of numbered balls bouncing around in a lottery machine.
not just irreversable
unforgivable, and unforgettable …. indefensible.
He took his solid GM rep and put it on a stick, then stuck it in a raw sewage vat and swirled it around.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
I dunno… I say if Joe can’t turn things around in another 20-25 years, THEN I’ll start to question his judgment……
(I kid, I kid)
by garrettelliott on Feb 22, 2010 12:17 PM CST reply actions
Ignored successes of Joe Dumars
Brought back Ben Wallace, even when the entire league (and many Detroit fans) thought he was washed up and done.
Drafted Jonas Jerebko and decided to keep him on the roster instead of stashing him overseas, as most teams do with 2nd round europlayers. This was against the advisement of Jerebko’s agent, who hoped Joe (and others) would pass.
Brought Will Bynum in for training camp and signed him to an extremely favorable 2 year contract, and hold the rights to match any offer next year.
Not resigning Antonio McDyess, whose production has fallen off a cliff, and San Antonio was rumored to be looking to “dump” in trades only 5 months after acquiring him.
Not resigning Rasheed Wallace, whose production and work ethic are no longer existent.
I’m sure other people could think of more points if they really tried. Lets not ignore the good thigns Joe has done though
*ahem*
“He’s had recent successes in Jonas Jerebko, Ben Wallace and MFWB (to the padawans, that stands for the Midichlorian Force of Will Bynum).”
by Birdman84 on Feb 22, 2010 12:22 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
thank you birdman
the89oracle,
As Birdman pointed out, I mentioned Ben Wallace, Jonas Jerebko and MFWB in the article as Joe’s recent successes.
Aminu, here we come!!11
my mistake
i skipped the summing up in favor of the list of successes/failures and missed it
Brought back Ben Wallace, even when the entire league (and many Detroit fans) thought he was washed up and done.
So did Dumars! The exact quote, Joe thought Ben was going to be “a locker room guy.” The Benaissance was a stroke of luck. It was an accident. It was a great stroke of good fortune, and I’m thrilled about it. But we’re not enjoying it because Jod thought it would happen.
Drafted Jonas Jerebko and decided to keep him on the roster instead of stashing him overseas, as most teams do with 2nd round europlayers. This was against the advisement of Jerebko’s agent, who hoped Joe (and others) would pass.
Again, fortunate break. The Pistons didn’t draft JJ thinking he would be a contributor, let alone a starter. Joe got lucky that JJ was ready.
Brought Will Bynum in for training camp and signed him to an extremely favorable 2 year contract, and hold the rights to match any offer next year.
That’s a fair criticism, except that MP mentions Bynum as a success in his closing. So…
Not resigning Antonio McDyess, whose production has fallen off a cliff, and San Antonio was rumored to be looking to "dump" in trades only 5 months after acquiring him.
Not resigning Rasheed Wallace, whose production and work ethic are no longer existent.
I’m not sure how not re-signing two, over-the-hill big men who didn’t figure into the long-term picture could be called a “success.” I mean, those were as obvious as obvious gets. Further, Joe’s on record saying that he would pursue McDyess; Dyess just chose to go elsewhere (mutually beneficial).
by brgulker on Feb 22, 2010 12:24 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
right right, sorry i must have glossed over that point
but I do feel that not resigning those 2 big men is a success. they were both overpaid by their respective teams, who now view them as more of a burden than an asset.
I agree with the overpaid part … what I’m saying is, I’m not sure you can count avoiding overpaying an aging big man who doesn’t fit with your team a success, so much as common sense.
I mean, even if Sheed wanted to sign for $4 million for just one season, would that be a smart move for us?
before this season everyone valued rasheed better than ben
i’d count it as a success that we let an overvalued player walk and got an undervalued player on a minimum contract. i’m pretty sure a lot of teams, maybe every team, would take ben wallace over rasheed right now, even when you don’t consider the contracts.
at the start of the season that was obviously not the case
as ben contemplated retirement, and rasheed was pursued by the big 3. joe got the right guy, and i hesitate to say he just lucked into ben and jerebko
That’s cool, and I hear you, but when Joe says publicly that he thought of Ben as “a locker room guy,” that explicitly says that he didn’t expect Ben to contribute. He’s lucky that Ben’s got a lot more in the tank that he thought he did is my point. To credit him for not overvaluing Sheed like the Big 3 did and underestimating Big Ben like the rest of the league did just isn’t a success to me. It’s blind luck.
All GMs need some of that, and I get that.
Ben
Dumars lucked into Ben. Ben asked to come back to Detroit because he loved the fans here; Dumars did not initiate that. When he brought Ben back he downplayed the significance of the signing, referring to Ben as “the fifth big,” in the role that Dale Davis used to play. He implied that Ben would get no playing time. Pistons fans can thank Ben for Ben’s revival here, not Dumars.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 2:35 PM CST up reply actions
Whoops!
brgulker beat me to this point. Good work, brgulker. The facts will out!
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 2:47 PM CST up reply actions
MP
Wondering if you’re assessment would’ve changed much, had we say, traded rip/bg? I think the laundry list you’ve assembled couldn’t have overcome a sg/salary dump at the deadline. Just wondering, since you’ve been talking this up for a while saying you wanted to wait until the deadline to voice your opinion. Just seems like you coulda written this about 5 months ago with the same narrative. Not dissenting from the overall tone, but wondering if JOD coulda saved his ass in your eyes w/a basic deadline trade.
Wondering if you’re assessment would’ve changed much, had we say, traded rip/bg?
Absolutely. I mentioned this summer, shortly after we signed BG, that I’d personally give Joe until the trade deadline until I changed my opinion of him. I felt he deserved that, since none of us have a direct perspective into his decision making. Had he moved either Rip or Gordon, I’d likely be singing a different tune right now. It may not have been a happy tune, but I certainly would not have said things like, “I no longer trust the Joe Dumars of today to manage that change.”
As a related side note, I know injuries complicated his ability to make a trade. That’s still on Joe though, in my opinion. He took a risk by signing both players, assuming he could move one if need be. In hindsight, it was not a wise risk to take.
Aminu, here we come!!11
Breaking point
Yes, the deadline was my breaking point as well. I said it before but I think Jod’s belief that he could “Fix” this obviously unbalanced team with a simple trade was shortsighted given the uncertain economic times as well as the negotiation of the of the new CBA.
The injures were also a possibility that apparently wasn’t taken into consideration at the time.
No passes for Joe D on the decision not to find a way to lose either Rip or BG by the trade deadline. To me the order was this:
1. Go into the season knowing you have an unbalanced roster.
2. Stand pat at the trade deadline.
3. End up in the same position you were in at the start of the season.
This is not an acceptable time-line in my way of thinking.
by Big Z in Orlando on Feb 23, 2010 12:36 PM CST up reply actions 2 recs
yeah, it doesnt even make sense why joe would go into the season with the roster we had
i guess i thought we would be better than we are, but looking back most of us didnt think we were going to set the world on fire this year. its pretty shitty to put together an obviously lopsided team and then hope that you can bail yourself out later on in the year. this is already a dumb strategy but when you add to it that he didnt take into account that players might get injured that makes it even worse. he brought in all the complimentary pieces and then hoped he could make a sweet trade to make it all work. he’s building a franchise with no cornerstone. a house with no foundation.
Doesn’t this also depend on what we get for Rip?
Best-case scenario seems to be expirings. That’s a grim best-case scenario.
Had Jod not extended him in the first place, Rip would have been expiring this year! Don’t extend Rip, then sign Ben Gordon, then trade your veteran, championship-caliber SG who also happens to be on an expiring deal. He would have been one of the most coveted trade pieces out there.
Instead, what we will likely get is cap space while the cap is shrinking. Pffft.
Even if Joe moves Rip, he’ll get nothing close to value in return, and certainly nothing close to what we could have gotten.
It's a little unfair...
…to put Jonas Jerebko on that hypothetical roster. It should be Danny Green because that’s who the majority on this site wanted Dumars to take.
If the blogosphere was in charge, Afflalo wouldn’t have been picked either. (I, for one, was in the Tiago Splitter camp).
by Quick Darshan on Feb 22, 2010 12:46 PM CST up reply actions
since you mentioned in two places
repost:
Exclude Jerebko from that roster— the entire point remains intact. Had Joe made the right decisions, those the community wanted, we’d have had a significant share of free agent money left to fill roster holes.
Replace Jerebko with Shawn Marion. We had the money to pay him, moreso than Dallas.
Rajon Rondo
Ray Allen
Shawn Marion
David Lee
Ben Wallace
Aminu, here we come!!11
In semi-defense of wanting "scorers"
Yes, the Pistons one their ‘Ships in large part based on defense. But by the second half of the aughts, it was clear that wasn’t going to be enough — rule changes, the dificulty of getting all the right players and having them buy in to playing D hard all the time. . . . Plus, I think everyone here who watched Detroit after the ‘04 season remembers many, many, frustrating scoring droughts even in the relatively successful years. Detroit did need scorers. Now, the two guys they got may be less than ideal: BG because he’s at a position where we’re already overloaded; CV because maybe — and I’m still trying to be optimistic and I’m not giving up on him yet — he’s too inconsistent and his defensive liabilities are too great.
It just seemed like the obvious solution was to get a big or two who could consistently score in the post, but that’s easier said than done. It’s not as if there was a super-obvious trade or move to get one. Maybe drafting Blair, I’ll grant you, but it’s not as if we were the only team worried about his lack of ACLs.
And then you have to think that Joe understood that his current roster wasn’t balanced (really, how could he not understand that?) but the injuries made trades less likely / doable.
Finally, though, as my 6-year old son is a huge “Star Wars” fan, I heartily approve of the analogy.
TJ, I admire your ability to stay balanced and proactively consider the defense that Jod might offer.
Kudos.
Well, it's not like I'm happy about our moves in the past 18 months, but
As a long-time Pistons fan (which I assume you are), tell me you weren’t often frustrated by the offensive droughts. Now granted, I don’t think either of us ever thought “having four good scorers at guard but absolutely nobody who can score in the post consistently” would be the answer. . . .
Finally, though, as my 6-year old son is a huge "Star Wars" fan, I heartily approve of the analogy.
Thanks TJ, may the force be with your son.
Aminu, here we come!!11
But you can still do other things
Just because you are a “Scorer” doesn’t mean you can’t contribute in other ways. Even if you can’t play the “down and dirty” defense you used to, you still need guys who are willing and capable of playing the best defense currently allowed by the rules. CV31 would be the exact opposite of this.
Furthermore, you need guys who not only score but fill up the stat sheet in other places. Assists, rebounds, steals, blocks… Instead, you have “pure shooters” or “pure scorers” like BG and CV31 who don’t focus on anything but getting points and don’t help the team in any other way.
These are not the types of players that contribute significantly to championship rosters. They can be role players, but you damned well can’t pay them like cornerstones of your franchise cough Ben Gordon Cough.
by Big Z in Orlando on Feb 23, 2010 12:40 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
I guess I’m saying that it’s cheating to put together a roster based on the moves where Dumars defied conventional wisdom and was right along and then use the conventional wisdom choices when you think he was wrong.
Quite a nitpick, QD
Exclude Jerebko from that roster— the entire point remains intact. Had Joe made the right decisions, those the community wanted, we’d have had a significant share of free agent money left to fill roster holes.
Replace Jerebko with Shawn Marion. We had the money to pay him, moreso than Dallas.
Rajon Rondo
Ray Allen
Shawn Marion
David Lee
Ben Wallace
Aminu, here we come!!11
If we're dealing in hypotheticals...
Dumars should have kept Billups. Traded Rip for an expiring. Moved Stuckey to the 2. And worked from there. That would have been the ideal.
by Quick Darshan on Feb 22, 2010 1:02 PM CST up reply actions
the above
were all actions on the table this summer. if we’re going to go beyond that in hypotheticals, we need to have a conversation about drafting Darko Milicic. I excluded that and focused solely on this summer because, well, I think the Darko conversation is beyond beaten to death.
Post AI trade, my perspective was “okay Joe, WTF, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and see how things play out”. Things have now played out.
Aminu, here we come!!11
Don’t think there was enough money to sign Lee and Marion. Not with Lee restricted.
by Quick Darshan on Feb 22, 2010 1:05 PM CST up reply actions
Porque no?
Tentatively, the Rondo trade happens before his new contract, and Allen’s the only one above that’s a major contract.
Throw money at Lee ($10 million per will get him, I think), then just above MLE at Marion.
Then, extend Rondo.
