The man Pistons fans affectionately call Joe D. is still known by his childhood nickname back home in Natchitoches, LA. Are you ready for this? “Boobie” Dumars. No, seriously. (Hat-tip: Need4Sheed)
Tag Archive for 'Joe Dumars'
Real life is keeping me away from the computer, but the internet doesn’t stop! A few topics worthy of discussion:
- All this Tim Donaghy stuff. I don’t really know what to think anymore. For the most part, I have a hard time believing there’s been some kind of league-wide conspiracy — Mark Heisler of the LA Times agrees (via Nate Jones) — but the evidence does seem to be mounting.
- Then again, bad calls have existed for a long time.
- It’s important for a head coach to be flexible — games are won and lost on in-game adjustments — but Michael Curry is taking this literally. From Coach’s Network:
A few years ago he would visit Michigan State and play pick up ball with some of the MSU players in the off-season. A few things I noticed about the professional player before, during and after the games with the young, eager Spartans.
1-He would stretch before the games. I don’t mean your typical touch your toes type stuff. I mean this guy really stretched! All parts of his body - he was focused on stretching! You’re probably saying what does stretching have to do with anything? I will tell you - when you stretch, it shows you care about your body and most of all your preparation. I see players who just walk into the gym and want to start playing. Stretching is preparation, a vital trait for the coaching business
There’s some other good tidbits in that — read the whole thing. (hat-tip: Henry Abbott)
- Dan Reed, president of the D-League, reflects on Curry’s contributions from his time as VP of the NBDL. (hat-tip: Matt Moore)
Last but certainly not least, Keith Langlois has another monster Q&A with Joe Dumars at Pistons.com. If I had more time I’d devote an entire post to this, so do yourself a favor and read the whole thing. Selected highlights:
Langlois: Veteran coaches, and I think we can cite a few recent examples, are usually leery about playing young guys. But even going back to Rick Carlisle, a first-time coach, he only went to Tayshaun Prince when it was kind of a desperate situation and it paid off. Do you expect Michael to be more or less leery about playing young guys?
Dumars: Coaching is a lot about personality. It’s your personality as a coach. Just as to sit in the seat that I sit in is a lot of my personality. Either you have the propensity to take risks and do the unconventional, or you don’t and you’re going to go the conservative standard way that everybody else does things. I like to think I came in and never worried aobut how everybody else was doing things. I was going to do things the way I saw it. You can expect the same thing from Michael.
Langlois: What do you think the odds are that Amir is a permanent part of the rotation next year?
Dumars: I think there’s a good chance you’re going to see him as part of that. We’ve always been high on him. We didn’t just become high on him. He’s a guy we have a lot of confidence in as a young player, just as we have confidence in Afflalo and Stuckey, we have the same kind of confidence in Amir Johnson.
Langlois: Is the plan for Cheikh Samb more of the same – some D-League time and back here as well?
Dumars: I think you’ll see a lot of the same stuff with Cheikh Samb next year – some D-League, some here, kind of back and forth. We want him to get some game-time experience and where he’s going to get that the most from is the D-League. But we also want him competing here at this level against these guys, too, because that’s going to help him get better. So just to keep him here year-round, only practicing, doesn’t make the most of him. And just to send him to the D-League and not having to go up against our guys is probably not best for him, so we’re going to give him a mixture of both, for sure.
Langlois: The Nazr Mohammed trade put the mid-level exception in play for you. You can use it without exceeding the tax threshold. What are you looking at with that – do you think you’ll use it on one player or split it over more than one? Any ideas?
Dumars: That’s once you find out what your roster is like. But the fact we have the ability to use the entire mid-level is a great chip for us going into this free agency. If we had gone into this summer without the ability to use the full mid-level, like we want to, that just limits what you can do. I like the fact we’re in position – doesn’t mean we’ll use it – but the fact we can is a huge chip for me when I’m sitting here putting a team together.
Dumars also said that Rodney Stuckey, Arron Afflalo, Amir and Samb are all playing in the Vegas Summer League.
There are a half dozen more questions I’d like to post, too. Dumars is always an interesting guy, but I think Langlois consistently does a good job asking the right questions. Kudos to both.
Joe Dumars as Hillary Clinton (courtesy Deadspin and Skeets)
In his press conference today, Joe Dumars said that the three guys on his list right now are Michael Curry, Terry Porter (assuming he doesn’t get the Phoenix job) and Avery Johnson. Stephen A. Smith swears that Curry will get the job, but when talking with Stoney and Wojo, Dumars scoffed at the notion that a decision was already made and seemed downright annoyed that someone was saying otherwise. Other people have suggested Jeff Van Gundy, which, if you can look past his agitating Pistons fans as an announcer, actually makes a bit of sense.
But here’s a name I’m surprised no one has mentioned: what about Tom Izzo?
You want intensity? Check. Someone who can coach defense? Check. Authority over a locker room? Considering the size of the contract it’d take to pry him away from Michigan State, you better believe players will know who holds the upper-hand.
Hell, he’s one of the few coaches who could walk into this job and automatically be more popular than most of his players (and mind you, this is coming from a University of Michigan alum who loathes giving the folks from East Lansing any more credit than they’re due).
