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Ok so, Dumars' negatives and deficiencies as a GM are well documented. But his fingerprints are on some positives things on this team.

1) Andre Drummond. He doesn't really need an introduction. I know a lot of people like to say drafting him was a no-brainer, but was it though? Andre had some concerns coming out, namely Jim Calhoun openly wondering about Dre's motor and desire. There were also 8 teams that passed on him on draft night. True, there wasn't too many noteworthy picks after Dre, but Dumars could have just as easily been the 9th to pass on him.

2) Brandon Jennings. Jennings got off to a splashy start to his career, dropping 55 points in only the 7th game of his career. But his Bucks career was largely criticized for being very inefficient, not being much of a playmaker, having the tendency to chuck, and sporting a bad shot overall. His trade to Detroit was largely met with backlash and dislike, but he did take some steps forward after getting to Detroit. When he went down with the achilles last season, Pistons fans were starting to latch onto him. And now we are at the point where we are discussing the majority wanting to keep him around for the long term.

3) Kentavious Caldwell Pope. As recent board activity has proven opinions range wildly on him. Regardless of what you think of him he has value as player, if for no other reason than his motor and ability to provide solid defense. There are some who believe he is legit core material moving forward. Pope came from a pretty poor draft class, and some of those guys already have no value. Dumars found value here, when there wasn't a lot to be had.

Touching again on the Jennings trade, it did cost Detroit 2 solid players in Knight and Middleton. But I would argue that Jennings is a better fit for this team right now, even you want to say Knight is a better player. Also, I don't think its unfathomable to assume that had Middleton stayed around both he and Pope would have gotten in the way of each others development. So considering that factor, it probably isn't the worse thing in the word that Middleton was shipped out.

Of course this is a hypothetical best case scenario, but lets just say that both Drummond and Jennings sign extensions this summer and Pope blossoms. That would mean 3 out of Detroit's top 6 players were brought in by Joe Dumars.

Are we not far enough removed to give Dumars a little credit?

I'm thinking there is a chance this thread might not be well received, and I'm not expecting a lot of activity in it. These thoughts have just crossed my mind recently, and I figured at the least its a different topic of talk than whats been on the board lately.

No offense meant in this but Joe was good when he was good and just terrible when he was terrible. Ancient History and if anything I wouldnt mind having Joe a part of the scouting department. He did draft well. I'm moving on. Great player for the team, great GM for some time but his time is passed.

He had a large part in all the greatest moments and Titles. He's definitely Pistons Royalty which is why I'm glad he's gone. It was rough seeing him become a joke. He would never let the team bottom out to fully rebuild and wasted money trying to find a quick fix. The NBA just passed him up unfortunately

I think you have to look at the overall package. His general ineptitude for the last number of years in his tenure lead to us having a bad team for longer than we had a good one. Think about that for a moment.

We have been a subpar team since the 2008-09 season. I'll go ahead and not include this years team in this count since we've been a playoff contending team, but that still leaves us with SEVEN bad seasons. Just to put that in perspective, from the first 50 win team we had to our swan song (Billups last full season) spanned 6 years.

That time was marred with questionable trades, downright awful free agent and extension decisions, some of which we are still paying for to this day, and the development of an awful team culture that its taken us this long to start to get past. Ben Gordon, Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Charlie Villanueva, and the mother of all horror, Josh Smith were not only overpaid even under the best case scenario, but ended up absolutely hurting our team. He didn't help himself much on the trade market either, where it cost us a first rounder to unload Ben Gordon and we really didn't help ourselves much because he boxed us into a situation with so many immovable contracts and so few assets. Further, it was also marred by some dubious coaching hires and the fostering of a frankly toxic player environment. How many coaches "lost" this locker room during his tenure? I assure you, that's not all the coach's fault.

But what about his drafting, you say? Surely he gets some points there. Well, lets take a look.

