Blame Joe Dumars

Help?

I’m bored of Tayshaun. I think that pretty much sums up how I feel. He’s not terrible, he’s not awesome. But he doesn’t fit any more and I’m just bored of watching his style of play.

I don’t think he’s carried himself well through the rough times any better than Rip or anyone else in the organization. In fact, I think he’s had the worst attitude through it all. I hate his game and have since LeBron had his way with him in the conference finals. I think the past couple seasons have shown that he is slowing our team down. He is constantly chased off the 3-point line and the ball stops when it gets to him. Really, Kriz? Didn’t you coin the term Isolayshaun? You don’t hear players saying good things about him anymore and I really think that says something itself. Most of all I hate that contract.

As far as pure luck goes, The biggest name player Joe Dumars went after was Sheed (who was notoriously a bad influence) until he went after Allen Iverson….

He’s picked 7 good players out of 24 in drafts, going back to Tayshaun, and I’m being very generous there. Four of those 7 are starting for other teams right now. He acts like he’s allergic to young talent.

He was never able to find a suitable back up for Tayshaun in the lineup.

He let Larry Brown get away and picked up Flip Saunders (personally I don’t think he’s a great coach and I’ll point to the Wizards on that one and riding Garnetts dominance.) Then Dumars proceeded to select two of the most inept coaches I have ever seen in my life. Things got so bad we cheered to get Lawrence Frank who was coming off a 17 game losing streak.

I don’t know where to begin on free agent signings…

Sorry if I’m making your blood boil.

he refused to get something for ageing vets (Rip and Prince) when it was clear he was in a rebuilding situation and even gave one of them a long term contract (Prince). And when he had cap space, he gave huge contracts to a complemetary player and a terrible one. Although I believe the Pistons have some very promising young pieces (Monroe, Knight, etc), they have arguably the worst cap situation in the league and unless something drastic happens, the Pistons are in for a long rebuilding process. But the thing that stands out to me is that a lot of this could have been avoided just by being smart this last offseason. Prince should not have gotten that extension, Villanueva should have been amnestied. Then the only truely terrible contract would be Gordon’s (Stuckey’s isnt that terrible and is only 3yrs) and it would have opened playing time for young players which is vital in a rebuilding situation. Sorry to come here and pile onto your situation, but Dumars sucks…

But his “Buffoonery” comment to the press last year certainly tipped me in that direction.

I’d probably feel a lot better about him if he were no longer a Piston.

As a role player, he’s great. As a leader, notsomuch.

Also when he, BG and CV dont play i completely forget they are even on the team, i think that speaks volumes about their play

Maybe it’s the Miami game talking, but I’m kind of satisfied with where the Pistons are currently located. Joe D hasn’t made amazing moves, but I don’t think he’s made bad ones since Gores came on board:

1. Drafting Knight – I would have loved for him to do some crazy magic like Charlotte did, but he really could have done much worse. We took the best player available, and yeah, we could have traded down, but for who? We really want to trade our starter to see if we could have turned someone else’s bench fodder into gold? Come on. Brandon Knight didn’t suck, the draft itself sucked. We should have tanked harder and got a higher position. Looks like this is a lesson we learned and are imploying currently

2. Rip – We had to get rid of him. We should have done it sooner, but that was before Gores. Now that he is gone, he leaves a 6-8 million dollar cap hit as a parting gift that is in effect for the next two season. With that on our books, we have a lot of trouble getting under the salary cap. If cap flexibility is our goal, we would have needed to sign vet min deals for players who are shittier than Rodney and Tayshaun. This sets up a situation where our young players don’t grow, leave early, and Pistons fans get stuck on the treadmill.

3. Signing Stuck and Tay – Both players had plenty of time to work the market, both players probably got deals equal or slightly more than they would have received on the market which means both players are probably going to be tradeable provided they are healthy.

Tay, while he has been injured, he kind of has a camp counselor effect on the kids, his knowledge and experience would be good on the practice floor, and I would much rather have him in the locker room than some other teams garbage (e.g. Be-easy Mike Beasley).

Stuck, while he may add very little to the team morale, certainly can bring it on the court when he’s not having a mood swing. While he may eventually depart to greener pastures (the same year as CV and BG if not sooner), he is definitely raising the level of play on the court for the team.

These two guys are average players, we could have gotten below average players, we could have paid more for average players, but we got players. We didn’t get a big man, and that is fucking stupid, but we got an Average NBA SF and PG/SG, so that’s good.

4. “Rebuilding” – Joe said it for the first time that I can remember in the 97.1 interview. He said it over and over, in almost every sentence, like a dude who just got some referring to his stinky fingers. This is significant, because if we are rebuilding, we should be losing as many games as possible, so who gives a shit that our rosters imbalanced. We need to get more lottery balls, so it doesn’t really matter if we don’t amnesty someone this season. We need to get some unibrow, and we aren’t signing any quality free agents in the meantime, so who gives a shit if our salary isn’t under the cap.

If we really are “Rebuilding” I read it as we are tanking this season and getting more serious next year, while developing the youth as much as possible. Looks like all of these things have been happening so far, and so for now, I’m cool with how things are working on the front office. Tay and Stuckey fill out the roster, and will probably gone by the end of next season after we make a nice little playoff run with our rookie of the year candidate Unibrow Drummond-Gilchrist, then the real crucial decisions happen. What Joe D does with the nearly 30 million dollars currently coming off 2014 is what I’m worried, frightened, and nervous about, followed by whether he saves enough of it for all these lottery draft extensions. In the mean time, Tank Away!

..and am committed to the position that said “assets” will be dealt at some point, in Tay’s case, this year. Tay was probably headed to LAC until they signed Butler.

Let’s revisit this after the trade deadline.

Also…does anyone seriously believe CV’s ankles ail him?

which I don’t mean to knock Russel at all, but at this point of his career the main aspect of his job has probably been teaching young upstarts the ropes of the game for a lot longer than many “veteran” players that have spent their careers at the top.

Idk, if Russel is actually a good teacher or not, but I think it’s more likely that he’s a better teacher.

Extend that man!