A. Sherrod Blakely argues today that Saunders’ job is hardly secure:
The future of Detroit Pistons coach Flip Saunders is still up in the air.
However, multiple league sources said Monday he still is likely to be fired, and a decision should be made within days.
Joe Dumars, Detroit’s president of basketball operations, and team owner Bill Davidson are expected to meet within the next day or so to discuss, among other things, whether the team will retain Saunders, who has one year left on a four-year, $20 million deal he signed in 2005.
Blakely cites a couple of instances in which players publicly questioned Saunders’ decisions during games, as well as their apparent penchant for giving credit to Michael Curry:
It does not help Saunders that the Pistons already have two potential replacements on staff in assistant coaches Michael Curry and Terry Porter.
In the playoffs, it was not uncommon for Pistons players, when interviewed after a win, to mention something ‘Coach Curry’ said to them that helped the team play better.
Honestly, the only specific instance I recall that happening was during Lindsey Hunter’s interview with Stephen A. Smith, but Blakely could have easily been referring to things overheard in the locker room that didn’t make their way into an actual story.
My biggest knock on Curry is his lack of experience, but I also don’t know Curry like Dumars does. They were teammates back in the day, and even though Curry was largely a scrub by any definition of the word, he was also a natural-born leader, serving as team captain for several years for the Pistons and Bucks as well as president of the NBA Players Association followed by a stint as the NBA’s Vice President of Player Development. Writing him off simply because he hasn’t paid his dues on the sideline may be short-sighted.
In the end, only time will tell what happens. I see plenty of reasons to keep Flip (namely, he’s a good coach), but my gut has always been that he’s gone. If my gut ends up being wrong, so be it; you won’t see me trying to convince anyone they simply didn’t read it right.
Update: Krista Jahnke of the Free Press weighs in with the most definitive take on the situation:
A person with knowledge of the situation said president Joe Dumars has not sat down with Saunders yet to discuss the past season, which ended last week to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals.
Nor has Dumars met with owner Bill Davidson, who will undoubtedly have his say in Saunders’ future.
The person said a meeting between Dumars and Davidson will take place “really soon,” and after that, questions about Saunders’ future should be cleared up. The person stressed that Saunders has not yet been given any assurance he’ll be back.
(Jahnke’s article wasn’t published online when this post first went up, but thanks to V for pointing it out in the comments when it did.)
Interestingly enough, Jahnke repeats the (false? unverified?) “Curry wasn’t allowed to interview with Chicago last month” speculation as fact without acknowledging Curry’s quotes from Saturday (in a Free Press article, no less, though not one written by Jahnke), which suggested he’s on the verge of officially interviewing with the Bulls now that the season is finally over.
one thing: PLEASE DON´T HIRE AVERY JOHNSON!!
he might be passionate, he´ll light a fire under the players arses, BUT his offense is so terrible, it´s ridiculous.
his one and only offensive set is isolation - and we don´t have a dirk nowitzki on our roster … hell, we don´t even have a josh howard.
the only player, who has shown, that he can regularly attack the basket and create his own shot was stuckey..
On the issue of getting player’s respect: our guys didn’t respect Carslisle. They apparently don’t really respect Flip. So what does it take for a coach to get the player’s respect? They respected Larry Brown for his 12,000 wins - so in 200 wins for Flip, will he finally be considered a good coach? I just don’t get it. Flip definitely has his deficiencies, but what coach out there doesn’t? He’s really worked to address all of his criticisms - motivation, playing the young guys, getting to the basket, etc. However, his clothes are one area that no one can defend…
All that said, if you lose the locker room, you generally get fired.
Guess the link didn’t work…here’s what it’s supposed to be:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/photo?slug=f73955b6676a7305a425d23f4b5d9428-getty-80391837ae047pistons_celtics&prov=getty
the pistons had a great year. sheed is sheed. flip is flip. they have flaws but all together they won 59 games and played an exciting series with the celtics that could have gone the other way. if the deal is there , make it but otherwise… the doom and gloom is crazy.
the media hates the pistons.
stuckey is impressive.
flip needs to be more of an asshole.
This just in Flip is out.
I wonder whether Flip’s status depends in part on whether Joe intends to move certain players. To take a piece of conventional wisdom, suppose Flip and ‘Sheed have troubles co-existing (note: I don’t know if that’s actually true or not). Maybe then, Joe would be more likely to keep Flip if Joe thinks he’s going to deal ‘Sheed. Conversely, if Joe thinks it’s more likely he’ll keep ‘Sheed, then maybe he’s more inclined to ditch Flip.
Look, it’s always easier to fire the coach than re-arrange the team. Still, count me as another fan who was pretty skeptical of Flip coming into this year, but now thinks Flip did a decent job and that the loss in the ECF wasn’t his fault.
Bless Jahnke. She writes some of the best Pistons material.
Yeah, Jahnke’s doin’ alright
Curry was a union rep, right? President? I can’t remember, but he wasn’t just a dopey player. Curry and Hunter are similar in knowing what to do. Worst thing that could happen is Curry being out of a job in 2-3 years. Not too much of a risk for anyone but Curry.
holy crap. pistons.com main page “SAUNDERS NOT TO RETURN”
Matt, thanks for the cred. I have this advantage of my bedtime coinciding with your rising time lol. When I’m on the west coast, the last thing I usually do is read the Detroit papers online, the News is up around 1a (PT), the Freep has been better about this lately, but until recently it would be as late as 5:30a (PT), but now it’s usually up by 2a most nights.
Now if someone would show me how to use the HTML tags…
Stop blaming Rasheed Wallace for the Pistons mishaps. Trade him? Are you crazy? That would be the dumbest move ever by Joe D. You don’t trade a guy who got you a ring. Ben Wallace is gone and the Pistons have never recovered. Yeah the offensive took off. But, the defense sucked, especially in the paint area (Ben’s Domain). Keep the core-four and get a center from the Euro-league without having to give up anybody on the squad. If we lose Sheed, we lose period.