Tag Archive for 'Michael Curry'

Monday’s Layup Drill

Published by Matt Watson on August 11, 2008 in Around the Internets. 28 Comments

I’ve been busy so a few of these are old, but in case you missed them …

  • The last few summers, the word everyone has liked to use when talking about the Pistons has been “complacency.” What’s the new buzz word? “Accountable.” Lindsey Hunter is using it, Chauncey Billups is using it, and, of course, Michael Curry is using it:

    [Michael Curry]: We can be two different teams at times. You look at Boston, they were first in the league defensively. We were second. The difference is, when you played Boston, they were going to be the best defensive team every night. They played you the same way. With us, we would be up and down. The question is, how can we make sure we are the same team, every night?

    SN: But how do you do that?

    MC: We’ll see. We’ll be holding people accountable when they need to be.

    I’m sure you noticed this already (DBB readers hopped on this wagon back in May!), but now that I pointed it out, try to see how many Pistons interviews you see that don’t have this word. There aren’t many.

  • We’re doing a “biggest busts of the 00’s” series at FanHouse, and today I shined the light on Rodney White, whom the Pistons chose over Joe Johnson, Richard Jefferson, Zach Randolph, Gerald Wallace, Tony Parker and Gilbert Arenas, not to mention any other number of warm bodies who could have actually, you know, contributed.
  • Speaking of FanHouse, my colleagues have been killing it with their Olympic hoops coverage, especially if you’re looking for more than just Team USA news.
  • Scott Perry confirms Amir Johnson’s spot in the rotation:

    “I think he’s somebody we look at to be in our rotation playing each night,” Perry said. “What number (in the big man pecking order) that is, that will be determined once we come to camp and start playing games. But right now, he’s a guy who’ll be in the rotation each night. We’re going to play four big guys a night, at least, so he has a good opportunity to step in and one thing we know he’s going to provide is energy and athleticism every night.

    This was already expected, but it’s still nice to hear.

  • Really, Allan Houston? Another comeback?
  • Tayshaun Prince is in Beijing and carefree. From Michael Rosenberg in the Free Press:

    Prince said he has not been in Detroit since the day Flip Saunders was fired. He felt no need to call Joe Dumars and ask what is happening.

    […] “To be honest with you, I haven’t been looking at what’s going on,” he said. “Everything eventually is going to take care of itself. A lot of guys worry about trade rumors. I’m the type of guy, I know that wherever I end up, I know I can help the team.”

    Prince only played seven minutes in Sunday’s game against China, but not a lot of people can say they played in front of a billion people.

  • Play amateur GM, win a Need4Sheed t-shirt.
  • Jason Maxiell faces Jeff Foster in Hoops Addict’s Floor Burn Tournament. Go vote.

Tuesday’s Summer League Layup Drill

Published by Matt Watson on July 15, 2008 in Around the Internets. 146 Comments

I’m still woefully behind from the extra long weekend, so forgive me if you’ve seen a few of these before …

  • I mentioned last week how Michael Curry seemed to view Rodney Stuckey as the leader of the second unit. Stuckey confirmed that he’s using the offseason to take on a more vocal role among his teammates. From A. Sherrod Blakely:

    But if you look at the way he corrects teammates when they’re not where they’re supposed to be, the way encourages players to try things that might not be according to script, the way he barks instructions — and the way they respond — it’s clear that he came to Las Vegas looking to hone his leadership skills. “That’s one of the main reasons why I’m doing summer league this year,” said Stuckey […] “That’s one of the main things I need to work on, because I know next year, I’m going to have a bigger role than I had this past year.”

  • Stuckey missed the second half of Sunday’s game with a toe injury. Relax, it’s not serious and shouldn’t affect his playing time tonight.
  • Need4Sheed asks, does Stuckey really make Chauncey Billups expendable?
  • Michael Curry said Arron Afflalo will be the backup two-guard, and expects to reward Afflalo with more consistent playing time. From A.S.B.:

    “I’ve always said, when Arron plays consistent minutes, he shoots the ball consistently,” Curry said.

    The numbers don’t lie. Afflalo averaged 3.7 points and shot 41.1 percent from the field during the regular season, but he was better in both of those categories (5.6 points, 42.3 percent shooting) in the 45 games in which he played 10 or more minutes.

    The number don’t lie, but they also don’t say much: 41.1% vs. 42.3% is hardly significant. On the other hand, the fact he shot 20.8% from three-point land versus 46.1% from inside the arc is. If he can learn to stay within his range (or extend it a step or two over the summer), no one will complain about his shooting. He scored 25 against the Clippers on Sunday (boxscore) on 8-10 shooting (9-9 from the stripe) without a single three-point attempt.