While I don't give him a ton of credit for drafting Drummond (I doubt any GM in the league would have passed him up at 9, we lucked out and got one of few who would pass him up at 8 drafting ahead of us), it must be said that he was a decent though not amazing drafter. Some definite misses there, but probably not more that any other GM, and there were some hits.

The problem with that is that even THAT, his primary saving grace, is tarnished by how bad he was at holding onto the solid picks he did make. He created an environment that all but assured Greg Monroe's departure before he left. He also traded away Knight and Middleton. Whatever you may feel about Jennings now, that was too much value. He also unloaded Arron Afflalo and Amir Johnson in what essentially amount to salary dumps to make room for Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva. Neither are stars, but both are rock solid either 5th starter level or strong 6th man level players.

I don't think its a question of how far away we need to be to give him credit. Honest evaluation of the overall evidence from his tenure shows that he did a lot more harm than good with respect to the situation we've found ourselves in the last 8 years.

Yeah, these first few response are pretty much what I was expecting.

I didn't explain it in the OP well, but his post 2007 tenure is basically indefensible on the whole. I was trying to keep the reflections on the few positives that remain currently.

Snakebites wrote: He also traded away Knight and Middleton. Whatever you may feel about Jennings now, that was too much value.

Not trying to chop down your points or diminish your words, but this is something that I wanted to address directly...

How much value did Middleton have at the time though? He was a 2nd round rookie who wasn't even part of Detroit's rotation til late in the season and the team was well out of the playoffs. From what I can remember at the time, he was considered a throw in by some. Credit to Hammond for recognizing the potential, but on that same token some semblance of credit should go to Dumars for plucking value out of the 2nd round.

Also wasn't the prevailing sentiment back then that Knight wasn't a "real PG?" But in the interest of fairness Jennings held that same label back then.

People claim Joe drafted well:

Darko, Rodney White, Mateen - all Lotto picks - all sucked here

Pharaoh wrote:People claim Joe drafted well:

Darko, Rodney White, Mateen - all Lotto picks - all sucked here

In the interest of fairness:

Darko was VERY highly regarded going into that draft. There were plenty of reports saying that numerous teams had him #2 on their board.

White was a later lotto pick in a pretty poor draft. Joe grabbed Memo in the 2nd round of that draft.

Cleaves was NOT a lotto pick and he came from what is widely viewed as one of the worst drafts of all time, if not the worst.

Every GM has black marks on their draft record.

thesack12 wrote:

Snakebites wrote: He also traded away Knight and Middleton. Whatever you may feel about Jennings now, that was too much value.

Not trying to chop down your points or diminish your words, but this is something that I wanted to address directly...

How much value did Middleton have at the time though? He was a 2nd round rookie who wasn't even part of Detroit's rotation til late in the season and the team was well out of the playoffs. From what I can remember at the time, he was considered a throw in by some. Credit to Hammond for recognizing the potential, but on that same token some semblance of credit should go to Dumars for plucking value out of the 2nd round.

Also wasn't the prevailing sentiment back then that Knight wasn't a "real PG?" But in the interest of fairness Jennings held that same label back then.

That's the point though.

If someone working for Wall Street frequently trades for stocks that go up after he sells them off, people don't say "oh well, he got fair value at the time", they say "hey, maybe Wall Street isn't for him". Its not bad luck, its failure to assess the potential of what you have. Dealing away young players who haven't yet reached their potential is the same way. If they get better after you deal them and turn out to be better than what you gave up, that's on YOU, its not something you can just chalk up to crummy luck.

My point was that if you're going to give him any credit for drafting decently (and I think decently is as far as you can take it, as others have noted, there are plenty of misses on that resume too), you also have to acknowledge his failure to hold onto players he drafts.

Snakebites wrote:

thesack12 wrote:

Snakebites wrote: He also traded away Knight and Middleton. Whatever you may feel about Jennings now, that was too much value.

Not trying to chop down your points or diminish your words, but this is something that I wanted to address directly...

