FanPost

Dumars ranked 24th GM out of 30 by SBNation

[Ed. note - Didn't see this before putting up a FanShot. Deleted mine and front paged this. Thanks, brgulker - Packey]

Full story here.


Joe Dumars, Pistons

Hired: 2000

Coaches: George Irvine (2000-2001), Rick Carlisle (2001-2003), Larry Brown (2003-2005), Flip Saunders (2005-2008), Michael Curry (2008-2009), John Kuester (2009-present)

Long-term plan: Rebuild while staying competitive. In other words, an oxymoron, unless you have a superstar, which he doesn't.

Key Draft picks: Darko Milicic (2nd, 2003), Greg Monroe (7th, 2010), Rodney White (9th, 2001), Rodney Stuckey (15th, 2007), Tayshaun Prince (23rd, 2002), Jonas Jerebko (39th, 2009)

Key trades

Key free agent signings: Re-signing Billups (2007), Wallace (2005) and Prince (2007). Rip Hamilton in 2008 (three years, $38 million beginning in 2009/10), Ben Gordon in (five years,$55 million), Charlie Villanueva in 2009 (five years, $35 million).

Key free agents let go: Grant Hill (2000), Ben Wallace (2006).

It pains me to put Joe Dumars, the architect of the Pistons teams of the 2000s, this low. However, Dumars has been a disaster since the Chauncey Billups/Allen Iverson trade. Dumars made the deal to regain salary-cap flexibility to rebuild a team that has run it's course, but ended up spending that money on Ben Gordon, Charlie Villanueva and a re-signed, declining Rip Hamilton. He's refused to deal any of his other big-contract players like Tayshaun Prince because he legitimately thinks his team can and should be "competitive" when rebuilding.

That's the problem, though -- you can be "competitive" without major salary obligations to declining players. Dumars, like many of the GMs behind him on this list, fundamentally misunderstands this. I'm not sure why Dumars refuses to take the long-term approach. Sure, their arena is empty, but it seems they have a core of dieharts that are willing to wait around for a long-term rebuilding project. It's not like Dumars is in a city like Charlotte, where the team desperately needs the revenue from home playoff games.

Therefore, the only explanation for Dumars' recent issues is that he must believe that, because he built a "star-less" core earlier, he can do it again. Newsflash Joe: you probably can't. Lightning doesn't strike in the same spot twice.

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