  • Afflalo said all the right things after his breakout performance Sunday:

    “It’s not work to me,” Afflalo said. “I love the game of basketball with all my heart. I could stay in here all day. It’s fun, and there’s nothing I’d rather be doing. Although it’s just one Summer League game, it’s big for me because it lets me know this will pay off at some point, and I’m going to push even harder now.”

    A lot of guys just say stuff like that because they know it plays well in the media, but by all accounts is AA is the real deal. Granted, hearing him talk like this is nothing new, but it still makes me smile.

  • Alex Acker, who pulled out of the summer league with a bum knee, still hopes to win a roster spot by impressing Curry and Joe Dumars during voluntary workouts in Auburn Hills in August.
  • Curry talks about his coaching staff with Keith Langlois.

Last but least, I’d like to congratulate Jason and Erin Gurney, the masterminds behind BallHype who announced the sale of their brainchild today.

I happily served on BallHype’s Board of Advisors from the very beginning so I admit I can’t be completely impartial, but the site has become a daily (if not hourly) destination for me. That won’t change now that the company has been sold — it just means that Jason and Erin now have the resources behind them to continue making the site bigger and better while actually getting paid for their efforts. Congrats!

Michael Curry answers questions

Published by Matt Watson on June 13, 2008 in Interviews. 19 Comments

Keith Langlois has a lengthy Q&A with Michael Curry on Pistons.com. Some highlights:

Langlois: You also said the other day you had opportunities to be an assistant coach when you retired yet you decided to go the administrative route with the league office for two years. Just talk about why you decided to go that route if you knew you wanted to be a head coach.

Curry: It’s funny. As you sit around, you prepare and I’ve always thought at times it’s difficult to get to a point unless people really see you in that light. I’ve seen some guys I thought were really good coaches that everyone kind of saw as an assistant coach. I didn’t want to take a job as an assistant just to be an assistant coach. I wanted to be a head coach. I’m a leader, I have a strong personality and I crave leadership positions. So that wasn’t quite the offers that were there when I first came out, once I interviewed with the league office, with what I could do in basketball operations and what I would be able to do within the D-League, it would be the best of both worlds. It would quench my thirst as far as the actual and on-the-court aspect in the D-League and the business side of basketball working in basketball operations.

Langlois: But it was done with the thought of becoming a head coach in mind, not a general manager?

Curry: I’ve always liked that part of basketball as well, being a general manager or being a head coach. Either one of those leadership positions. I knew after my two years in the league office, just talking with guys and GMs around the league and some of the interaction I’ve had with players. A lot of guys outside where I’ve been, they didn’t know me as well. But in that same setting, they knew I possessed the qualities to lead. Halfway through my second year in the league office, I knew that right now I craved being on the court more so than being a general manager. If I was a general manager right now, I’d probably get in my own way – in the way of the coach I hire – because I still see a lot of things I want to do and being on the court actually coaching is one of those things.

One of the things that impresses me the most about Curry is how calmly confident he is. He knew he’d be a head coach but didn’t want to settle for taking the usual path to success. And reading his answer to the quest above, I get the feeling he knows he’ll eventually be a GM some day, as well. It’s rare to see a new coach speak so candidly about his ambition.

His thoughts on holding players accountable:

[Players] want playing time. When you go out here you have 15 players. If you preach certain things to the guys and this is what you are going to hold them accountable for, if you allow two or three guys to do what they want to do, then not only those two or three are gone but you lose the other 10 that are not playing at the time. The best thing to do is make sure you follow what you’re teaching the guys and what you’re saying are your points of emphasis and make sure you keep those other 12 that are doing right and the other two or three, they’ll conform and be the way you want them to be.

I said this before, but I hope he’s serious, and I hope he doesn’t change his mind come playoff time.

His thoughts on some of the team’s young players:

Amir Johnson has to be more consistent every day and I think we have to coach him more consistent. What I mean by that is, he’s not a guy who can take two days away from the gym and come back and still be playing at the same level. As you saw when he played, he played four games in a row and he played really good. If you don’t play him for two games, he doesn’t go all the way back down but he takes a step backward. We have to find a way to make sure we give him consistent minutes and a consistent role so he can grow. Hopefully, once he starts to grow and get that consistency, he’ll realize how valuable he can be for us as a team.

Stuckey can take a big leap. With increased minutes, we want to put things in place to make sure he can stay aggressive when he’s out on the court. The biggest thing for him this year was trying to figure out when to be aggressive and when not to be aggressive. Sometimes he erred on not being aggressive. We want him to err on the side of being aggressive. Be overly aggressive and let us calm you down. That’s sort of our thought process with Stuckey.