I’m shooting from the hip, but I think that works under the cap. Then you’ve got Allen expiring, so you’re at least a minor player this summer.
save for the abysmal 38% shooting
down 6% from that season. I never saw why people liked him so much, and I doubt Morey is feeling very good about that new contract.
Aminu, here we come!!11
I might be hoping against hope, but I think Martin will help in this regard.
Ariza was a low-usage / high efficiency guy in LA who played his role superbly. His shooting efficiency has declined drastically with an uptick in usage. What’s disappointing is that his steals and rebounds are also down, which totals to a pretty meh kind of a season.
My working theory is that having another high usage / high efficiency guy will help remove some of that from Ariza’s shoulders, and he’ll return to form. We’ll see.
not to mention the near doubling of turnovers
thanks to the minutes/usage increase.
Aminu, here we come!!11
We could have absolutely had both
We gave Ben Gordon $55 million starting at $10 million, New York would NOT have matched that, given the complications for their big free agent push in 2010. We gave Charlie Villanueva a larger contract than Marion got.
The money was there.
Aminu, here we come!!11
actually
they gave Marion a bit more than we gave Charlie. But we also gave Chris Wilcox $3M, and that alone more than makes up for the paltry difference in salary this year and next.
Aminu, here we come!!11
i dont know how it works exactly with matching contracts
but couldnt we just have offered lee like 8 million but had the contract go for like 5 years? would the knicks have to match the length of the deal as well? if not it seems like we could have just offered lee a deal for a couple of years and the knicks with their obsession with clearing cap wouldnt have matched.
Problem is, Lee would also have to agree. It was public knowledge that he wanted something over $10 million … his agent made that very clear.
$10 million / year for 4 years with a team option would have been my offer to him, in hopes that he’d sign a $10 million / year for 5 years.
oh thats right, nba players do have a say in these things
i have gotten so used to thinking of them as contracts and commodities. my bad.
We might have had to offer the same contract Gordon got
in a restricted situation, you have to overpay a bit to prevent the rights holder from matching.
Aminu, here we come!!11
The Spurs made a mistake by taking Blair when Jonas Jerebko was on the board.
:)
by Quick Darshan on Feb 22, 2010 12:49 PM CST reply actions 7 recs
Also, thanks for the article, MP! I haven’t given up on Jod yet, but man, he’s made some bone head moves. Viva la draft!
by garrettelliott on Feb 22, 2010 1:34 PM CST up reply actions
thanks garrett!!
here’s to hoping there’s some master plan none of us are privy to, and we’re back in contention in a few years!
Aminu, here we come!!11
Mike you deserve multiple RECs for this great read - thank you!
This is the best basketball article I have read in a long-time. You deserve national attention for this. Being a GM is a very difficult task because you inevitably make mistakes. You need to be judged for your work in total. Dumars pulled some early brilliant moves that lead to a surprising championship. You supurbly describe his failings over the past few years that seem overwhelming. New York was not going to pay David Lee anything for 2010-11. I truly believe you could have gotten him for Charlie V money. This would have been the steal of the decade as he is turning out to be a real force. What possessed Dumars to pay two shooting guards the money he is baffles me.
You wrote an article that is excellent deserving of the national attention highlighted by brgulker. This should be on all SB Nation sites. Thanks for an excellent read. You get a BIG REC.
by chgobr on Feb 22, 2010 2:19 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
wow
Man, thanks Chgobr, I certainly appreciate the respect, it means a lot to me!
Aminu, here we come!!11
What if...
I’m going to give JoD the benefit of the doubt for another couple seasons. I think the Chauncey trade did more damage than expected. Chauncey was my favorite Piston, but after I got over the shock of it I’ll admit that I was excited at the thought of AI coming in and finally doing what it takes to prove his place. Obviously that didn’t go so well. That aside though, I still think there is a chance for us to be contending in the eastern conference after another season or two.
I don’t think there was any way we could have gotten a good trade this year. We just didn’t have assets with friendly contracts and didn’t have the expiring contracts that everyone was looking for. There was no point in getting poor value in a trade to try and increase our wins by a handful of games this season and potentially push us further back in the draft. I think they need to continue to parade Prince/Rip. Prince will be an easy trade next season, if not this summer), which will open up playing time for Jerebko/Daye. Hopefully we can re-sign MFWB at a reasonable contract. CV, while not performing well, is in a relatively reasonable contract. If/when Rip leaves, BG will have to step up. Outside of a young, promising Center, I see BG as the biggest unknown. After the C’s/Bull series last year I was stoked to see BG join the team. I saw flashes of it at the beginning of the season, but have been disappointed since.
A couple lottery seasons, gradual shedding of the old guard, and development of the next generation, and the team will look very different.
A couple lottery seasons, gradual shedding of the old guard, and development of the next generation, and the team will look very different.
But how does that happen in “another couple seasons.” That’s a 3-4 year “plan,” as I read it.
-This season: Lottery season this year – a foregone conclusion at this point. With our luck we’ll probably pick up another guard or SF, but maybe we’ll get a promising big man. Assuming no Darkos, I’ll give JoD the benefit of the doubt and assume our pickup can contribute in some way in the next couple years (as a player or trade asset).
-Next season: Lottery season next year – Prince is traded to a contender and/or someone looking for a favorable expiring contract, ideally trade Rip or BG (might not be possible), with Prince gone there’ll be more of an opp for development + an uknown asset. After two lotteries and one (if not two) high-value trades we’ll hopefully have some semblance of a post-presence and fill any other glaring holes.
-The next season: Back in contention in the east. Maybe not a championship team, but at least out of the lottery and back into some post-season games. A favorable first-round match-up and we could at least enjoy a couple play-off series.
Despite all the hoopla around the free agents of 2010, I don’t think the overall strength of the East will grow dramatically. We will likely still be a top-heavy conference with 3, maybe 4 major contenders. Boston’s days are numbered and half the conference is depending on LBJ/Wade/Bosh.
I’m with you on #1 and #2, but I don’t see how #3 necessarily follows. It’s one possible conclusion, but I’m not sure it’s the likely one. If that’s Joe’s plan, then he’s banking on every possible thing going right for him, which would not be a very good plan.
But I see your point now. Thanks for the reply.
Draft Pick will be huge
Many are starting to question Joe D’s moves of late. How our upcoming lottery pick turns out will be a huge factor moving forward. If he makes a smart pick who contributes quickly, we may see a rise back to something resembling the success of the last decade.
At this point
I’m fairly certain we’ll end up with Aldrich, and quite frankly I think he’s the best big behind Cousins, especially for our needs. Favors isn’t nearly skilled enough to fit in well within our half court offense, he needs to be with someone like Steve Nash in a very uptempo system. Aminu looks like a promising player, but there’s just no way we need another SF. Davis just sucks, ’nough said.
by bearded thundar on Feb 22, 2010 3:12 PM CST up reply actions
Absolutely amazing post, MP
This is the best summation of what has happened to the Pistons since 2004 that I have ever seen anywhere. Brilliantly done.
Thanks a ton Bill Higgins
I’ve always had mad respect for your comments, coming from you this means a lot!
Aminu, here we come!!11
Money committed through 2011
To make it even more depressing, let’s make sure to remember that this is the amount of money we have committed through 2011 (to 11 players): $55,562,996.
That does not include Will Bynum’s promotion, nor does it include what Joe will chose to do with Stuckey.
So, not only do we suck as currently constituted, we literally have zero cap flexibility.
by brgulker on Feb 22, 2010 3:11 PM CST reply actions 1 recs
Honestly
I wouldn’t mind doing a sign and trade with Bynum for a big. By the time this team starts winning 50 games, he’ll be closing on 30. His game is just too reliant on athleticism, this year is the perfect example as he’s been an utter turnover machine.
Another thing is that a 4 guard lineup just doesn’t seem to give anyone consistent minutes. People can end up with 30, but its not like they get stretches of 15 minutes, its been more like 10, 5,10, 5. I’d much rather stick with a 3 guard lineup, especially since all 3 guards can handle the ball well (Gordon might be a better passer than Rodney for that matter) and share the ball better than Bynum does anyways.
by bearded thundar on Feb 22, 2010 3:16 PM CST up reply actions
I know Bynum has underperformed this year, and that sucks. But as soon as you trade Bynum, what do you do if you trade Rip/BG? Suddenly you’re left with no backcourt. If the right S&T presents itself, then you gotta do it, absolutely, but then you’re just presented with another problem. Easier to fix, sure, but still a problem.
well tayshaun expires after the 2010-2011 season, i’m sure we can give a portion of that to stuckey and a portion of that to bynum
by don'tworryaboutit on Feb 22, 2010 3:34 PM CST up reply actions
Jonas Jerebko
Also, I forgot to mention this explicitly, but Jonas is currently on a two-year deal. He’s gonna need a pay raise, too.
Langlois weighs in
From today’s mailbag:
Regarding David Lee.
Langlois: It’s not certain the Knicks will have enough space to offer two max deals, but it should at least be close enough that two superstars willing to concede a little bit of money can make it work. But understand this: In order to get that type of space, the Knicks will have to renounce David Lee, which means they’ll lose him, just as the Pistons, in order to realize their full potential of cap space, had to renounce Rasheed Wallace and Allen Iverson last summer. So Bosh, Wade or LeBron will have to decide if a team that essentially will be made up of Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari and Toney Douglas – plus a bunch of guys on minimum contracts – has enough growth potential to produce championships, especially since the three-way trade that rid them of Jared Jeffries’ deal could potentially cost the Knicks two lottery picks over the next three years. As for McGrady, that’s going to be interesting. He had a nice debut the other night and has indicated he’d be willing to sign a below-market deal. But will he be willing to play for the veteran’s minimum if somebody offers him a mid-level deal? We’ll see.
On acquiring a big man:
Langlois: Joe Dumars is going to try to land one via trade, but let’s face it: Teams aren’t in the habit of trading away big-time post scorers. The best chance to get help is in the draft. DeMarcus Cousins and Derrick Favors are probably the two guys from college that you’d stick in the post and say you can throw them the ball and expect them to be able to create their own points. Greg Monroe and Cole Aldrich have some of that, too. Ed Davis is the best athlete of the bunch and gets his points off put-backs. I think the Pistons will have to get a top-eight draft choice to have a shot at most of those guys, maybe all of them. But I think any one of them would immediately upgrade the frontcourt, too.
Apology
You know what? If Dumars would just apologize to the fans for all the dumb things he has done, I think it would make a huge difference for me.
I can abide a good-faith, well-intentioned move that goes badly. Everyone makes errors. Dumars has made more errors than most NBA G.M.‘s in the past several years, but still, he’s not alone in his managerial mistakes.
What has made me most upset about what Dumars has done is not the moves themselves but how they were done and the attitude behind them. I felt sick at heart when Dumars went on TV after the Pistons lost in the playoffs in 2008 and went on the bilious “I’ve seen enough” rant, as though the exhausted Pistons mainstays, who had left their hearts on the court for five-plus years of playoff-extended seasons (which meant that they played way more games than nearly anyone else in the NBA) with zero significant personnel reinforcements except for McDyess, didn’t want to win or had betrayed him somehow. He said it with the highest degree of arrogance arrogance. Essentially he was threatening the players, acting like they were garbage and it was time to take out the garbage. I loved those players! They gave me tremendous joy every year for a major portion of my life. They wanted badly to win, and they did win, and they were a brotherhood, and it was clear that they loved one another and that the game meant more to them than money and ticket sales. They played with selflessness and class, and many of them had ingrained themselves into the Detroit community and done lots to help people around the city. I felt like anyone who could talk about these guys so crassly, with such callousness, must have lost control of his ego and his proper perspective. For years those guys continued making Dumars look good, though his moves were almost all wrong-headed and useless, from the Darko trade to the Carlos Arroyo trade to the Nazr signing. They persevered in spite of it, and he threw them under the bus as soon as it became convenient to him.
Then there is the way Dumars handled the Chauncey trade. He was giddy in his introductory press conference with Iverson. He kept saying things like, “We’ve never had a guy like this. A guy who can create.” He joked and laughed like he’d pulled one on the whole league. Chauncey and McDyess (along with Cheick Samb) got a single line’s tribute: “…we thank Chauncey, McDyess, and Cheick for their contributions, and wish them well.” That’s it? That’s it for one of the greatest players and greatest people in franchise history, who delivered a title and became Finals MVP? Really? It almost seemed like Dumars was jealous of Chauncey, as though Chauncey had become too big and was threatening to overshadow the Genius G.M. And I haven’t even mentioned that infamous article from months ago about how Dumars and his lieutenants failed to tell Chauncey or McDyess what was about to happen, and how McDyess had to learn about it from another player.