How much value did Middleton have at the time though? He was a 2nd round rookie who wasn't even part of Detroit's rotation til late in the season and the team was well out of the playoffs. From what I can remember at the time, he was considered a throw in by some. Credit to Hammond for recognizing the potential, but on that same token some semblance of credit should go to Dumars for plucking value out of the 2nd round.

Also wasn't the prevailing sentiment back then that Knight wasn't a "real PG?" But in the interest of fairness Jennings held that same label back then.

That's the point though.

If someone working for Wall Street frequently trades for stocks that go up after he sells them off, people don't say "oh well, he got fair value at the time", they say "hey, maybe Wall Street isn't for him". Its not bad luck, its failure to assess the potential of what you have. Dealing away young players who haven't yet reached their potential is the same way. If they get better after you deal them and turn out to be better than what you gave up, that's on YOU, its not something you can just chalk up to crummy luck.

My point was that if you're going to give him any credit for drafting decently (and I think decently is as far as you can take it, as others have noted, there are plenty of misses on that resume too), you also have to acknowledge his failure to hold onto players he drafts.

The return (Jennings) of said traded stock (Knight, Middleton) has increased in value also. That can't be discounted.

Also, as I alluded to earlier there would have been potential of Middleton and KCP getting in the way of each others development. Middleton might not be the player he is today had be stayed in Detroit.

What GM doesn't have draft misses on their resume?

thesack12 wrote:

Snakebites wrote:

thesack12 wrote:
Not trying to chop down your points or diminish your words, but this is something that I wanted to address directly...

How much value did Middleton have at the time though? He was a 2nd round rookie who wasn't even part of Detroit's rotation til late in the season and the team was well out of the playoffs. From what I can remember at the time, he was considered a throw in by some. Credit to Hammond for recognizing the potential, but on that same token some semblance of credit should go to Dumars for plucking value out of the 2nd round.

Also wasn't the prevailing sentiment back then that Knight wasn't a "real PG?" But in the interest of fairness Jennings held that same label back then.

That's the point though.

If someone working for Wall Street frequently trades for stocks that go up after he sells them off, people don't say "oh well, he got fair value at the time", they say "hey, maybe Wall Street isn't for him". Its not bad luck, its failure to assess the potential of what you have. Dealing away young players who haven't yet reached their potential is the same way. If they get better after you deal them and turn out to be better than what you gave up, that's on YOU, its not something you can just chalk up to crummy luck.

My point was that if you're going to give him any credit for drafting decently (and I think decently is as far as you can take it, as others have noted, there are plenty of misses on that resume too), you also have to acknowledge his failure to hold onto players he drafts.

The return (Jennings) of said traded stock (Knight, Middleton) has increased in value also. That can't be discounted.

Also, as I alluded to earlier there would have been potential of Middleton and KCP getting in the way of each others development. Middleton might not be the player he is today had be stayed in Detroit.

What GM doesn't have draft misses on their resume?

Do you think Jennings has the same value Knight and Middleton do? If no, then you have to acknowledge the point made.

If yes, then we'll have to back away because our opinions are too different.

And sure, that's why I call Dumars "decent" at drafting, but still maintain that a pretty healthy chunk of that is negated by his failure to hold onto some of his hits. The most egregious examples of this are the ones you haven't addressed, though I do still think Knight and Middleton bare discussion here.

Pharaoh wrote:People claim Joe drafted well:

Darko, Rodney White, Mateen - all Lotto picks - all sucked here

But the counter to that is:

Drummond, Monroe, Prince, Memo, Afflalo, Middleton, KCP, Knight, Amir, Stuckey.

Dumars problem was simple. He got greedy with his coaches and eventually couldn't get any good ones to work for him anymore. His first 3 coaches could all end up in the HOF. It makes a GMs job a lot easier when you have a proven coach, because you know exactly what type of players you need to get for them to succeed - and they can develop lesser players into good ones for you. Then it's just about getting them.