I know, I know; he’s just a college coach, and we all know how those turn out. But given his multiple Final Four appearances and proven track record of excellence, you have to give him the benefit of the doubt against a guy like Curry who has but a single year of coaching at any level under his belt.
I can think of all sorts of reasons why this won’t happen — namely, Izzo has a good thing going at MSU and is in no hurry to leave — but I also can’t think of another move, whether it’s a coaching change or big-ticket trade, that would invigorate the fan base like his arrival. He wouldn’t be cheap, but the new season ticket orders might cover his salary his very first week on the job. Honestly, there’s no reason I can think of for this not to happen.
What do you think?
After the press conference, Joe Dumars spoke with Stoney and Wojo on 1130 WDFN (mp3) (via Need4Sheed).
Dumars said the “coaching search” won’t take very long (will he even interview anyone but Michael Curry?), but before we start talking about the new guy, I just wanted to recognize the old one. Flip Saunders had his faults, sure, but don’t forget that once upon a time he was considered the answer to Detroit’s problems.
Yeah, the defense was great in the good ol’ days, but all too often the Pistons would go eight, nine, 10 straight minutes without a field goal. The offense was a disaster. I can’t remember when the word “complacency” became the word of choice to describe this team, but it’s not like the Pistons didn’t always suffer through long periods of play where fans would tear their hair out wondering why they couldn’t just score.
Before Flip, Ben Wallace was the team’s long All-Star. Under Flip, Rip Hamilton and Chauncey Billups have gone to their first three All-Star games, with Rasheed Wallace going for the third and fourth time. It’s easy to dog Flip’s performance in the playoffs, but he guided the Pistons to a franchise-best 64 wins in 2006, a third-best 59 wins this year and a top 10 53 wins in 2007.
Of the teams the Pistons have lost to in the Conference Finals, one (Miami in 2006) ended up winning the whole thing, another (Cleveland in 2007) came on the heels of one of the most transcendent performances in NBA playoff history, and the other (Celtics this year, duh) came against a team that was near universally regarded as the league’s best for most of the season.
I’m not trying to gloss over his failings, but the guy did his job about as well as anyone could have possibly expected. Dumars’ decree that “there are no sacred cows” is proof that he holds the players just as responsible as the coach. This was a change that needed to be made for reasons of timing (namely, Flip entering the final year of his contract) as much as anything else.
I don’t doubt for a second that Dumars will ask his next coach to do certain things differently (Free Amir!), but I also don’t doubt that Saunders will easily find another job and continuing winning a boatload of games. I just wanted to get that out there before we forget and/or bury the guy.
Highlights from today’s presser from Keith Langlois’ blog:
* Dumars saying significant change was his desire and that “everybody’s in play. There are no sacred cows here.”
* Dumars saying the last 10 minutes of Game 6, when the Pistons squandered a 10-point lead and lost going away, was “a microcosm of the last three years.”
* Dumars saying that as he walked out of The Palace after that game, he felt a “sense of calm. I’ve seen enough.”
* Dumars saying “this team became way too content and did not show up with a sense of urgency to get it done.”
Honestly, this is exactly what fans should want to hear. Stay tuned.
Update: Also, I should note, Michael Curry was not named the coach, but it shouldn’t take long for us to find out if he really is the leading contender. From the AP:
“This will not be a long, drawn-out process,” Dumars said about a replacement for Saunders. “The next coach is going to be handed a good team. You worry more when you don’t have the players to compete at the level you need them to.”
And my favorite quote:
“The idea you can make yourself bad and make yourself good again, that’s a farce,” he said. “I have no interest in completely ripping the team down. Will I look to making significant changes? Yeah, you’re damn right I will.”
From the Detroit Free Press:
In a statement released this morning, president of basketball operations Joe Dumars said: “Decisions like this are difficult to make, especially with the success we have had throughout the last three regular-seasons. However, at this time, I feel it is necessary to make a change. I thank Flip for his hard work and dedication, but it is time for a new voice to lead our team.”
Update: I’m hearing there’s a press conference will be at 2 pm.
2nd Update: A. Sherrod Blakely says Michael Curry will be announced sometime this week.
3rd Update: Keith Langlois is saying Michael Curry, too.
No word yet on a successor to Saunders, though it would be at least a mild surprise if it wasn’t going to be Michael Curry. A former teammate of Dumars in the ’90s, Curry was brought back to Detroit as a free agent at the urging of Dumars in his one-year transition period from player to president when Rick Sund was general manager. Dumars brought Curry back to the team last summer as an assistant coach after Curry had spent two years working for the league office.
Though it would normally seem risky to hire a first-time head coach – especially one with just one year as an assistant under his belt – as the leader of a title-contending team, Curry would assume the job under difference circumstances. Not only is he deeply respected by the current players – Curry, as an NBA role player, rose to president of Players Association – but Curry is eminently steeped in Pistons culture.
4th Update: Chris McCosky is pinning this on Bill Davidson: “Apparently, Pistons owner Bill Davidson has seen enough of the Flip Saunders era.”