Here’s Dumars yukking it up with Iverson in that press conference, whom he had wanted since 2001 and was super-thrilled to get:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn7OWqc9mGo
Dumars’s coldness toward guys who should have been treated like family baffles me. He never seemed to have ego problems when he was building the championship team. Somewhere along the line he started believing his own hype.
To return to the beginning of this post—for all these reasons above, an apology would mean a lot to me. It would show humility; it would show the beginning of a return to proper perspective. Maybe the newly humble Dumars would start bringing in more smart people to advise him on decisions, because the last few years have only seen an exit of front-office talent (John Hammond being the most egregious loss) and it’s probably no coincidence that the Pistons’ decision-making has got even worse as people have left. An apology would give me a lot more faith in Dumars’s ability to continue doing this job.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 3:30 PM CST reply actions 8 recs
+ a thousand rec's
I felt that Joe giving Iverson Chauncey’s number was the lowest of blows, showed no class at all.
Aminu, here we come!!11
by Mike Payne on Feb 22, 2010 3:39 PM CST up reply actions 3 recs
rec's to both of you
And a big, huge rec to this in particular:
Dumars’s coldness toward guys who should have been treated like family baffles me. He never seemed to have ego problems when he was building the championship team. Somewhere along the line he started believing his own hype.
double plus
Bill: great post! Agree completely with every single thing you said
MP: huge + thank you for this and excellent job :)
totally agree
joe was much better it seems when he was a largely unheralded gm. since the chip he has been praised for taking chances on guys who the league thought nothing of. now he does seem to have bought into the myth of JOD and forgot the basic tenets of building a basketball team.
Huh?
The team put it all on the line when they lost to Boston? Really? Sheed didn’t drop his pants for Garnett? Perkins didn’t average 50 rebounds a game? What series were you watching? Dumars expressed the same rage that was up and down this site after the series.
And apologize? That’s idiotic. You’re basically telling your players that you think they suck. That’s a confidence builder. That’s a great way to get free agents to want to come here.
Here’s how you apologize… you fix your mistake. You trade Darko to get a draft pick. You trade Nazr for expiring contracts. But, you don’t tell your players that your initial confidence in them was a mistake. How does that help?
by Quick Darshan on Feb 22, 2010 6:54 PM CST up reply actions 6 recs
A sample apology
QD, do you really believe that Chauncey didn’t want to beat Boston or didn’t try as hard as he could to win? I remember seeing an interview with him during that series where the journalist asked what another championship would mean to Chauncey. He got quiet and started talking about it with this kind of starving expression on his face. By the end of it his voice was almost shaking. I don’t think anyone could see that and then say that Chauncey was only lukewarm on the winning thing.
I think a lot of people refused to believe that the Pistons no longer had the horses to beat a newly loaded team like Boston, and comforted themselves with the idea that if they had tried their hardest they could have won. That’s often an easier pill to swallow than the idea that you really might not be the best anymore.
Dumars’s apology would not have to involve killing his current roster. He could say this:
“Hey fans. Over the course of the last few years I’ve made some moves that have put our team in a bad position and cost us a lot of wins. I’m sorry. I had a great thing going, better than I knew, but I threw away our best player and was really arrogant about it and didn’t listen to any of my advisors, because I had this burning lust for Allen Iverson that was almost insatiable, like fire in my gullet. And I alienated a lot of people. I screwed up, and I’m sorry. I really like the players we have on the roster today, and you and I both know they have a lot of talent, but the mix clearly doesn’t work, and that is my fault completely. The players are out there playing as hard as they can, but the mix is bad. We overloaded at certain positions and ignored other ones, and now you the fans are paying the price. I’m sorry. This team is going to continue playing as hard as it can to win, and the coaching staff will coach as well as it can, and I’m going to do the best job I can to give our current team, a great group of guys with a lot of talent, the proper mix that they need in order to put them in a position to win and win consistently.”
“For the record, because I’ve never actually refuted this accusation before, I’m not a genius. For a while I thought that maybe I was. I’m definitely not, in case you hadn’t picked up on that. I know that now, and you know it. And you also know, because I’m telling it to you right this second, that I will work as hard as I can until I set things right again.”
“I’m sorry I gave away Chauncey’s number. That was a dick move.”
Give me words to that effect, and I would forgive Joe Dumars.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 7:08 PM CST up reply actions
boston wasnt playing all that great in the playoffs
we could have totally took that series, and should have but as i recall we came back to the palace and handed the celts that series. there was no effort except by stuckey if i recall correctly.
We had a couple years of late-series collapse
And don’t forget the stumbles against Philadelphia. I wasn’t sure if Detroit was going to make it out of the first round.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
we started off decent vs boston
then promptly assumed an egg-sucking belly-up lethargia.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
I dunno… I’m not an Art of War type of guy, really, but doesn’t that sort of thing just show a bit too much weakness? Like QD said, the best apology is to fix his mistakes and start winning games again.
by garrettelliott on Feb 22, 2010 7:16 PM CST up reply actions
Sheed didn’t even give it all in the pre-game dance in that last game.
Chauncey was ailing, so he gets a little bit of a pass, but how disgusted was everyone on this site after they came out flat in Game 3 and let Boston go up double digits in about two minutes? I was one of the few that wanted Dumars to keep the team together and retool on the fly, but even I couldn’t defend their performance against Boston.
The only players that played well were Maxiell, Stuckey and Rip. Two of those are bench players, so to say that Dumars didn’t put together the pieces to help the core get to the Finals is hard to swallow. That team SHOULD HAVE won it all. The players didn’t get it done. That’s not on the GM.
by Quick Darshan on Feb 22, 2010 7:55 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
Totally agree
I didn’t mind the fact that we lost to Boston- they were a dang good team. It’s the way we lost that pissed me and a lot of other fans off. We simply did not show up once the series came back to Detroit. No heart, hustle; almost no one on our team seemed to care. If Joe had kept that team together, I would be ever more upset with him than I am now. I don’t mind losing. I can’t stand not trying.
I rec’d you, and all I’d suggest is that Joe’s ‘apology’ come in the form of a retirement or resignation.
I like Joe, and his playing career speaks for itself, and the early part of his GM career was filled with more good ideas than bad, but he’s undone all of that, in my opinion. He’s on a severe slope into McHale’s Gulch. He’ll never be a Millen, but he could just spend 4-5 more years making things as bad or worse and make everyone forget he even connected the dots for a championship.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
by sauce1977 on Feb 22, 2010 7:11 PM CST up reply actions 2 recs
Oh, I'd be completely happy with retirement or resignation too
A departure would be significantly better than an apology. I just don’t think Joe is going to leave soon, and I was trying to think of what it would take to get me to feel better about Dumars again as G.M. An apology wouldn’t restore my faith in his judgment, not at all, but it would at least show me he’s stopped thinking he’s a genius, because that thinking has had disastrous consequences for everyone except the Denver Nuggets. It would be a good first step.
I don’t think we are even in slight danger of his apologizing soon, of course. This is just a fantasy.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 7:24 PM CST up reply actions
If Joe doesn't leave
that’s understandable, considering that nobody’s pushing him out the door anytime soon.
We’ve seen that with the Lions. Fans wanted Millen gone by 2004, and Clay Ford re-upped him with zero in the column of credible reason. Right now, with the Pistons? Mrs. Golddigger’s Palace Flea Market Fire Sale. That’s the priority attention. I don’t expect a whole hell of a lot done on changing front office personnel until after the sports arm of her empire is sold, or she changes her mind about divestment. He can go on indefinitely, if he really has the stomach and the guile.
I don’t think he ever apologizes while he’s employed. That’s a kiss of death, considering what people want him to apologize for … it is his general duties to make deals, and he’d be apologizing in other words for doing his job, even though it’s worded for making mistakes. His job requires risks be taken, and there’s no way to effectively GM by avoiding all risk. He’d see failure as a by-product of what his job entails.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
I agree completely with the above.
Karen Davidson knows Joe and seems to like him. She told the media shortly after the old man died that Dumars was teaching her about basketball and that she was grateful to him for it. I can’t imagine she ever would fire him. Who else would she give the job to? She doesn’t know anyone in basketball.
Dumars is safe no matter how bad the team gets, at least until ownership changes.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 7:40 PM CST up reply actions
smelling danger
I should have been worried if I had ever heard that Joe was supposed to teach Bill’s family about basketball. Those are the kind of owners you dread. I had a bad feeling though, so at least my instinct can smell danger.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
My memory is sketchy
But I am pretty sure I wanted Chauncey to stay and Sheed to go after that heartbreaking series. I thought Stuck could use another year learning from Billups. The current situation is heartbreaking and I can say that I have lost faith in JoD. Not because he does any one thing badly, just that he always thinks outside the lines to a fault.
It’s too late now, but he needed to balance his reaches, with some safe decisions.
insert aussie stereotype here
The Star Wars reference reminds me...
of my ETB column in early January: http://www.emptythebench.com/2010/01/04/pistons-should-trade-tayshaun-prince/
I think a draft history featuring GMs of comparable tenure would be useful.
just to see exactly how low on the depth chart Joe Dumars really is.
The real knocks on his management hustle are who he has drafted during the decade he has held the position, and the 2009 Free Agent signings of Gordon and Villanueva.
"I didn’t even know Elvis was from Memphis, I thought he was from Tennessee." — Drew Gooden.
There is a lot more than that
There’s the Chauncey trade, most egregiously; there are all the failed-to-help-the-team free-agent signings (Nazr is the most prominent of these, but there are many more middling ones, like Mo Evans and stuff); there are less significant bad trades here and there (Afflalo, Arroyo, etc.). It’s a much quicker exercise to name the things Joe has done right since 2004 than to list the things he’s done wrong.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 5:49 PM CST up reply actions
I would love that actually
especially if the other GM’s could be graded by fans of their respective teams. I often fear that because we as Pistons fans are only focusing on our team we don’t properly criticize other GM’s for the mistakes they’ve made. Yes Joe has screwed up lately, but I’d bet at least half the GM’s in the league have fans who are pissed at them.
I'm not giving him a B-
based on things he did 6 years ago.
The last 3 years, D, D-, F.
That puts the B-, B, A, B+, etc in previous years down to a C average.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
by sauce1977 on Feb 22, 2010 7:30 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
Lots of General Managers sign names who fail to materialize as impact players.
..and I don’t think Nazr Mohammed or Maurice Evans really set our franchise back all that much.
but I’m with you on Chauncey, and half a season into it the Gordon/Villanueva signings look to be no bueno,
"I didn’t even know Elvis was from Memphis, I thought he was from Tennessee." — Drew Gooden.
Nazr was quickly replaced by Chris Webber
And we had an excellent regular season run with him, and did OK in the playoffs. To the extent we didn’t win it all that year, I don’t think it was Webber’s fault.
It's not any individual bad signing that kills you
Of course I agree that Mo probably wasn’t making or breaking the team. The problem is not any one bad move Joe made, but the collective badness of all of them together. You risk bleeding to death by a thousand pinpricks when NONE of your more minor signings or trades pans out in half a decade.
Since 2004 the only impact free agent Joe Dumars has landed is Antonio McDyess. That was a brilliant signing, but you need more than one hit in six years of attempts if you want to give your your veterans a realistic chance to defend a championship in an environment where every other contender is consistently improving its roster.
Great article
One thing that I was wondering though – did DBB support the Rondo/Allen trade? Looking back, we clearly should have done it, but I remember thinking it wasn’t a fair deal for us. We didn’t know what we had in Stuckey, Allen’s old, etc. etc. I’m a homer so I thought we could get more for what was essentially, what was left of our core. Other people here may advocated for it, but I don’t remember it being a consensus opinion.
No, not really. A few people considered it, but it was very controversial at the time. I remember the actual headline on DBB being something to the effect of “Boston low-balls, Detroit laughs.” And frankly, I still think that trade had us giving up too much talent for what we’d get back.
IF that is accurate
Then I think QD’s criticism has a little more bite, since the roster that MP constructed is fairly dependent on 20/20 hindsight. Nevertheless his overall point stands. But he got so many accolades, I gotta keep him humble.
Here’s the post: http://www.detroitbadboys.com/2009/6/23/1216759/boston-lowballs-detroit-laughs
Hindsight’s a bitch — I’d do that deal in a heartbeat now. Then again, one of my biggest beefs was the timing — the draft was PG heavy, and I didn’t see the point in trading for a PG in Rondo just as his rookie contract was expiring. Plus, I didn’t quite realize just how bad Prince’s back was. But if I knew then what I know now, the tone of that post would be much, much different.