After that though, all he could get to coach was guys like Curry, Frank, Kuester, Cheeks (none of which had any defined system) , so he had to just compile the best talent he could get (having no idea if it would fit, because there was no system anymore) and if lucky that talent might be able to make up for inept coaching. Obviously not.

A GM is only as good as his coach in my opinion. Especially in a small market where you can't get superstars and rely on playing smart, fundamental, well coached bball to win. Once Joe got himself blacklisted from the coaching fraternity for dumping 3 straight ECF coaches, he was never going to succeed here again no matter what players he got.

edit: There was one move he could've made that maybe could've saved his job and even extended his legacy into another championship run. If he had hired that HOF Euro coach he was friends with over Cheeks. With the whole league playing Euro ball now and Blatt succeeding in CLE, Joe could've been one of the forefathers of this whole era and known as a genius right now, but instead went the conservative route with another NBA retread and that was that.

He does deserve credit for drafting Drummond though. If he hadn't, we'd basically be the Bucks right now instead.

Snakebites wrote:

thesack12 wrote:

Snakebites wrote:That's the point though.

If someone working for Wall Street frequently trades for stocks that go up after he sells them off, people don't say "oh well, he got fair value at the time", they say "hey, maybe Wall Street isn't for him". Its not bad luck, its failure to assess the potential of what you have. Dealing away young players who haven't yet reached their potential is the same way. If they get better after you deal them and turn out to be better than what you gave up, that's on YOU, its not something you can just chalk up to crummy luck.

My point was that if you're going to give him any credit for drafting decently (and I think decently is as far as you can take it, as others have noted, there are plenty of misses on that resume too), you also have to acknowledge his failure to hold onto players he drafts.

The return (Jennings) of said traded stock (Knight, Middleton) has increased in value also. That can't be discounted.

Also, as I alluded to earlier there would have been potential of Middleton and KCP getting in the way of each others development. Middleton might not be the player he is today had be stayed in Detroit.

What GM doesn't have draft misses on their resume?

Do you think Jennings has the same value Knight and Middleton do? If no, then you have to acknowledge the point made.

If yes, then we'll have to back away because our opinions are too different.

And sure, that's why I call Dumars "decent" at drafting, but still maintain that a pretty healthy chunk of that is negated by his failure to hold onto some of his hits. The most egregious examples of this are the ones you haven't addressed, though I do still think Knight and Middleton bare discussion here.

In a vacuum (read no achilles injury, which is entirely attributed to bad luck) it is my opinion that Jennings does carry more value than Knight. Especially if we are taking contracts into account. Now, Jennings being a free agent does cloud the contract factor somewhat.

As for Middleton, Ive said a couple times now that I do believe that he wouldn't be the same player he is now had he stayed in Detroit. Either that or KCP would either be gone, or his value diminished. But since you haven't touched on it, you don't seem to put a lot of stock into that angle.

Now obviously Knight + Middleton > Jennings. But I don't think its outlandish to view the Jennings trade as positive. Even more so if Jennings signs an extension.

Is it fair to bring the holding onto/getting rid of players you draft into account into how well you actually draft? To me the draft and who you get from it are its own seperate entity. Deciding who and who not to hold onto down the line is a different matter of talent evaluation. I don't know maybe thats just me though.

Joe signed Josh Smith to be the highest paid Piston at the time (an effect we're still feeling to this day thanks to the stretch)

That really trumps a LOT of the good he did. Though he did do some good, but it's like watching an old building on fire. You can definitely get rid of that rickety building in a more efficient matter, but you go about it in the worst way possible almost every time.

thesack12 wrote:

Snakebites wrote:

thesack12 wrote:
The return (Jennings) of said traded stock (Knight, Middleton) has increased in value also. That can't be discounted.

Also, as I alluded to earlier there would have been potential of Middleton and KCP getting in the way of each others development. Middleton might not be the player he is today had be stayed in Detroit.