I find it extremely hard to believe Joe Dumars didn’t agree with the move. Suggesting otherwise just seems defensive.
Update V: I just called and received confirmation that Rasheed Wallace is still scheduled to appear at SNYX tonight. The idea of actually attending that just got a lot more interesting.
As I’m sure many of you have already seen, Joe Dumars sat down with Keith Langlois for a rather lengthy Q&A for Pistons.com on Wednesday morning. Every time he does this I want to quote the entire article on DBB, but instead I’m just going to pick a handful of highlights and urge you to read the entire thing.
Langlois: At this point last season, you were going into the conference finals with an 8-2 playoff record. This year, pretty similar – you’re 8-3. Yet I get the sense that you feel better about where you’re sitting this year than you did a year ago. Is that so?
Dumars: No question. No question. I feel better about it. The difference in that record, the 8-2 and 8-3, the first game we lost in the playoffs, against Philly, was probably more beneficial to us than what happened last year. It got our attention. We had every guy’s attention the next day at practice. Guys knew. We cannot go back down this road, inconsistency and a lackadaisical approach. It made it easy to hammer home that point to guys from that point on. So I feel better – you’re absolutely right. I feel better about where we are right now heading into the conference finals than I felt last year.
Also worth mentioning: the Pistons entered the ECF last year having just lost two of three. Now, the Pistons have won six of their past seven. In other words, yeah, the Pistons have one more loss than a year ago, but they also have momentum.
Langlois: My next question was going to be was last night especially satisfying when you see Stuckey come in and not just hold down the fort, but to make plays in the fourth quarter and to have the ball in his hands for 30 minutes under pressure situations and not turn the ball over once, to take it at Dwight Howard the way he did.
Dumars: The answer to your question is yes. And that’s why you stand strong and do not waver in January and February when the kid might have some rough patches and you hear, “Well, maybe you should pull back.” No, no, no. No. Let him get through this, because there’s a bigger purpose. And the bigger purpose is a closeout game where he has to start. If you don’t stay with that kid through the season, through his ups and downs, if you panic, if you become impatient, if you go away from him, kill his confidence, he will never play like that in Game 5. That’s why, in the middle of January, you have to make those tough decisions and stay with him and assure everybody that this is going to work out. By the way, I’ve got to say this, too. You make that decision, I create a mandate that young guys are going to play, we still wound up with the second-best record in the league. We won 59 games – more than anybody in the West, more than everybody but one team in the entire NBA. It’s not like we suffered in the regular season for it. Sometimes that gets lost. How many more games do you think we’re supposed to win?
After reading that, my first thought was, “well, that’s nice, but why hasn’t the same strategy been used with other players (*cough* Amir *cough*)? But later in the interview, Dumars explained what sets Stuckey apart from most young players:
Dumars: In my eight years here, I’ve never seen a young player, a rookie, have the composure he has from the first day he got here. He didn’t just develop this composure over the course of the season. The first day he walked in here, he had that composure and air of confidence about him that lets you know he wasn’t in awe and he was never going to shrink when the moment came. It’s not like you saw it unfold over the season. Day one. He’s possessed that. I was telling my wife last night, he has that certain thing that lets you know when the big games come, he’ll be there. He’s going to be there. I don’t know how to describe it, or what “it” is, but he has that certain “it.” You never see him nervous. He may make a rookie mistake. But it’s not that he’s afraid or nervous, it’s that he’s unfamiliar with how to handle certain things. From day one, he’s had that.
Last but not least, Dumars thinks Tayshaun Prince’s block on Hedo Turkoglu was more impressive than his storied block on Reggie Miller:
Dumars: This was impressive. Miller never saw it coming. This was a mano-a-mano play. Hedo turned the corner and decided “I’m throwing it down. I’m not going to try to lay it up. I’m not going to try to float it.” And that’s a mano-a-mano thing you say to yourself on the court. And Tayshaun said, “I’ll meet you at the rim.” You have plays like that where both guys make up their mind that “I’m going to impose my will on you.” Hedo made up his mind and Tayshaun made up his mind. Those are the most impressive plays. Because there is no surprise element here. It’s one guy saying, “I’m coming.” And the other guy saying, “OK, I’ll be there.” And that’s impressive.
“I’ll meet you at the rim” — that’s classic.
DBB reader Q-Dog emailed me a little bit ago to inform me that Joe Dumars was a guest on Chad Ford’s NBA Dish podcast on ESPN today:
I just finished listening to ESPN’s “NBA Dish” podcast. Joe Dumars was the featured guest and Chad Ford asked him about Chauncey. He said, “…he went pretty good today, moving pretty good. I think he’s going to try to give it a go tonight. That’s what it looks like. He looked really good today in shootaround.”
I liked what I heard from Joe, very good conversation about the team, the league and even some politics. (and past heated debates between he and Bill Laimbeer)
Dumars is a semi-frequent guest on Ford’s podcast, and as I’ve said before, it’s obvious the two have a good rapport, as Dumars seems more comfortable talking to Ford than he does in most other interviews. Here’s the mp3 of the podcast or listen below:
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