Arron is great. He’s one of the few guys that I just thought never had a bad game. The way he prepares every day, he’s going to be a model where he doesn’t stand out so much by the way he prepares – we have to get everyone else preparing that same way every day. The way he prepares, the way he competes every day, every day in practice, he is the poster boy for the way we have to be.

Afflalo definitely gets overlooked when most people talk about Detroit’s young players, but that’s exceptionally high praise. If you’ve been paying attention, though, it’s also not surprising — I’ve heard Dumars and Flip Saunders say as much all year. No matter what your impressions are of Afflalo’s game right now, don’t underestimate him — with that kind of drive, anything is possible.

Curry on Rome

Published by Matt Watson on June 13, 2008 in Alley-Oops. 2 Comments

Curry on Rome: “I’m not just saying we are going to do it my way, I’m just saying we are going to do it the championship way.”

Thursday’s Layup Drill

Published by Matt Watson on June 12, 2008 in Around the Internets. 46 Comments

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.

Rasheed present at Curry’s presser

Published by Matt Watson on June 10, 2008 in Alley-Oops. 2 Comments

Rasheed Wallace was apparently the only Pistons player to show up at Michael Curry’s introductory press conference. There’s no reason to attach any meaning to that, but all things considered I still found it interesting.

Michael Curry is saying all the right things

Published by Matt Watson on June 10, 2008 in Around the Internets. 38 Comments

Keith Langlois has a solid round-up of all the inspirational soundbites from today’s press conference:

Curry said he hoped he would “never get the chance to read one of you all say the team didn’t play hard, they pick and choose when they want to play, they play up to the level of their competition, the regular season doesn’t mean anything.

“For me as a coach, that’s a direct relationship to me. That’s a stab to me. That hurts me more than losing in the conference finals, because that’s something you directly control. And that’s one of my goals, personally, to never let that be said about a team that I coached and a team that represents this organization, because you don’t get that nowhere else in the organization. Everybody else in the organization works every day.”

A few questions later, somebody wanted to know how you keep players motivated. Curry fairly pounced on that one, too.

“I don’t think you make anybody play. I think you substitute. Put somebody in there that wants to play. The way you have a motivated team, you remove the ones that are unmotivated. That’s pretty simple.”

My only request is that he maintains the same philosophy from the opening tip of the regular season to the final horn of the last playoff game. Needlessly scrapping a strategy that won 59 games in the regular season for the conventional wisdom of shortening a bench in the playoffs and sticking with veterans simply because they’re veterans was one of the most frustrating developments over the final two rounds of the playoffs.

Dumars also reinforced his zero-tolerance policy for “flipping the switch”:

After Curry talked about his zero-tolerance policy for those less than fully committed to an honest day’s work, Dumars took a whack at it, too.

“You don’t want that said about your team at all,” he said. “Michael is right. That’s not something you’re proud of when you hear that. When we wake up and we hear our team shows up when they want to or they turn a switch on and turn the switch off, that’s not a compliment. That was never a compliment to me. Mike and I are on the same page with that – we want guys to show up every single day. You don’t take days off. You don’t turn the switch off. You don’t turn the switch on. When you walk into The Palace and they turn the lights on and throw the ball up, you’re playing to win. You’re playing to win every night. That’s what I believe in and that’s what he believes in. If we got away from that a little bit, going forward that’s not going to be the case. If you don’t show up every night and play, you can’t be rewarded for that. That’s where we stand. We stand together on that issue.”

Now go back to something Dumars said a week ago at the Saunders press conference: “I just want to make sure that we as a team, as an organization, are all on the same page and that wasn’t always the case, I felt, this year. It was too scattered at times. It really doesn’t matter how strong you are in this seat that I sit in. That one voice has to make sure we keep everything and everybody on that same page.”

What people said about Curry six years ago …

Published by Matt Watson on June 10, 2008 in From the news. 19 Comments

… they’re still saying today: he’s a leader, he relates to players and he takes it upon himself to keep everybody motivated. Check it out for yourself in this old Free Press article about Curry’s role on the 2001-02 Pistons:

But Curry, a Pistons co-captain, is more than a shoulder to lean on. He’s part camp counselor and amateur psychologist, a motivator who studies the emotions and mind-sets of his teammates. He helps Carlisle push the right buttons to achieve team goals. And he does it without being asked.

Curry is also the player, his teammates say, who has delivered some of the most memorable and most eloquent locker room talks this season, quoting everything from the Bible to messages from the heart.

[…] “I understand what I can do as a player, and I understand what is needed for me to do as a player,” Curry said. “I’ve tried to fit into what the team wants. I know what the team goals are, and my objective is to succeed at achieving those goals. I see myself as a guy who bridges the gap between the coaches and the players. I try to make sure everyone buys into the system so we can have success. That’s all I care about.”

