How likely is it that Frank returns next season?

[Mr Peanut]

Putting aside all bias and fan desire for the future, how likely is it that Frank enters his 3rd year as a Pistons coach?

There hasn't been many signs of what will happen from the Pistons brass, though they are obviously planning a big off-season and Gores/Dumars may want to give Frank one more year to perform with an improved roster. Also it doesn't bode well for a new coach who would be the 4th coach we've hired in the last 5 years.

That being said, I'm going to start this off by putting the likelihood of Frank returning at 75%.

[ImHeisenberg]

This summer may be an interesting indicator of what kind of owner Gores is. Frank was widely known as "his hire". This is the worst record the team has posted in the post-Billups era. But, this team is also genuinely bad, particularly when Drummond went down to injury.

I don't believe Frank had a lot to work with in terms of basketball related talent. Moose posts some great stats, but he has deficiencies across the board, and he's your best player.

I would give Frank a 50-50 shot at returning. I think his firing would be more a move to appease the fan base. I don't see a notable upgrade on the market.

[vege]

He has been the head coach for 2 years have been sub .38 both seasons.

Last head coach to come back for his 3rd season was Flip Saunders and he had a .780 .646 and .720 seasons.

Frank record is being worse than Kuester and not only that, despite of getting a ROY candidate in Drummond, Frank managed to make the team worse from his disastrous 1st season (.379) to a laughable 2nd season (.333).

Keeping a headcoach who is not improving a pretty bad team despite of being given better players (Drummond and Calderon) is not going to attract many FAs.

Frank is as good as goner imo. I can't possibly see such an incompetent head coach with such fail numbers coming back to his 3rd year.

[rmfc]

I don't think that there is any chance he returns for another season. The results have been pathetic and the "vets" have already tuned him out.

If we bring him back again however, I think we'll end up with another top 7-8 pick and if that were to happen again, I think we should be ready to say bye bye to Monroe. That should also mean that Frank and Joe will end up getting fired after next season.

So, Joe will probably fire Frank this off-season unless he is asked not to do so by the ownership.

[Kilo]

I'd say 50-50. Given there has very likely been no directive to tank, Frank owns the crap record completely and the lack of development of Knight, the stunting of Monroe etc.

I don't think Joe is going anywhere though, so unless Gores is going to give him an extension, I don't think Frank will be fired because no coach is going to come in with his GM on the last year of his deal.

For Frank to be fired, either Joe has to be fired along side him or he needs to be extended for 4-5 years. And how can you make a case that Joe would deserve that? And in trying to make that case it would mean you place all the blame on Frank, meaning Joe is coated in Teflon and prospective coaches will see that as a huge negative here - coaches are scapegoats.

[JD43320]

Firing Frank requires firing Dumars. This team has had it's worst 4 year stretch in almost 50 years. The team set records for longest losing streaks in franchise history twice under Kuester and record for worst start under Frank. It's part bad coaching and part bad management. Adding Drummond would've helped more if Dumars had made other moves to improve the roster but he didn't. In the off season he made his first trade in 3 years. That trade didn't add talent it gave it and a first rounder away. We added 5 rookies. 3 of them were second round picks and one went undrafted. We have an undersized unathletic back court. Our frontline outside of Drummond and Moose are garbage. We went into the season with Daye and CV as our only shooters. Our only decent stretch this season was when those chumps (and Bynum) randomly got hot. When they all came crashing back down to Earth the offense imploded. Knight and Moose lead the league in "wow that was a great move it's too bad he didn't finish" plays. Our only somewhat athletic and decent perimeter defender was traded mid season. That left us with Drummond as our best defensive player (even though he's is hit or miss on that end) and he subsequently missed two months. After 5 and a half years we finally have a PG again. Sadly he is a defensive sieve and we don't have an actual SG to pair with him. English is our only guard that doesn't need to dominate the ball to be effective. Problem with that is English isn't actually effective. As it has been the last 5 years there is no balance on the roster. Players not only don't compliment each other they are a determent to their teammate. The Knight Stuckey backcourt was a disaster. You can't play Bynum and Knight together. People rightfully complained about the Bynum Stuckey combo off the bench. It's a telling sign of how bad our backcourt works together when the Knight Singler (who is too slow and unathletic to be a starting 3) backcourt was our most effective.