Yup, same here
I had the same tone when I posted originally and I’d take this deal in a hot minute now:
Detroit Bad Boys- SB Nation's Detroit Pistons Blog
Twitter
There was also a good contingent that thought it was ridiculous.
by bugman222 on Feb 22, 2010 7:49 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
I actually just went back to that thread and reviewed some of the comments. It was a mixed bag. I posted some random comment that didn’t make sense (I blame being at work), but with a few others (Joel, MP were two that I saw), I wanted us to do the deal — but, that was before we signed Gordon.
I thought Gordon at nine million coupled with Rondo made a nice backcourt at the time, and I’d say the same thing now.
Nice article.
I’d argue whether Stuckey is a success. He’s average, can’t shoot the 3, doesn’t see the floor well enough to be a point guard, and we moved Billups to plan around him @ PG. He plays more minutes as a 2, and 2s who can’t shoot 3s … bleh.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
I feel bad for Stuckey
He suffers from a lesser form of Darko Syndrome, where he absorbs a lot of hate because strangers mistakenly decided he was an amazing talent and created expectations for him that he probably never could have met. It’s not his fault that people misjudged his abilities.
Stuckey seems like a good guy, and he plays hard. I like him personally. He simply can’t shoot, which kills you if you want to be a point guard in the NBA in the modern era. It’s not his fault—it’s how he is and how he has been. He has never pretended otherwise.
Joe Dumars and his scouts should have figured out that Stuckey couldn’t shoot before they bet the farm on him and traded away Chauncey, the best player the Pistons have had since pre-ankle Grant Hill. For some reason they either didn’t see it, or decided it didn’t matter. And now Stuckey has to deal with expectations that inevitably will be disappointed.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 6:51 PM CST up reply actions
PG’s gotta see the floor, and he’s gotta be able to make a lot of tight passes. Rodney seemed to work well when Billups was feeding him, when those two were on the floor, but when he controlled the point he seemed to let the opponent back in all the time. Joe misread his type of talent. Just because he handled early-career PG duties, didn’t mean he was going to improve or succeed as a PG.
His three years are up … I wasn’t ready to move on from him until I saw what he could do this year, and he’s not very good at this game when he’s in charge. Joe set this team up to build around him, but it’s clear that you have to get rid of him because it’ll never work.
To me, whenever a guy is absolved as you state in your Darko Syndrome paragraph, I tend to disagree with it because the guy accepted the money tendered in the contract. He’s not returning it – therefore, he agrees with their assessment. I wouldn’t expect him to turn down the offer, since they were giving him a huge opportunity, regardless of whether he was ready for it or not … you strike when the iron’s hot, and there was a scalding situation.
I do blame Dumars for overestimating Stuckey’s ability, and I do blame him for deciding that Rodney could fill into Chauncey’s role in a short amount of time. I’m also at this point not interested if he can fit into that role 2 years from now, or 10. You have to get rid of him, no matter if he turns into a late bloomer like Chauncey or not. I’m guessing he will not, and I do not trust Joe’s judgment, so there’s absolutely any draft pick I dump him for, 2nd round, even.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
True
That’s a good point. He did take the money, so he’s not a total bystander. But I know I would take the money too.
It’s like a parent who gives his six-year-old a gun, and the six-year-old fires it and someone gets hit and dies. It’s possible that the kid should have known better by that age than to fire the gun, but I still am sending the father to jail before I send the kid.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 7:13 PM CST up reply actions
nobody would turn it down
I merely wanted to emphasize his complicit responsibility for becoming Chauncey 2. There was no misunderstanding there, they didn’t hire him in the draft and then spring that surprise on him the day after they moved Billups. Chauncey was calling him ‘the future’ if I remember correctly.
Def noted that he’s not the only one responsible. Def noted that it’s on Joe in as large a part.
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“Joe set this team up to build around him, but it’s clear that you have to get rid of him because it’ll never work.” Isn’t that just a little harsh? Yes, Stuckey is not as good as C-Bill. But how is that, by itself, enough to call for Stuckey’s head? To say that it will never work? Even if Stuckey is not as good as we want him to be, he is still a dang good player. Just because you are disappointed in him, doesn’t mean we should just dump him for junk.
we need a PG
he’s not good enough to be that, and so we have 3 SGs.
He’s the only one who can’t shoot the 3. It’s not harsh enough.
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sometimes i reply too fast
for context, i said I’d give him 3 years, and in that 3rd year, around the all-star break, I’d know whether he’s essential or expendable.
He’s not essential.
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Actually, I think Stuckey could be very useful to another team
He’d be great as a sixth man off the bench. Off the bench he could play some point (I think he’s fine at point in spells, as long as he’s not asked to be the main dude), and he could be free to do his customary drive-righthanded-to-the-basket-yell-maybe-get-blocked thing, which works better in spells off the bench when the other team’s best players aren’t in and when the defense is not expecting it as much because Stuckey would not be the main guy receiving the brunt of the defense’s attention.
There are a lot of teams that could use him in that way. He’d have real value.
I’m totally on board with trading Stuckey if we can get value for him, because we have 3 SG’s. And my point is that we might actually be able to get something decent for him before he asks for more money when his contract is up.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 7:45 PM CST up reply actions
agreed as 6th man
I expected Rodney’s career path to involve at least 4 years of subbing for Billups and Hamilton, getting a steady diet of 28-30 mpg off the bench. I don’t believe I ever expected him to morph into a leader overnight, and I sure as heck didn’t believe that he could replace Billups in the near future.
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Exactly
The biggest factor destroying the Pistons as we knew them was the loss of Billups’s leadership. Look at how Chauncey has tamed that knucklehead J.R. Smith in Denver. J.R. worships Chauncey now, and he’s grown noticeably in his judgment and maturity. He may not be a Supreme Court justice yet, but he’s a little closer every day.
Chauncey has the natural inborn leadership qualities and charisma that Michael Curry tried so hard to fake last year. Chauncey doesn’t have to tell people he’s in charge; he’s put in charge without asking for it through the wordless consent of the other guys on his team. I think he will be a great coach someday, and I hope it will be for the Pistons.
Once Chauncey left for Denver, the weird tensions and difficult personalities inherent on the 2008 Pistons roster (Sheed and Rip, as much as I love them, are head cases) really made themselves apparent, because Chauncey’s moderating influence was gone. I think this had a lot to do with Curry’s failure last year. Curry needed Chauncey more than anyone else did.
Asking Stuckey to handle the ball and call plays was one thing. Asking him to fill the enormous void of leadership that Chauncey left was an impossible and unfair request.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 7:59 PM CST up reply actions
Joe Dumars also got it done on the court.
I’ll sing the praises of Mr. Big Shot, but I’m not sure if his coaching career would depend on him still making that tight pass. You never know how a guy will translate his b-ball into walking the sideline and being forced to watch some other guy hit the clutch 3, or make that smooth assist.
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Yeah
Totally true. Isiah was a great floor general and a horrific management guy (though possibly a better coach than his reputation suggests). But among current players, I can’t think of anyone who seems more likely to succeed in a coaching role than Chauncey.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 8:04 PM CST up reply actions
Isiah knew talent
he had a B- to B eye for guys in drafts, nothing super-special, but that’s the lone area he ‘excelled.’
Trades, disaster. FAs, disaster. Coaching, disaster. Disaster? Disaster.
I think Billups would be a good Kareem-style mentor, at least.
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not disagreeing with you
my queer way of saying I agree, just that Billups is who he is because he gets it done on the court. Extension of what you’re saying, he leads by example.
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or packaging him with tay
for jefferson and sessions, should we wind up with aldrich
Aminu, here we come!!11
That would be a great move
Big Al remains my pie-in-the-sky beloved possible trade acquisition. He’s an extremely effective low-post scorer, kind of redundant to his team now that the Wolves have Kevin Love (which means he’s more likely to get traded for less), a great character/leadership guy from everything I’ve read, and not completely and utterly overpaid. I would be thrilled to add him, still-recent injury notwithstanding.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 8:02 PM CST up reply actions
for sure
Sessions| MFWB
Hamilton | Gordon
Jerebko | Daye
Jefferson | Villanueva
Aldrich | Wallace
would be a huge step in the right direction. Then we can explore trades with either hamilton or gordon, and either villanueva or maxiell, and be in a great position.
Aminu, here we come!!11
That team actually might make the playoffs
All it takes is one good trade and you’re right back in that thing.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 8:10 PM CST up reply actions
Can't imagine who'll want Villa, though
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 8:11 PM CST up reply actions
All he has to do is play relatively well before the All Star break next year. If he does that, he’ll be worth something to someone.
this is a league that loves points
and if V puts up 18 per game, some fool with an injured 3/4 will be entertained with negotiations.
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regardless of who in such packages
Joe or whoever should be looking for T-Mac deals to absorb, even 2-year-remaining deals, with possibilities to move the next deadline.
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Mike, I haven't been following draft discussions
Are you pro-Aldrich? Pro-Cousins? What do you think? I’ve seen Cousins once or twice, and he looks like a man among little boys.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 8:09 PM CST up reply actions
I defer to the people like Bearded Thunder on that one
who has done brilliant work in the sidebar recently. I love Cousins, thanks to his research, and would love to get him on our team at any cost. If he’s off the board when we pick, I’d prefer Aldrich. after that, I don’t know how to feel yet…
If we picked up Cousins, I’d no longer want Jefferson though.
Aminu, here we come!!11
For the 15th pick
I’d call him a success. You can criticize the effort to build around him, but I think the pick is solid. Also, I don’t really know how he could play more minutes at the 2 this season, since MFWB was injured for a good chunk. I’m guessing you got that data from somewhere, but I’d be a bit dubious of it, since even if he’s playing with chucky or MFWB he will spend some time running the offense.
my definition of success
doesn’t ignore everything but the solid value of Stuckey at that point in the draft.
http://www.82games.com/0910/09DET4.HTM#bypos
Take it up with 82games, 40 percent of his minutes are as a 2, according to their respected data.
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Those percentages add up to less than 80%
I can’t take those stats seriously. Also, I think it was Gabe that pointed out that 82games labels the taller player as the two, regardless of reality. So a lineup of BG and Stuckey would label BG as the pg. I don’t know that for sure, but I’m sure Gabe can verify. If so, I think you’re responsible for accurately reporting stats. It’s sort of disingenuous to say, “take it up with 82games.com” when it’s obvious that the stats aren’t reliable.
my definition of success doesn’t ignore everything but the solid value of Stuckey at that point in the draft.
What does that mean? I don’t understand.
we're at an impasses
http://www.82games.com/0910/09DET3.HTM#bypos
Ben’s numbers don’t suggest the height bias toward the minutes, so nuts to that. I take 82games’s numbers as they are.
Are they counting base stats incorrectly? Like, are they crediting guys with too many FGAs, missing FTAs, etc? I don’t think they are. I guess we have an impasse with the word “reliable.”
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Leaving the height issue aside
Their numbers don’t add up to 100%. Not even close, in fact. That’s a pretty big red flag that their data collection process is flawed. Looking at that, I don’t see why you’d assume they were reliable. Pretty soon we’ll be debating the meaning of the word “is”.
i'm up for that debate
i’m not even addressing how Stuckey appears to be more of a 2 than a 1 in nature, and we’re arguing the credibility of a credible stat collection website, just to clarify.
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If you're up for that debate
Why don’t you provide some evidence that those stats are credible. I wouldn’t disagree that, in general, their stats are credible. However, compiling position data is inherently difficult because it would require having a complex coding mechanism and watching every minute of every game. I think it’s pretty obvious that there’s no way that those stats are accurate.
that's why i told you to take it up with 82games, Colin
I’m not their customer service department, and people take their data as credible, generally-accepted, whatever you call it for “not really debatable.”
Circular.
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As I said before
You’re being disingenuous. You’re the one quoting the statistics. You’re the one using the statistics to make an argument. I’m not criticizing 82games. I’m criticizing your argument, which relies on flawed statistics. I don’t know why you refuse to acknowledge that the stats are probably flawed. It’s ok to admit you’re wrong sometimes.
Despite your bolded statement to the contrary, it doesn’t seem like your up for the debate.
hint
take all the pcts of everyone listed with a % at PG (stuckey, bynum, gordon, atkins, etc) and add those numbers, they should come out somewhere close to 100 like 97 (3 % probably due to odd subs)
the %s are stuckey’s minutes played / total number of minutes played at the position, so in other words, yeah, it’s credible.
ps if you divide his totes minutes against totes possible minutes you get somewhere near the 74 percent, it all pans out to me and the rest of the world, seemingly
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The problem with 82games five-man unit position breakdown is that it’s completely static. So each combo of players will always be listed at the same positions, even if they are cross matched against different combos of players.