What GM doesn't have draft misses on their resume?

Do you think Jennings has the same value Knight and Middleton do? If no, then you have to acknowledge the point made.

If yes, then we'll have to back away because our opinions are too different.

And sure, that's why I call Dumars "decent" at drafting, but still maintain that a pretty healthy chunk of that is negated by his failure to hold onto some of his hits. The most egregious examples of this are the ones you haven't addressed, though I do still think Knight and Middleton bare discussion here.

In a vacuum (read no achilles injury, which is entirely attributed to bad luck) it is my opinion that Jennings does carry more value than Knight. Especially if we are taking contracts into account. Now, Jennings being a free agent does cloud the contract factor somewhat.

As for Middleton, Ive said a couple times now that I do believe that he wouldn't be the same player he is now had he stayed in Detroit. Either that or KCP would either be gone, or his value diminished. But since you haven't touched on it, you don't seem to put a lot of stock into that angle.

Now obviously Knight + Middleton > Jennings. But I don't think its outlandish to view the Jennings trade as positive. Even more so if Jennings signs an extension.

Is it fair to bring the holding onto/getting rid of players you draft into account into how well you actually draft? To me the draft and who you get are its own seperate entity. Deciding who and who not to hold onto down the line is a different matter of talent evaluation. I don't maybe thats just me though.

We might not have KCP, but we'd have still had that pick, which may or may not have been used to pick someone of greater value.

We can play that "what if" game forever, and it really doesn't get your position anywhere in this argument.

The point is he gave up a lot of value for Jennings, more, I believe, than Jennings has been worth. Jennings was a pleasant surprise for a stretch of time last year and we're hoping he can get some of that magic as a backup now, in what may well be the last games as a Piston. How would the rest of last season played out if he hadn't been injured? Was that stretch of time more indicative than the solid season and a third where Jennings played very poorly? Another fruitless "what if" thought experiment and the truth of Jenning's value probably falls somewhere in between those two extremes. Value wise? That doesn't touch what Knight and Middleton bring, no matter which angle you look at it.

Drafting well doesn't matter at all if you don't keep and effectively develop your players. So no, I do not agree that it should be looked at as a separate entity. Everything must be evaluated together because everything is dependent on everything else.

thesack12 wrote:

Snakebites wrote: He also traded away Knight and Middleton. Whatever you may feel about Jennings now, that was too much value.

Not trying to chop down your points or diminish your words, but this is something that I wanted to address directly...

How much value did Middleton have at the time though? He was a 2nd round rookie who wasn't even part of Detroit's rotation til late in the season and the team was well out of the playoffs. From what I can remember at the time, he was considered a throw in by some. Credit to Hammond for recognizing the potential, but on that same token some semblance of credit should go to Dumars for plucking value out of the 2nd round.

Also wasn't the prevailing sentiment back then that Knight wasn't a "real PG?" But in the interest of fairness Jennings held that same label back then.

I can remember there was some of us more upset he was traded than Knight. Middleton had some late lottery hype the season before he was drafted but got slowed down because of a knee injury during the season.

Snakebites wrote:

thesack12 wrote:

Snakebites wrote:
Do you think Jennings has the same value Knight and Middleton do? If no, then you have to acknowledge the point made.

If yes, then we'll have to back away because our opinions are too different.

And sure, that's why I call Dumars "decent" at drafting, but still maintain that a pretty healthy chunk of that is negated by his failure to hold onto some of his hits. The most egregious examples of this are the ones you haven't addressed, though I do still think Knight and Middleton bare discussion here.

In a vacuum (read no achilles injury, which is entirely attributed to bad luck) it is my opinion that Jennings does carry more value than Knight. Especially if we are taking contracts into account. Now, Jennings being a free agent does cloud the contract factor somewhat.

As for Middleton, Ive said a couple times now that I do believe that he wouldn't be the same player he is now had he stayed in Detroit. Either that or KCP would either be gone, or his value diminished. But since you haven't touched on it, you don't seem to put a lot of stock into that angle.

