You have to give Gores and his guys some props too. Remember SVG wanted to bring in his guy Otis Smith as GM. Bower was more of a compromise candidate for the job but i am glad they went this way.
Its just Pistons home PR, but these 2 articles are good stuff and show how a well structured front office works once Plan A & B (Green & Carroll) were not available anymore.
When it was determined that the price tag put Carroll out of reach to the Pistons, then came the really hard discussion: What now?
There was strong sentiment to move on to the next-rated free agent, whoever that might have been. “We went through this process,” one of Van Gundy’s close advisers said. “We’ve had our steps laid out. Let’s just stay with it.”
It was even the way Van Gundy was leaning.
“It comes down to experience and who you hire,” Van Gundy said, looking back three weeks. “The one guy in the room who said, ‘I think we should just wait’ was Jeff. ‘Something better will come along in trade than is out there on the free-agent market right now.’ Quite honestly, I was sort of uncomfortable with that and I said, ‘No. I think we need to proceed and try to get somebody. That position is too important.’ ”
Between the morning and evening practices that day, the meeting resumed at the downtown Orlando hotel where the Pistons stayed for 11 nights. The agents for three or four other candidates, one of whom could come to Detroit to compete with rookie Stanley Johnson – who was still three days away from playing his first Summer League game – for the starting job were contacted. No offers were made, but the Pistons were clearly dropping hooks in the water.
Bower remained the strongest voice in the room for slow playing those other free agents and seeing what might develop in the trade market.
“Jeff raised the question that something always comes up. We should just wait. And everybody else not being comfortable with that. But Jeff, being the guy with the most experience in the room, said we should just wait.”
By the time the Pistons poured back into the bus to head to the second practice of the day, something else, indeed, had come up.
http://www.nba.com/pistons/features/how-svgs-work-putting-organization-together-guided-pistons-through-crazy-july-1-part-iBut there was no sense of panic, no rush to study video of Morris or conduct a furious background check. Everything Van Gundy needed, he had with a few strokes of computer keys.
“We had a real picture of everybody in the league and it was easy to just go in the database and look at what is there,” Van Gundy said. “There was no scramble whatsoever. When it came up and it needed to be done quickly, we had the work done to be able to very comfortably make that decision in a short amount of time. That wouldn’t have happened without the way those guys grinded all year to be able to get that done. A long process to get to that point that you can feel comfortable responding quickly.”
“I have my computer in front of me and I just start reading reports,” he said. “The reports gave me a real good picture of (Morris) as a player. We play them twice a year, so I’m watching the two games we play (vs. Phoenix) and probably four or five games before we play. So you’re not watching all that much and you’re watching more on how you guard stuff, especially with the Western Conference guys. But with our scouts watching virtually every game, it’s all right there, including background information and what people who have played with him have to say.”
...
Nix and Bower compile the information provided by the four pro scouts – Al Walker, Tom Barrise, Rob Werdann and Adam Glessner – into weekly reports that include not only both narrative and statistical analysis but graphs that rank each player on a 1-10 scale in a variety of areas. They can look at the information in snap-shot form or in broader strokes to see a player’s progression – or regression, for that matter.
It didn’t take Van Gundy long to feel he had a comfortable grasp on what Morris would offer.
...
The only thing Van Gundy really had to decide was if Morris offered the right mix of talent and roster fit. The scouting reports gave him every assurance he did.
http://www.nba.com/pistons/features/how-svgs-work-putting-organization-together-guided-pistons-through-crazy-july-1-part-ii