With Stuck/Rip, a lot of times Stuckey will guard the SG and Rip the PG, so neither player is being credited correctly on defense. I know I’ve seen the opposite happen when Gordon is at SG and Stuckey at PG. My guess is Kuester thinks Rip is the best on-ball defender of the three, and that Stuckey is better than Gordon, so Gordon is typically the least likely to be put on opposing PG’s, but he’s always listed as defending PG’s.
I really like the shot distribution chart they have though, and the basic on/off court stats are very cool.
but that's basketball
i assume they record whatever is written down on the sub charts from the league, and that they’re not making it up.
if there’s any confusion with what the nba hands in, that’s what they handed in, regardless of whether rip’s defending the best on-ball player – he checked in as the SG, he’s the SG.
You could check in Kwame Brown as a PG, and if he goes to defend a 5, he’s still in there as a PG, as far as what’s turned in.
So maybe that’s a problem with the league, but in terms of time, I thought it was obvious that Stuckey isn’t getting the PG minutes because there’s two guys who absolutely require PG duty (Bynum, Atkins) who can’t play anywhere else. That alone should tell anyone that Stuckey’s got a lot of SG minutes, without even looking at any number.
There’s no problem with anything they’re doing in terms of stats, at least, not with regard to this.
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the only guy seemingly who would allow stuckey to play pg
would be when rip’s on the court with him.
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Yeah, that looks like the only way Stuckey is credited as a PG on 82games.
I don’t think there’s a problem with what they’re doing, but I think the five-man unit stuff is very unreliable, especially with the PG/SG/SF positions, as those tend to cross-match the most.
So Gordon is listed at PG when he’s on the court with Stuckey, even when he’s guarding and being defended by SG’s.
IME, the info is most useful for looking at the player’s own production. 82games keeps really good per/48 minute stats, and comparing those numbers to the counter-part stats can give a broad sense of a guys strengths and weaknesses. But it doesn’t tell if someone is better at one position or another, because the way it defines positions is pretty screwy.
if there's anything unreliable, it's PER
the stuff I find unreliable is PER, since it favors the offense and ignores the defense.
the player position stuff simply adds up, and it’s totes useful, not sure what the deal is for you there.
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100% agreed that PER is indeed unreliable.
The issue I have with the five-man unit stuff is that the overall minutes add up, but there are several specific examples where I know for a fact that players are being credited incorrectly- with 82games saying they played a position that they didn’t actually play.
In the scheme of things it’s obviously not a big deal, but there are easy ways to make the numbers more informative.
IME, the best would be to copy what Ty of courtsideanalyst does, which is compare all the basic box score stats of each individual player vs. the league average at each position. Then every opposing player can be compared vs. the league average in the same way.
This would kinda make the precise position attribution beside the point, because it would allow you to look at how a individual player’s stats compare against league average at different position, rather than trying to specifically credit him with guarding and being guarded by a specific player at all times.
unless you split hairs
and track every millisecond of when a guy is performing which positional duty, it’s never going to be reliable.
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For The Record
I interpreted the percentages as reflecting the proportion of Stuckey’s Total Minutes spent at different positions. Clearly, however, the percentages “represents the percentage of the team’s total minutes the player was at that position.” In that case, it isn’t surprising that the percentages don’t add up to 100%
I wouldn’t have been so incredulous/aggressive if I had read the fine print correctly, but I still think there’s ample reason to question the accuracy of these data.
question the color of the blue pen then
of course there are skews like the possibility of having a lower percentage at some position but logging more minutes there, but in terms of useful data, it’s way useful.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if Stuckey’s spent the minority of his minutes at PG. He’s played a lot of SG this year, and even a good deal of SF.
he's obv spent low time @ PG
with 3 midgets taking PG time, when does Rodney have a chance to fully play the point?
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I wasn't willing
to open up that can of worms in this article. I think Stuckey is a solid player, but he’s essentially been kicked upstairs and made to be more valuable than he actually is. He’d be great next to a guy like Joe Johnson, or other SG who can shoot 3s lights out and distribute as well. But spending free agent money to bring in pieces to compliment Rodney Stuckey as a cornerstone is a failure in judgment.
Aminu, here we come!!11
if what you mean i think you mean
building around Rodney doesn’t work, totes agree there.
I think you kind of did open it up, considering I’m here disagreeing that the sum of Rodney Stuckey isn’t currently in the success column. Had he not been tagged ‘the future,’ or ‘the franchise’ by management, he wouldn’t be getting this critique from me. As mentioned before, part of that isn’t his fault, but he agreed to the deal and saw it coming, and that hasn’t happened and it should have by now.
He didn’t break his arm and have it heal incorrectly, as a child. As far as I know, Rodney has 20/20 vision. Dr. Rahmani appears to be out. So, why is it that he can’t hit a 3 after training and learning the game for 3 years? The same goes for his inability to see the court. What’s goin’ on with him is that he has not progressed like he was intended, in the time frame that was intended.
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note that I also considered Flip Saunders a success
and his success had more to do with Dumars early success of putting that roster together than it did with his coaching. If I wrote that Flip was a failure and Stuckey were failures, I wouldn’t expect to be taken seriously without adding another 1000 words (to an already 1800 word article). I think both moves are commendable, positive moves but ended up causing errors in management on Joe’s behalf.
Aminu, here we come!!11
ok
explain in 800 words or less how both caused errors in management on Joe’s behalf, since the definition of success seems to hinge on it.
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nevermind
I’m not trying to put you to task here, is the irony. I’m just confused as to how they’d be more success than failure. I want my mind changed, and so far it’s not happening there.
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I liked Flip as a coach, except for his failure to develop the bench. I loved our offense under his tenure, however.
But the fact that he and his staff essentially drove Ben Wallace out of town (philosophy clash) is probably enough for me to think there’s moe failure than success.
when the opponent locked up his motion offense
he never adjusted, more often than not. he was terrible with adjustments on offense and defense.
it’s a problem, arguing Flip, since Curry blew every thing Flip did wrong out of the water by doing 4x worse, but when the chips were down, Flip’s general approach was to keep throwing plays out there that were getting owned.
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I think your are overestimating Joe's opinion of Stuckey
I may be wrong, but I don’t think Joe ever referred to Stuckey as “the future” or “the franchise.” He simply said that he was the only one he wasn’t willing to trade after that crappy series against Boston. And that makes sense. He was a very promising young guard, one of the few players to actually give a crap during that series. We HAD to make massive changes after that series, and trading Chauncey for cap space made a ton of sense.
I guess I’m saying I don’t understand your anger towards Stuckey. He is a very good player who is still growing and improving. He can’t shoot threes, but then Rip can’t hit them consistently either and he has turned out all right. I agree that building around Stuckey as a center-peice won’t work, but I see absolutely no reason why he can’t continue to be one part of our future.
Trading Chauncey for cap space made no sense
He was our best player and one of the top 3 or 4 point guards in the league. Also, most of the other teams did not fully understand his value at that time and were not prepared to pay commensurate to it. We had 11 other guys on the roster, several of whom had significant trade value. Trading any combination of those other players for cap space would have been better than trading Chauncey. He was the one and only guy we simply could not afford to lose.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 8:18 PM CST up reply actions
We had to trade him
He was our best player, but he was also the leader of the team that simply rolled over and played dead against Boston. After that, we needed massive changes to ever have any chance at improving. Plus Stuckey was a very good young pg. Keeping both Chauncey and Stuckey together makes only slightly more sense then keeping Rip and Ben Gordon together. You can make a very good argument to the affect that we did not get enough for him, or we should have waited just a little longer to see if the market would improve, but we absolutely had to trade him.
We did not have to trade him
That is false. Chauncey now leads a Denver team that has a real chance of winning a championship this season. Before he arrived that Denver team was a perennial easy out in the first or second round of the playoffs.
Stuckey is a shooting guard naturally, not a point guard, so there should have been no trouble keeping both.
We absolutely did not have to trade Chauncey, and to suggest that just seems dumb. I’m sorry, but it does.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 8:30 PM CST up reply actions
I’ve never implied Chauncey wasn’t a good player. But he had gotten more than a little complacent toward the end of his time here. He had the talent, but the effort of that whole team was terrible during that Boston series. He was the leader so it made sense to blame him as much as the coach, which is why they were both gone before the start of the next season. Maybe he just needed a change of scenery, but at the time that entire team including Chauncey just stopped trying.
Many people consider Stuckey a natural shooting guard NOW (I’m not convinced) but at the time the trade was made there was no doubt that Stuckey was a PG. If you want to regret the decision in hindsight, that’s fine. But at the time the trade was made everyone knew Stuckey was a PG and as such would only be slowed down by having Chauncey in front of him.
That's also not true
2 things:
1. Chauncey’s stats since he landed in Denver are no better than they were in the several seasons before he was traded. A common argument is that somehow the trade revitalized Chauncey. If you look only at the numbers you will have to conclude that this is simply false. If you look beyond the numbers it is also obviously false. After Chauncey left last year’s Pistons were demoralized, downtrodden, and rudderless. Dyess said last month that the trade killed the chemistry and spirit of last year’s team. Chauncey did not somehow become more valuable when he came to Denver.
2. At the time very few of us had any evidence either way on whether Stuckey was a point guard or a shooting guard. He came in to spell Chauncey and in that time almost exclusively drove the ball to the basket. We never saw him pass or take outside shots. We had no way of knowing what position he played.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 8:44 PM CST up reply actions
the trade revitalized the Nuggets
who were waiting to blow up their team – in fact, one could see that moving AI was ‘starting over.’
they never dreamed they packaged ‘rebuilding’ and sent that to Detroit as part of the trade, too.
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Yeah, everyone forgets this, but at that time the Nuggets were very seriously considering shipping Melo out too. They had a big REBUILDING sign posted in the lawn. Chauncey took that down and brought it inside with him as soon as he arrived and checked out the new digs.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 9:02 PM CST up reply actions
I never said his stats were better
It’s not Chauncey’s stat’s that were the problem, it was his mentality during important games. Sometime after 2005 he – and much of the rest of the team really- just gave up as soon as they got tested in the playoffs. I don’t know about you, but I got sick watching this team barely go through the motions during several games against Boston. Chauncey – and others on that team- seemed totally content with everything he had accomplished here and and saw no reason to push harder than necessary as soon as the playoffs got tough. A major change absolutely had to be made to rid the team of the stink of complacency. Moving Chauncey was the easiest and at the time most obvious move.
At the time, everyone assume Stuckey was a PG. No one considered him a shooting guard. It may very well be true that we did not have enough evidence to correctly label him at that time, but that does not change things.
Apples and oranges, IME.
Billups mentoring Stuck makes sense, just like Lawson and Billups makes sense in Denver.
Rip mentoring Gordon? Errr, no.
And let’s not also forget that paying CB and Stuckey costs one large contract and one rookie deal. Paying Rip and Gordon eats up nearly 40% of all our available money.
rip isn't a mentor
billups allows for it, it’s the willingness that’s the difference, I feel.
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he did
someone else can find his comments about Stuckey’s role for the future, but my brain is on fire with “yes he did.”
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Stuckey?
Stuckey is the LEAST of this team’s problems. If there is one thing we should be able to agree on at this point, this should be it.
The team has too many expensive PG’s. The team has no inside scoring presence and almost no post game.
Stuckey should be judged based on his draft slot, not his expectations OR a comparison to Billups (although it is inevitable). Stuckey is coming along just fine for a 15th overall draft pick. And while you mention his complicity based on him signing his contract, he’s not breaking the bank. He’s very reasonably priced considering what he gives the team.
And yes, he IS still improving. No doubt it has been gradual, but improving nonetheless. Stuckey can run this team fine if the bigger problems get resolved.
by Big Z in Orlando on Feb 23, 2010 1:03 PM CST up reply actions
oopss
too many expensive SG’s, obviously
by Big Z in Orlando on Feb 23, 2010 1:04 PM CST up reply actions
What’s everybody else doing that’s so awesome, though? There are lots of crappy teams out there making crappy decisions and filling their rosters with crappy guys. I wish Jod would have made a few other decisions, but hindsight is always 20/20.
The Denver Trades, the 2009 Free Agency, Blair, and the trade deadline
are what has the fine folks here at DBB so pissed at Dumars, I think.
The rest of it I think people would let go, for the most part.
We haven’t been crappy like those other teams for so long, it’s freaking people out. The worst of all of this is that we may remain crappy for several seasons to come.
"I didn’t even know Elvis was from Memphis, I thought he was from Tennessee." — Drew Gooden.