Good God our roster is terrible. People have accused me of being a Frank apologist but I'm just a realist. He has no good options with the backcourt. Since trading Tay there are no good options at the 3 other than playing Singler and giving Middleton some more minutes. While Frank should've found ways to get Dre more minutes earlier in the season part of that falls on Dre. Dre admitted that he struggled to handle playing more that 20 minutes per game at the start of the season. If he played for more than an 8 minute stretch he often asked out of the game because he needed a rest. His conditioning needs work but there are ways to tweak the rotation so that he can get four 6-8 minute stretches through out the game.

Dumars built this "team". 5 years ago he decided it was a good idea to get rid of Billups, Sheed, Dice, Afflalo and Amir. He replaced those guys with Gordon, DNP-CV and Chris Wilcox. His motivation for moving Billups was his belief that Stuckey could take over the PG spot. Unfortunately Stuckey's lack of a jump shot and any PG skills didn't mesh with Rip. That lead to a whole lot of drama because Rip was rightfully pissed about getting benched for the Canswer and then Gordon even though neither of them had earned the spot over him. They started over Rip because they were supposed to be a better compliment to our "Franchise" Rodney Stuckey. Ugh. He didn't clean house after the mutiny under Kuester. 5 years later all we have to show for all that cap space from the summer of 09 is DNP-CV and one less first rounder. Dumars has already fired 2 coaches for the fustercluck he created. I'm fine with firing Frank if the organization completely cleans house and Dumars joins him in the unemployment line. With Joe's history of scapegoating coaches and taking zero responsibility for the teams failures we aren't going to get an up and coming coach or anyone proven as long as he's still in the front office. All we'll get is another Frank, Kuester or Curry. If Dumars deserves one more year so does Frank.

[BadMofoPimp]

I don't think there is a chance Frank will be back. They are just playing out the season. Frank is 100% done as a Pistons coach to me.

[retrolenny]

I think Frank returns!! Last year we had some leadership. We had Ben Wallace, Tayshaun, & BG. This year we were ahead of last years pace without Ben Wallace or Gordon but with Tayshaun. That all fell by the wayside when Prince was traded.

I'm not a big Frank fan I don't think there is any harm in seeing what he is capable of with a more complete team.

For the record, I BLAME FRANK FOR STUCKEY'S DOWNFALL.

[MrBigShot]

I hope he does not, but I believe he was a lot better than Kuester/Curry. We can do better though, and should.

Time for Joe D to step up though...I can't watch another lottery-bound season...

[Sunsdeuce]

You guys seem to love Lindsey hunter. You can have him. He sucks.

[Jodi]

Hopefully 0%

[ElectricMayhem]

He has been the head coach for 2 years have been sub .38 both seasons.

Last head coach to come back for his 3rd season was Flip Saunders and he had a .780 .646 and .720 seasons.

Frank record is being worse than Kuester and not only that, despite of getting a ROY candidate in Drummond, Frank managed to make the team worse from his disastrous 1st season (.379) to a laughable 2nd season (.333).

Keeping a headcoach who is not improving a pretty bad team despite of being given better players (Drummond and Calderon) is not going to attract many FAs.

Frank is as good as goner imo. I can't possibly see such an incompetent head coach with such fail numbers coming back to his 3rd year.

They were going to be worse this year regardless of anything the coach did. Gordon was massively overpaid, but he was still a big contributor to the few wins we got last year. Also, while Tay out, Jose in is great for our finances, it didn't improve the talent level on the team.

[kurtis48239]

God I hope not,he was just to inconsistent with lineups and I dont think the team respects him anymore.

[rmfc]

WT: Frank says future with Pistons is cloudy.

Hope he is gone at the end of the season.

[dan2314]

i dont see why we shouldnt give him a chance with an actual roster which we should have next season after we use our $30M+ this offseason. there is little advantage bringing in a new coach to guide what should be a fairly new roster. he doesnt seem to have too many bad relationships, and atleast we keep some familiarity for some of the younger players. continuing to bring in new coach after new coach the last 7 or 8 years doesnt seem to be the answer.

[BadMofoPimp]

Isn't it obvious the team isn't playing for Frank anymore? Dude is done.

[Piston Pete]

1) It seems as though Gores will be giving Dumars the chance to turn this thing around.

2) "Turn this thing around" = We need to start winning much sooner than later.

3) Dumars knows this, so he cans Frank and hopes Gores allows him to pay for a good coach.....seems extremely likely at this point.


Question is, does Gores trust Joe to sign another coach long-term? Or will Gores at least insist he's included on the coaching search?