Now obviously Knight + Middleton > Jennings. But I don't think its outlandish to view the Jennings trade as positive. Even more so if Jennings signs an extension.

Is it fair to bring the holding onto/getting rid of players you draft into account into how well you actually draft? To me the draft and who you get are its own seperate entity. Deciding who and who not to hold onto down the line is a different matter of talent evaluation. I don't maybe thats just me though.

We might not have KCP, but we'd have still had that pick, which may or may not have been used to pick someone of greater value.

We can play that "what if" game forever, and it really doesn't get your position anywhere in this argument.

The point is he gave up a lot of value for Jennings, more, I believe, than Jennings has been worth. Jennings was a pleasant surprise for a stretch of time last year and we're hoping he can get some of that magic as a backup now, in what may well be the last games as a Piston. How would the rest of last season played out if he hadn't been injured? Was that stretch of time more indicative than the solid season and a third where Jennings played very poorly? Another fruitless "what if" thought experiment and the truth of Jenning's value probably falls somewhere in between those two extremes. Value wise? That doesn't touch what Knight and Middleton bring, no matter which angle you look at it.

Drafting well doesn't matter at all if you don't keep and effectively develop your players. So no, I do not agree that it should be looked at as a separate entity. Everything must be evaluated together because everything is dependent on everything else.

This is why I love having SVG as a GM and coach. He gets to develop his own guys, It just seems a lot less complicating to do it this way.

7.5/10.

That is the rating I give Dumars' time.

1 championship (2 if Sheed doesn't leave Robert freaking Horry open) 2 finals, and six conference finals. That's an incredibly high standard and it'd be higher if his last years weren't chaotic.

His drafting was solid. Darko is a coulda woulda shoulda pick. Pistons had won 50 games at the time and Darko was a project. Only draft pick of his I regret was him trading Middleton. Afflalo is a good player to have if your team is already good. I never really missed. Amir Johnson, meh.

His coaching hired were short and not enough time. Larry Brown is understandable, same with Flip. And good coaches would've come. If Real Madrid can keep hiring guys, so can we.

His last years have been repeated ad nauseam. However we shouldn't forget the positive he gave us.


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I will be forever grateful for Dumars time as a player but as a GM, I think his time in the front office more than proved he was simply incapable and the success he had was due to luck. Nobody would have predicted Ben Wallace and Rip Hamilton to impact the Pistons the way they did. He had some nice second round picks but as others have mentioned this positive was more than negated by trading them too early. I don't even hold him accountable for Darko because what the ignorant don't understand is that 90% of teams had Darko pegged as #2. Many labelled him the European Wilt Chamberlain.


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I met him after the Cleveland Cavaliers game. I know his daughter. My friend is dating her. We didn't talk basketball, mostly politics. The guy is educated I can definitely say that. He has an open mind, doesn't let the media play with his opinions.

As far as how he did as a GM, he did a great job. He didn't draft Darko, that was Davidson. Mateen was his pick but he later learned from it and picked KCP over Burke which people went crazy over, including me. Joe actually drafted very well. He knows talent but didn't know how to fit the roster together. I give him lots of slack because for the majority of those years, his hands were tied because Davidson's wife wanted to sell the team. That was the biggest blow. Then the new owner pressures him into going into the Playoffs and makes a trade for Jennings and signs Smith after failing to get Iggy which he had no chance for. Smith was all he could get and swung for the fences. What does it matter? He knew it was all or nothing. Keep in mind the front office was probably 1/10th the size of what it is now. SVG has a very very big faculty working under him. So much scouting. Literally every player in the NBA is being scouted by our team in every game that player gets minutes.

To be honest I don't really care how he left the team and what the team went through because of his decisions. He gave us a championship and that's all that counts. We should've won more than one but these things happen.

I give him 10/10. He's the only Piston to be responsible for 3 championships and I appreciate him.