Yeah, those are definite mistakes and I’m sure Jod wishes he could have a do-over. In the end, as long as we can stay competitive and exciting I’m happy. We got a championship in my prime basketball-fandom life, so I can’t ask for much more than that in the life cycle of an NBA team. We don’t even need to win a whole lot right now as long as there’s growth and development and every guy on the roster plays hard like Jerebko and Big Ben.
by garrettelliott on Feb 22, 2010 6:49 PM CST up reply actions
just to be clear
should go without saying, emphatically disagree on Flip Saunders being a success. Had he not followed him with Curry, we’d be still chanting “Flip’s Fault” remembering how this team was almost famous, in spite of his own (comparatively less-stupid but still unacceptable) coaching stupidity.
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True that...
We were all calling for Flip’s head long before Joe actually fired him. Most everyone here was originally thrilled when Curry was hired. It’s not until Curry was exposed as an idiot that we started missing Flip.
I don't miss trash
Flip was a shitty coach, and it continues to show.
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If I went back in time, I still don't do the Rondo trade.
Rajon Rondo
Ray Allen
Shawn Marion
David Lee
Ben Wallace
I didn’t put your draft reserves in there, because that’s very hindsight, and no one in their right mind fills out the small forward position with 2 second rounders. But, that is a good quality starting five. I ask you though, Is it better than this?:
Stuckey
Hamilton
Prince
Lee
Wallace
+ Marion as super-sub
I think it all comes down to the signing of Gordon and “No-Hair.” I was in favor of the two signings originally, but the reality check has come. The 3-guard lineup doesn’t work, or at least doesn’t work without a dominant low post. Which is what should have come first. I think if we had spend our money differently, we could still be looking at a playoff contender today.
I ask you though, Is it better than this?:
Abso-fucking-lutely. Far better on the court, far better in terms of flexibility, etc. Rajon Rondo is a top 5 PG. Stuckey is top 20 at best. Ray Allen expires this year, Hamilton is on the books for years.
o one in their right mind fills out the small forward position with 2 second rounders
Is Shawn Marion a 2nd rounder? Point is, we’d have had a ton of money left to spend on an upgrade at the 3.
Aminu, here we come!!11
Flexibility?
The only flexibility i see is Allen’s expiring.. if you’re signing Marion with the last of our money this last summer. So who do we go out and overpay to come play in the D with that extra cash? Why not just stick with Hamilton who’s a little overpaid, but not nearly as bad as we’d have to do for Joe Johnson or Rudy Gay or the other B super-stars we’d have to pick from this summer. Let’s be honest with ourselves.. LA, Miami, New York, New Jersey/Brooklyn, Sacramento, and Chicago have cap space. Who’s picking Detroit over those cities? Not me.
Like what QD said below this, outside of allen, who’s shooting?
Also, this is just an opinion with not that much support, but I don’t think Rondo is a top 5 pg. I would rather have Stuckey over Rondo every day. Those stupid ball fakes he does only fake 1 in 10 and every other time he looks like an idiot. Plus he’s kind of a baby and pouts when shit doesn’t go his way.
by Roll The Dyess on Feb 22, 2010 8:11 PM CST up reply actions
Rondo is way, way better than Stuckey at this point
It’s not close. Rondo can distribute the ball that Stuckey just can’t. I think most people who have watched both players much this year probably will agree.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 8:12 PM CST up reply actions
in ways that* Stuckey just can't
Responding without editing first
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 8:13 PM CST up reply actions
Like what QD said below this, outside of allen, who’s shooting?
As long as it’s not Charlie V, I don’t care. Honestly. Lee can shoot from 15 feet. That’s enough stretching for me.
And Rondo vs. Stuckey is no contest. I can’t think of one possible argument to offer in Stuck’s favor. Not one. Rondo is better at everything, except scoring points perhaps.
you know what's hilarious?
Rajon Rondo is a better 3-point shooter than Rodney Stuckey.
Aminu, here we come!!11
what's even better
is that Rondo gets it done up close when he has to do it, Tony Parker style.
We’re staring at NBA Mendoza for Stuckey, for comparison.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
Just to be clear
there are a lot of pg’s I’d rather have than Stuckey.. just not Rondo.
by Roll The Dyess on Feb 22, 2010 8:50 PM CST up reply actions
i'd like to point to defense as the reason to keep Stuckey
but that’s been the reason to get rid of him all along. he plays D like he’s 6’1 165. People get by him, and he doesn’t even get the glitz numbers (steals) to argue against.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
flexibility
we’re not paying Rip $11M for the next several years.
we lose $20M in salary when Allen expires.
That alone is a hell of a lot more flexibility than we have now.
Like what QD said below this, outside of allen, who’s shooting?
And like I said below, have you actually watched David Lee play this year? Look at his shot chart.
Also, this is just an opinion with not that much support, but I don’t think Rondo is a top 5 pg
I’d argue Rondo is a top 3 PG, not just top 5. In terms of PER, he is top 5. But PER doesn’t take into account defense, a category in which he is absolutely top three in his position.
also:
if you’re signing Marion with the last of our money this last summer
I swapped Marion in there after my article, because QD nitpicked my inclusion of Jerebko there, suggesting it wasn’t fair to include joe’s successes if we’re going to examine his failures.
You don’t like Marion in that lineup? Artest was available as well. I quickly swapped Marion in there because he was available and we had the money. More than enough.
Aminu, here we come!!11
1) CP3
2) Nash
3) D Will
4) Rose
5) Billups
6) Harris
7) Arenas
8) Rondo
Don’t tell me anything about potential, because then Evans and Jennings jump ahead of him. I’m talking about right now.
I also didn’t say I didn’t think he was good. I’d rather have Stuckey than him, because I don’t like Rondo. I think he’s a bitch.
Did you really just drop David Lee’s name for the “Who’s going to shoot” question?
No way Joe goes after Artest, and no way he comes here. I wouldn’t mind having him on our team though.
And Yes. I would love to pay Rip $11 mil the next several years. One other thing though I’ve seen as a downfall to Dumars’s strategy is signing players for 4 and 5 years. I’d like to see a lot more 3 year signings.
by Roll The Dyess on Feb 22, 2010 8:30 PM CST up reply actions
What are your criteria?
(Because I see PPG driving players up the rankings, if I’m looking closely)
And Jennings as better than Rondo? Have you watched basketball since November? Jennings has been brutally bad during all of 2010. Awful, even.
No specific criteria..
just personal opinion.
I mentioned Jennings to say don’t talk about potential, because that’s what i feel people are saying when talking about Rondo. There’s no guarantee that Rondo and Jennings both don’t just lose their powers Space Jam style and drop out of the league.
by Roll The Dyess on Feb 22, 2010 8:37 PM CST up reply actions
rajon rondo
is top 5 point guard THIS SEASON. potential has nothing to do with it.
Aminu, here we come!!11
Rondo also...
plays with 3 for-sure hall of famers. Just sayin’.
by MaxiellEatsLittleOnes on Feb 22, 2010 11:35 PM CST up reply actions
and he's the best player on that team
just sayin’. i’ll gladly have an open debate about that.
Aminu, here we come!!11
I’d rather have Stuckey than him, because I don’t like Rondo. I think he’s a bitch.
So you have zero objectivity. With that, it’s not even worth explaining why Rondo is statistically superior to Nash, Rose, Billups, Harris and Arenas. And Jennings and Evans? Insane.
If you’d listen to the statistical argument, you’d see that Rondo is a top 3 point guard. But its clear you’re not willing to do that. Hence, this is a pointless conversation to begin with.
Aminu, here we come!!11
Who's to say statistics are the know all end all?
by Roll The Dyess on Feb 22, 2010 8:38 PM CST up reply actions
facepalm
statistics are the recorded facts about what happens on a court. when a player catches a ball that a player on the other team shot and missed, it is called a rebound. if that player collects twice as many rebounds as another player, given they play similar minutes and similar positions, it is fair to assume that player is a better rebounder than the other player.
statistics aren’t some crafty magical mumbo jumbo you were afraid of in math class. they tell a story about what happens on the court.
the stuff Rajon Rondo does on the court, AND the stuff that isn’t recorded statistically, both indepently and in concert make him a top 3 point guard in the league.
Aminu, here we come!!11
They’re not the end all be all, but they’re the closest thing to an objective measure that we have.
Rondo fills up the stat sheet — because he does everything well. He shoots efficiently, because he takes good shots. He generates assists, because he gets into the lane (and pushes the ball in transition) with the specific purpose of creating for others. He rebounds very, very well for a guard. He plays the passing lane well, and as a result, he gets steals.
Okay, there, I’ve tried to add the qualitative an the quantitative to show how stats can be valuable in a player evaluation.
By the numbers Rondo > than just about every other NBA PG, and I think the numbers coincide quite nicely with reality.
If you put Rondo on another team does he have the same stats?
by Roll The Dyess on Feb 22, 2010 8:45 PM CST up reply actions
ahh, this tired argument again
so, when Kevin Garnett was injured in the playoffs last year, how did Rajon Rondo’s assists go UP?
Aminu, here we come!!11
When KG was hurt, they almost went out in the first round. He didn’t make his team any better by getting those extra assists.
by Roll The Dyess on Feb 22, 2010 8:48 PM CST up reply actions
It’s not even worth talking to you man, zero base in reality. So you hate dude, that’s not any reason to ignore objectivity and accomplishment— especially when it involves DOMINATING the guy you put as the #4 guard in the league.
Aminu, here we come!!11
Agreed
Zero base in reality? C’mon we’re arguing basketball on an internet message board.. this isn’t exactly the real world.
My final statement on Rondo: I think he’s overrated. I think his ball-fakes are nonsense, his stats are inflated by the talent and chemistry on his team, and I think he’s a wuss. Since I think these things, I hate when I hear he’s one of the top 5 pg’s in the league.
by Roll The Dyess on Feb 22, 2010 9:10 PM CST up reply actions
I hate when I hear he’s one of the top 5 pg’s in the league.
Get used to it.
Aminu, here we come!!11
Putting Harris and ARENAS (??) above Rondo is an automatic facepalm.
by Gabe F-B on Feb 22, 2010 9:20 PM CST up reply actions 2 recs
lies, damn lies, and statistics
I also like:
Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.
insert aussie stereotype here
rondo can see the floor
and makes great passes, without question. not even examining his defense and his shooting, Rondo already has the most valuable trait one needs for an NBA PG. His D makes you forget about his shot.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
i can understand people hating on rondo, he has some punk moves in him
i hate him too, would i want him on my team over stuckey? HELL YES. if you dont think rondo is a top five pg then in the immortal words of michael jackson “youre being ignorant.”
yeah he’s kinda dirty, but that just makes him better in my book.
Rondo also has a reputation of being a jerk
The whole reason Boston was supposedly willing to deal him last summer was the idea that he was not getting along with his teammates and was becoming a distraction in the locker room. I don’t know how true this is, but it may be part of the reason some people don’t like him.
yeah exactly
rondo is a bad boy sort of player. he plays on my second most hated team, but i still have much love for his game.
Great rebounding team...
…but no low post scoring and only 1 reliable shooter from beyond 5 feet. But, yes, there’s more cap flexibility (I think).
Rajon Rondo
Ray Allen
Shawn Marion
David Lee
Ben Wallace
are you kidding?
have you watched David Lee this year?
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/5642/davidleehotspots.jpg
Ray Allen is there for a year, then he expires. Meanwhile, Arron Afflalo is backing him up, shooting 45% from three.
Aminu, here we come!!11
So I got to thinking about this today on my way home from work (loser, I know). And I can’t help but wonder: could everything post-CB trade be explained by Joe’s ego?
Here’s what I mean. Joe played on a great, great Pistons team. Undoubtedly, they don’t achieve what they did without that dynamite backcourt. However, I would make the case that they don’t achieve that level of success without their dynamite frontcourt as well — Rodman, Laimbeer, Mahorn, Salley, Buddha.
Same can be said of the Going to Work Pistons. Great, great backcourt, but also, great, great frontcourt.
Here’s the point: is it possible that Joe overvalues his own contributions to the Bad Boys’ championships and as a result is overvaluing, or perhaps better wrongly prioritizing, the contributions of guys like Rip and Gordon?
by brgulker on Feb 22, 2010 8:26 PM CST reply actions 2 recs
If he were any other player, maybe...
But this is Joe we are talking about. I find it very hard to think of Joe as having a huge ego. I suppose I could be wrong though.
I think there's something to that, brgulker
Definitely
by Bill Higgins on Feb 22, 2010 8:31 PM CST up reply actions
Yeah, it makes sense in my head. Guys like Rodman and Ben Wallace matter. I can’t help but wonder if Joe feels like the role he played was/is more important.