Asked about his play, Curry said: “I think what I contribute on the court helps my leadership. My teammates know that I could shoot more, but I decline to shoot more to help my other teammates get shots. They know I’m giving up myself. They know I’m about the team, and that helps make me a better leader for them.”

If you read the whole thing, I guarantee you’ll be properly amped for today’s announcement in which he’s officially named head coach. (Thanks to Quick Darshan for the link)

Coming around on Michael Curry

Published by Matt Watson on June 9, 2008 in Transactions. 32 Comments

When I first heard that Michael Curry was the front-runner to replace Flip Saunders, I was less than enthused. The guy has one year of coaching experience as an assistant, surely he’s not ready to take the keys, right? But the more I thought about it, the more I talked myself into liking it, which is why I’m excited about today’s news that he’s officially been hired.

As a player, Curry was frequently the least talented player on the court. There’s no way to gloss that over, he just wasn’t very good. But not only did he enjoy a solid career, he also made himself indispensable with defense, hustle and leadership. He served as captain for both the Pistons and the Raptors and even served as President of the NBA Players Association, commanding the respect and trust of his more talented peers.

Since hanging them up, Curry served as Vice President of Player Development of the NBDL, as well as Vice President of Basketball Operations of the NBA. This isn’t just some jock who thinks he’s entitled for a shot just because he played the game. If anything, it seems like he was being groomed to be the next Joe Dumars, not the next Avery Johnson, and it’s his executive-level experience that I’m most excited about.

He learned his X’s and O’s during his 11-year career, and he’ll be surrounded by experienced assistants to help fill any blanks. But the fact that he’s also been groomed to maintain a big-picture view of an organization is most encouraging. He’s not coming into this with an ego of “well, this is what worked for me before.” Instead, he’s here to facilitate Joe Dumars’ vision.

Dumars refused to get into specifics about Flip Saunders’ failings during last week’s press conference, but he did indicate that everybody wasn’t always on the same page. I’m sure he was referencing more than just one thing, but in his subsequent radio interview with Stoney and Wojo, he admitted that Saunders’ refusal to trust the team’s younger players was an issue:

Q: Were you disappointed [Amir Johnson] didn’t get more of an opportunity in the playoffs?

A: I’m disappointed he didn’t get more of an opportunity this season and the playoffs. You know how Rodney Stuckey as a young guy can do certain things that nobody else on our team can do from the perimeter position? I feel the same way about Amir in the front court position, that there are certain things that nobody else can do, just from an athletic standpoint, from a speed, from a quickness, from an ability to play above the rim the way he does. I think he can bring that us and so I would love to see him as we go forward become more integrated into what we’re doing here.

It’s hard to hear Dumars say that and not think the next coach will have strict guidelines for developing the future, especially since (barring any offseason trades) Amir seems to be the heir apparent to the starting power forward job once Rasheed Wallace’s contract expires after next season.

Given Curry’s strengths as a player, I’m guessing his hiring also means good things for the defense, which the players sound ready to embrace. After losing to the Celtics in Game 6, Rip Hamilton pointed out how the team needed to get back to its roots:

I thought we lost focus on what won us the title. I always say, when we won, we got grimy, we got hard, we might not shoot the ball well but we defended and you know that this was Pistons basketball. We didn’t score, they didn’t score. And now it’s like, we give up dunks, we give up layups, you know what I’m saying? Stuff like that. It’s tough, man, you got to get back to that.

Only time will tell if this gamble pays off, but from my view, this is a good day for the Pistons.

It’s official: Michael Curry is the new coach

Published by Matt Watson on June 9, 2008 in Transactions. 13 Comments

Here’s the AP’s entire 12-word announcement:

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) — Michael Curry will coach the Detroit Pistons says team exec Joe Dumars.

WDFN confirms it (via TZ and Ballhype):

WDFN broke the story that Joe Dumars has indeed hired Michael Curry as the next head coach of the Pistons. The press conference will be Tuesday at Noon and you’ll hear it live on Sportsradio 1130 - WDFN.

Updates will follow, I’m sure.

Update: More details from the AP:

Dumars tells the AP Curry will be introduced at a news conference on Tuesday. The team sent out a release Monday afternoon saying the new coach would be announced at that news event, but did not reveal his identity.

Curry agreed to a three-year deal worth $2.5 million a year guaranteed with the team holding the option for a fourth season.

Curry lacks any head coaching experience, and he’s being paid accordingly: his annual salary will be less than half of the $5.4 million Saunders is collecting this year.

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