I don’t know how to build an argument for this. But it sure makes intuitive sense to me.
Not sure if this is exactly relevant but...
all this talk about Joe’s history reminded me of a quote of his way back in either his first or second year here. He said something to the effect that “We are only interested in players that are either extremely talented or extremely tough. If your not one of those, you might as well pack your bags.” I love that quote because I think it explains the mentality he had back when he made all his early moves. Somehow it just seems as if he has fallen away from that a bit.
I still don't believe the Rondo trade was there.
Makes no sense to me.
Of that list of things the only 3 things really bother me, the Rip extension, passing on Blair and trading Afflalo. The only one which is damning is the RIp extension, and that alone may do us in. Still, I really feel no need to make judgment at this point, I’m fine with where we are. Ask me again in two years.
Makes no sense to me.
Yeah, that's another thing...
that trade never was there officially. All it was was a low level Boston employee called one of Joe’s low level lackeys and hinted at a trade like this. It was all very speculative. Somehow a lot of people, both then and now, treat it as if it was a concrete offer.
wojnarowski's track record this summer was unreal
He was the first to drop news of an acquisition or trade, then everyone would follow, then it would happen. Like clockwork. Dude was an oracle this summer, he was THE source of everything that happened. He mentioned this trade, in amidst rumors that Boston was trying to move him, that the locker room in Boston was in trouble, and that offers were being made. Like many rumors which bear fruit or not, I give Wojnarowski’s words a lot of creedence.
Aminu, here we come!!11
I just want to say this thread is awesome
This thread has been up for less than a full day and it already has well over 200 posts. Its almost like a game thread. There are lots of differing opinions, some heated arguments, but everyone is incredibly civil. In short, this thread sums up everything I love about this site.
by bugman222 on Feb 22, 2010 9:11 PM CST reply actions 2 recs
This thread is like the $5 buck box
it rocks. and rocks
I could just kiss you all, like Taco Bell Spokesoldman Charles Barkley
"I didn’t even know Elvis was from Memphis, I thought he was from Tennessee." — Drew Gooden.
by Skylar on Feb 22, 2010 9:23 PM CST up reply actions 4 recs
with dunks on guys with dreadlocks
you get a rec sir, and that’s why you rocks.
Aminu, here we come!!11
pretty sure i rec everything picture Skylar posts around here.
You are integral to DBB, my friend.
And as bugman mentinoed above, this is far and away the best place to discuss Pistons on the interwebz. Smart people, heated arguments, but always in good spirit.
by brgulker on Feb 22, 2010 9:29 PM CST up reply actions 2 recs
I only stuck around because of the awesome posts, replies, gamethreads, trade rumors, etc.
the list goes on. The people here are so fantastic. I literally have never checked any other Pistons forums. Absolutely no need.
You’re one of the fantastics, Gulk
"I didn’t even know Elvis was from Memphis, I thought he was from Tennessee." — Drew Gooden.
I literally have never checked any other Pistons forums.
same here, actually. i’ve been around for years and years, and never even considered it. i haven’t even thought about that until you mentioned it.
Aminu, here we come!!11
Actually this is probably the last blog/site I joined, but is currently the only one i visit.
I grew tired of the childishness of the other sites. While this site still has the “sky is falling” mentality that currently plagues nearly every Piston fan, there is something lovable and cute about it here.
I started with MTSM...
and you guys had to come along and ruin it.
I’m a little glad. You guys are fun.
My Music: Now on last.fm!!
My Blog: Strike Three Mechanics
we were here first
check that domain, fella! in all seriousness, you guys do make DBB a better place, and I’m pumped that Motown String Music joined the DBB party.
Aminu, here we come!!11
I think he meant “along [to SB Nation]…” MTSM was the first Pistons blog on SB Nation.
And I’ve been meaning to say this in the DBB comment of 2009 thread, but I’ll add it here since the originals are having a little love fest. The original DBBers are some of the brightest basketball (and in general) commenters I’ve come across on the ‘net (and I’ve lurked DBB for years). One of Matt’s biggest reasons for wanting to merge was to reward you with a platform that would allow you to really flourish – and it has definitely shown already in just a couple months. So, naturally, I’m stoked and honored to be a part of the DBB fam now. It’s like the TV show “Step by Step” but with Detroit Pistons blogs. (And I guess that makes me Suzanne Somers?).
Detroit Bad Boys- SB Nation's Detroit Pistons Blog
Twitter
The change to DBBSB has been a ridiculous success.
Pretty much all the cool shit from the Black Page era, and awesome new features. Mad luxurious and shit.
The only wack part are the ads, they they’re always tolerable.
"I didn’t even know Elvis was from Memphis, I thought he was from Tennessee." — Drew Gooden.
it was like 3 am when I wrote that...
I barely remember what I meant. Probably what you said.
But you guys are still fun.
My Music: Some Sorta Giant
My Blog: Strike Three Mechanics
This is the only Pistons site I’ve been reading for years. I wish I could remember how I came across it… probably just a Google search. But this is definitely my favourite blog on teh interwebs, mostly because of the folks who comment. Lots of funny stuff, lots of thoughtful stuff, random pop culture references, and even some basketball stuff too. I don’t check any other Pistons sites but I hear Need4Sheed is pretty good.
by garrettelliott on Feb 22, 2010 10:16 PM CST up reply actions
It's the community
I don’t remember when I found this place either, but it’s the people that keep me coming back.
insert aussie stereotype here
Motown String Music is rolling in its grave
:)
Detroit Bad Boys- SB Nation's Detroit Pistons Blog
Twitter
Great read MP...
I’m not the most basketball knowledgable person here so all I can go on with most of what I say is what my gut tells me. My mind tells me based upon everything you’ve pointed out that maybe we should move on.
My gut says Joe Dumar’s has a plan.
My gut also says that alot of his plan falls upon Austin Daye and what he becomes as a player.
My Music: Now on last.fm!!
My Blog: Strike Three Mechanics
My gut also says that alot of his plan falls upon Austin Daye and what he becomes as a player.
I hope that’s not the plan :(
and/or, I hope Jod’s plan is a little more thorough than crossing his fingers that the 15th pick in the draft turns into something more than a (solid) role player.
But sadly, IME, there is no plan.
agreed
all I want is for Joe Dumars to never, ever draft a “project” again. I’ve said that before and it bears repeating. Don’t ever, EVER draft a project again Joe. Immediate contribution is what this team needs, not you trying to outsmart yourself.
Aminu, here we come!!11
In the first round or ever?
I don’t mind projects in the 2nd round, if guys like Blair are not on the board. But neva, eva waste a 1st rounder on a project.
The new Star Wars movies
made more than 1 billion dollars and was on of the most successful trilogies ever. They were hardly a failure.
As for Dumars, two years not contending after 6 staight years of contending please. This isn’t a dream world where the Pistons make it to the East finals every year and then some. How quickly we forget the dominant run they had and that reality states there is bound to be a lul and rebuilding process once guys get older and things change.
Hard one(loss) to swallow, thats what she said.
the new star wars movies cost 5 times more to produce, yielding 66% as much revenue. even then, my point was that the new star wars trilogy was a clear and utter failure with critics and fans of the original series. take away the cult status of the original films, the new trilogy would not have had a shred of the “success” it had. hence my analogy, dude.
As for Dumars, two years not contending after 6 staight years of contending please. This isn’t a dream world where the Pistons make it to the East finals every year and then some. How quickly we forget the dominant run they had and that reality states there is bound to be a lul and rebuilding process once guys get older and things change.
I’ll repeat this for you:
So I ask you— has business been good? That’s not an easy question to answer without talking about what Joe did six years ago.
Try to explain how Joe Dumars is good for the Pistons organization without mentioning what he did six years ago. Can you justify to me the moves he’s made in the last two years without mentioning anything he did before them? I am all ears.
Aminu, here we come!!11
“Try to explain how Joe Dumars is good for the Pistons organization without mentioning what he did six years ago.”
(Sorry, I don’t know how to do the block quote thing)
I think he still brings his rep with the players to the Pistons. Despite his gambles and failings, I have a feeling the players still really like and respect him. I don’t have any empirical evidence to back this up, but I just can’t think of anyone ever saying anything bad about him. To me, Joe is like the ultimate chameleon — I wouldn’t want to go out for dinner with him, because I’m pretty sure he’d talk me into doing whatever he wanted me to do. Imagine being a player wooed by Joe D? I think his real skill is in saying what people (especially players) want to hear. He seems to be able to adapt to most situations and make the best of them, so I think he can still turn this ship around. He has earned the respect of the players and probably a lot of the GMs in the league, so that’s probably still a good thing.
by garrettelliott on Feb 23, 2010 8:07 AM CST up reply actions
And I get the dinner reference from Grant Hill saying he went out for dinner with Joe and was, “sold on Joe Dumars”, not the team or the players or the city, but Dumars himself and whatever magic he said. And I’m pretty sure I’ve heard the same thing from a few others, as well.
by garrettelliott on Feb 23, 2010 8:16 AM CST up reply actions
i think joe's rep got hurt a lil bit with the whole ai debacle
but after this year people seem to realize that was more on AI than it was on Joe D. no one wants that trash now.
Billups for AI
was where he lost all his influence. You just don’t do what he did.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
yeah i think that turned alot of players off to the pistons
at least at the time, i think that joe and curry were seen as “jerking ai around” but in light of this season i think people take his bitching about not starting with a grain of salt, he was totally washed up last year. it most definitely had a negative impact on how the pistons are viewed in the league though.
Joe turned me off to him ever doing anything for the team again.
I would argue that it was more damaging from what he did to Detroit … more so than anything he did to AI.
He traded Detroit’s leader to another team, and basically, Joe sent a message to everyone on the Pistons that you are so expendable that the best of you isn’t here anymore … and by the way, here’s a new teammate with marketability who’s your leader now. Do things completely different, and do what he says.
He jerked around his own roster so bad that it’s pretty much impossible to do what he set out to do …. ‘retool’ on the fly. If Rip had my temperament, he’d have demanded a trade at last year’s deadline.
I think because AI’s washed up, the league’s stars understand that it’s one guy vs. several, so maybe they won’t have that kind of problem if they come to Detroit. Yet, if you talk to the Pistons, is anyone going to give a glowing sales pitch, especially after the Billups trade? Again, if I’m Rip, I’m bitching about this team, since they’ve jerked me around, accomplishments and history be damned.
History be damned. Keep that in mind … Joe didn’t give a shit what Billups or Ben Wallace did for this team. It is a business, yes, but while he handled Big Ben’s departure fairly well, he absolutely lost years of face doing what he did to Chauncey.
And forget the players, for a second … I can’t, as a fan, back this guy, even if Joe was to luck another championship. I need to trust Joe. I got more trust for Dave Dombrowski right now, and the Tigers haven’t delivered, and they moved Granderson against all good reason.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
by sauce1977 on Feb 23, 2010 1:10 PM CST up reply actions 2 recs
I think if Dumars can flip things around and get some more wins, the Chauncey move will be water under the bridge, but there are very obviously two distinct camps on the Chauncey trade. Since AI sucked, and since Chauncey is leading Denver to the post season, the trade really, really stings. But if Jod can make the best of it, move some players around and get some chemistry going again, I won’t care. A GM tries to take care of their guys, but you can’t be their friends because some day you might have to make hard decisions and trade them. The Pistons did something special in the 2000’s, but changes had to be made. The starting 5 couldn’t just retired together and call it a day. Players had to go.
by garrettelliott on Feb 23, 2010 1:23 PM CST up reply actions
not suggesting friendsies make good business moves
i’m suggesting he’s been ignoring needs and making unnecessary moves and overthinking his draft picks and doing a lot of things that would get lesser-accomplished GMs fired, and I’m tired of it forever following November 4th, 2008.
Ever since Ben left, he had stopgap after stopgap @ the 5. Nazr-fail, Webber-fail, plus playing (and ruining) McDyess and Rasheed @ the 5, bringing back a washed-up Ben, it’s been years of Detroit not having a worthwhile 5, and that fateful November, his solution was to to trade the team’s leader for another goddamn fucking guard?!?
Nobody gets that kind of leeway in the business world, no matter what they’ve done. You see CEOs come with great resumes from other companies and get themselves fired after 3 months for making routine mistakes. You see formerly-great CEOs get fired for making a string of bad decisions over the course of one financial year. If I remember correctly, a lifer CEO @ Toyota stepped down after the company posted an operating loss. First one in years, and poof, he was gone. You’re right, business is what it is, and Joe’s got to motherfucking go.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
i defended Joe at large in arguments that brought up Darko
for years, for fucking years I defended the guy. Defended him from Mateen Cleaves too, and Rodney White. For years. And the thanks I get is …. Billups for Iverson?!?
Strike six.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
Great post, Sauce
The Granderson trade in my view was equally inexplicable as the Chauncey trade. Here is an extremely talented and still very young ballplayer who also happens to be one of the handful of best human beings in baseball. He made the clubhouse strong. He worked all the time in the community and really cared about Detroit and about the people living in the city. His contract was far from unreasonable. And you’re trading this guy? I hope he does great things for the Yankees.
The one thing Dombrowski has on Dumars—Dombrowski did not spit in Granderson’s face the way Dumars did in Chauncey’s. He didn’t give away Granderson’s number or give him a one-line throwaway tribute in his press conference. That counts for a lot. But the decision is still really baffling.
by Bill Higgins on Feb 23, 2010 3:51 PM CST up reply actions
Sorry, I don't think 30hr and a shitty batting average...
is what you need from your leadoff guy. Granderson’s going to be MUCH better in New York than he would’ve ever had a chance to be in Detroit— it’s the right field porch. He’ll hit 40HR/yr EASILY in the Bronx. Plus, he’ll have so much protection around him that he’s going to see many many more pitches to hit. On top of that, we got a handful of stud prospects in the deal, so I see nothing to bitch about.
Now signing Damon? Jesus Christ, like we needed another overpaid 35 year old in our outfield.
by The Joel on Feb 23, 2010 4:02 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
shit don't make much sense
but Ilitch is behind the tomfoolery, that’s confirmed all around the land. Dombrowski’s gotta clear it with him. First paycuts, now a reversal of hasty action.
Joe’s still doesn’t make sense, and it makes less sense every month.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
for the record
problems hitting lefties makes for problems leading off. granderson might actually be good 7th in a lineup that has a leadoff guy.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
I like MP’s business argument. Over the long-term in the NBA, revenue follows winning (with short-term exceptions like revenue bursts from a guy like AI). When we were winning, the D was struggling, but the Palace was still (nearly) full every night. Now, we’re losing, and they’re practically giving tickets away.
If I’m a perspective owner, I’m taking a long, hard look at that.
Joe Dumars
He had that team two years ago, the team he put together. They got old and in hindsight moving Billups wasent the answer although if they would have kept him it wouldn’t have won them a title. The team was just getting too old. He has made mistakes and building a contender this time around doesn’t look as easy as the first time around.
All I’m saying is Dumars built and kept a championship contending team for 6 years straight. Yes the signings of Gordon and CV are questionable and other moves but what other teams consistantly contend for that long? The Spurs, Lakers and thats about it.
Dumars put togethe 7 staight 50plus winning seasons, 2 finals, one title and now after 1.6 bad seasons your ready to write him off, please!
Hard one(loss) to swallow, thats what she said.
Suns were so awesome
as well, or so ESPN and fans kept telling us.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
hmm
How does 7 straight 2 finals and a championship entitle Dumars to royally fuck the shit out of Detroit’s now and future?
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
Most of the $ made off the first 3 Star Wars movies
Came from sales of the reproduction of the movie in multiple forms. VHS, DVD, DVDredone… Not to mention the merchandise that has pilled up over the past 20 years.
The last 3 Star Wars movies made smashed box office records and many people liked them so I didn’t think it was a good analogy Dude! The acting in the original series was considered bad too. With a bunch of no name actors. Other than H.Ford what have any of them done? Do you really think Mark Hamill is that much a better actor than Hayden Christensen? They are both pretty bad.
Hard one(loss) to swallow, thats what she said.
defending joe d is admirable, defending such putrid shit like Attack of the Clones is madness though.
by dandresden on Feb 23, 2010 10:37 AM CST up reply actions 3 recs
I didn't like the analogy but
Attack of the Clones wasent good. The last two werent bad and the box office success of those movies is staggering. Not to mention the DVD sales to date.
Binks had to be the worst character ever. I can admit that. A Jamaican alien?
If Joe D was let go there would be teams waiting in line to sign him as their GM. Hindsight is a bitch though. At the time it looked good signing CV for 8 million per after the #‘s and promise he showed last year, not to mention he is only 24-25. Now he is oft injured on/off BS and lack of effort is noticable. It is easy to say he shouldn’t have done it now, but at the time it looked like a good move. You gotta take chances in signing some players and as I said at the time it seemed like a good fit.
Hard one(loss) to swallow, thats what she said.
what are you talking about
revenge of the sith was beyond horrible, outdid the others on the failmeter.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
I liked the last movie. If the first 2 movies were that bad the 3rd one wouldn't have smashed box office records.
Who cares. The box office succes shows that they werent complete failures.
Neither is Joe D and his teams consistant run cannot be ignored. I won’t forget the 6-7 year run just because the last season and a half have been bad! Joe D’s teams have had many more highs than lows.
What if the Pistons find their way to the 3 or 4 seed next year? You will be sayin Joe D turned it around and judging from his past we shouldn’t have doubted him.
Hindsight heroes with no faith is what I see.
Hard one(loss) to swallow, thats what she said.
I comprehend that you think he should be let go.
Right we on the same page? I never said you thought he was a total failure. I just cant stand to listen to fans bash Joe D with such short term memories.
The newer Star Wars were pretty much called complete failures. That is what I was responding to. I just threw in Joe D after because that is what he is being compared to(Lucas 2nd 3 SW movies).
Hard one(loss) to swallow, thats what she said.
"reading comprehension"
Some are saying that the comparison of the two are correct. Then pretty much state that the 3 movies are a complete failure. So maybe no one said it exacly.
People take things different ways, but my reading comprehension is just fine! Dick.
Hard one(loss) to swallow, thats what she said.
no, a dick
comes on here and acts like they didn’t say what they did.
fuck yourself, that should be explanatory, jackass.
Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.
i wrote a paragraph about why i hated it
but then decided it wasnt worth talking about.
by the way, did anyone see lucas on the daily show? he was saying that jarjar is a beloved character. kinda reminds me of joe talking about rebuilding on the fly, or that ai will be a great addition, or walter sharpe is terrific player.
by dandresden on Feb 23, 2010 1:44 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
Out of 30 teams
only 4 or so are considered serious contenders. To be in that group for 6-7 years was great but it is unrealistic and errogant really to think it will always be that way.
Hard one(loss) to swallow, thats what she said.
"arrogant" dammit
Dice me up for the spelling mistake I deserve it.
I’m just not ready to give up on Joe D yet.
Hard one(loss) to swallow, thats what she said.
by VikesPma on Feb 23, 2010 4:56 AM CST reply actions 1 recs
You just invented a new word, VPMA
Erroneous + Arrogant = Errogant.
Basically how Dumars has been conducting business since he hit the nuke button on Billups.
I will forgive Dumars’ Errogance, however. I think he has what it takes to rebuild a solid, new era Detroit Pistons team.
"I didn’t even know Elvis was from Memphis, I thought he was from Tennessee." — Drew Gooden.
by Skylar on Feb 23, 2010 8:30 AM CST up reply actions 1 recs
MP: I find your lack of faith
disturbing.
by Toledo Joe on Feb 23, 2010 7:41 AM CST reply actions 1 recs
Why'd ya do it JoD?
I think JoD has learned the hard way that if your plan is to turn your best player in to cap space, you need to think of a new plan. After the trade there were three major ways (that I can think of) that the trade could be a win for Detroit.
1. Iverson flourishes and gives the Pistons the kind of firepower needed to keep up with Boston and Cleveland.
2. Stuckey takes over as team leader and replaces Billups’ production at a lower price.
3. The cap space from Iverson’s expiring contract is used to rebuild the team on the fly.
Naturally option 3 was never endorsed by the organization after the trade because they didn’t want to tell the fans that the season was a wash and they should tune in next year. It quickly became apparent that Iverson was a poor fit/washed up and that Stuckey was not ready to be a franchise PG. So as far as remaining competitive or even improving in the short term the trade was a failure.
JoD had a chance to salvage the situation by using the cap space to bring in a player(s) that could keep the team competitive. I was among several who thought he should try to save the money for the 2010 FA market that was going to be much stronger than the 2009 market. Instead, JoD spent it on Gordon and CV. They’re not bad players but even combined they are not worth as much to the team as Billups was IMO. CV can’t get off the bench because of his poor defense and shot selection and Gordon so far has proven to be a good backup. Throw in the extension of Rip Hamilton right before the trade and you have two guys who play the same position making +10 mil a year. So he turned the best player on the team into a redundant player and a guy who can’t be trusted for more than spot duty. Ouch.
Though this isn’t really related to the failures of the team, I do want to make a point about how douchey the Billups trade was handled. JoD extended Rip to make sure he wouldn’t bolt as a FA and then traded Rip’s best friend before the ink had even dried on the new contract. It may have been a shrewd move in the team’s best interest but that was a shitty thing to do to Rip. He signed that extension under the impression that he and Chauncey would retire as Pistons. Then came the Iverson press conference where he showed off his new jersey with Chauncey’s old number on it. I get that #3 wasn’t available but couldn’t they have gone with something other than #1? It just seemed like a slap in the face to someone who had led the team to a championship and made Detroit his second home.
I'm just like a sports reporter, but without the insight or money.
Co-sign on the sh*tty move to Rip, as well as the rest of your post. I have to be honest, though, I was pretty wishy-washy when the trade happened. At first, I was in your camp … what are you doing, Joe? Trading your best player for cap space? Then, after a few weeks, I fell into the #1 trap — maybe AI could be a scoring punch of the bench! — in concert with #2 — maybe Stuckey is more ready than we fans can see?
But by the time the dust settled, it was an awful move.
Not so sure it was a shrewd business decision to extend Rip or not, though … Rip would have fetched a nice price as an expiring contract, IME.
At this point
I do not know what a good GM does and a bad one does. All I have ever paid attention to is Joe Dumars. So I am willing to be patient until something good will happen. After all, I even rooted for the Lions while I was back home in Japan, and I am still waiting for them to get better.
Disagree
First of all, I love the Prequel Trilogy.
Second, I think you’re being unfair here. It is IMPOSSIBLE to judge the recent moves when everyone has been hurt.
Villanueva hasn’t played well, but Gordon, Hamilton, and Prince (Bynum, too) have missed significant time due to injuries. They will never be a championship-caliber team without a dominant big man, but healthy I certainly think they would be much better than they are now.
As for the draft, you say that Dumars mismanaged the draft, but you also said he could afford to stand pat for many years (which he did). In his first draft post-Billups/Rasheed, he added Jerebko (who starts and played in the rook/soph game), and Austin Daye, who is still young and has shown promise.
As for Darko (who I know you didn’t mention in the blog but did in comments), drafting anyone else at the time would have not made sense. Anthony, Wade, or Bosh could have messed up the team chemistry that was so vital to their championship. Only now, when things are bad, do people wish we had one of those guys.
The Pistons can still make the playoffs this year. Chances are, they will not, and they will end up with a lottery pick for the first time since Darko. Now, however, Dumars knows he can’t afford, as he could then, to take a risk on a project player, and will surely draft a starting big man.
Prince has an expiring contract next year, which means this coming offseason he could be traded, perhaps in a deal with other guys/future picks, for another starting big man. With a lottery big man and one at the value of a Prince deal, plus a healthy Rip and Gordon, with developing Stuckey, Jerebko, and Daye, isn’t a bad roster for next year.
If you ask me, a better comparison than Star Wars is the Pistons when Dumars first took over, and you know as well as I do how that turned out.
by ItalianStallion on Feb 24, 2010 10:41 AM CST reply actions
...
“First of all, I love the Prequel Trilogy.”
I couldn’t read past this! Sorry man
by Bill Higgins on Feb 24, 2010 10:50 AM CST up reply actions 1 recs
haha its alright I know I’m the only person alive who liked them
by ItalianStallion on Feb 24, 2010 2:20 PM CST up reply actions
I fail to see how any team that adds Wade, Melo, or Bosh is worse off. Winning breeds chemistry. Those guys are all winners. It would have worked itself out just fine.
Getting Wade
Would have made a diiference just not having to play Miami, let alone having him on the team.
Hard one(loss) to swallow, thats what she said.
Hindsight though
Nobody was saying we should take Wade in that draft.
Hard one(loss) to swallow, thats what she said.
The newschool Star Wars movies were horrible
I love Star Wars, but I haven’t even seen the last one that dropped- I knew it would be such bullshit. Lucas needs to watch Scarface more.
Lesson Two: Don’t get high on your own supply
"I didn’t even know Elvis was from Memphis, I thought he was from Tennessee." — Drew Gooden.
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