RealGM

Well it's boring around here so I thought Id add an interesting thread. Now the point of this thread is to remember some feelings you felt strong about during a certain time in Pistons recent history but Old Joe felt another way. Ill start
2009 NBA draft I wanted a Point guard with so many good ones like Rubio (at the time the next Nash) Flynn (great year at Syracuse) Jennings (ironic lol but he went overseas good hype) Curry (thought he was gonna be a good shooter not this superstar) Holiday (thought he had a shot at sliding to 15) Teague (who I wanted) Maynor (wow thought he was gonna be a solid player) Lawson and collison. Dumars broke my heart and selected Austin Freakin Daye.

2011 NBA draft again we needed a point guard and I had my eyes on Kemba Walker I knew he was going to be a good point in the NBA from his shooting and ball handling. Who I didn't want was jimmer and Brandon knight. I honestly just through jimmer was going to be a bust. Knight was more of a 2 guard and that's not what I wanted we needed a lead guard. Knight was drafted and again my heart fell into the abyss.

2014 NBA Draft- Now I know what you're thinking Dumars was no longer with us and we didn't even have a 1st rounder that year....exactly because Dumars decided that we trade our 1st round pick along with the bust of Ben Gordon in order to create cap space to sign Josh Smith when we already had two bigs who didn't fit well and he threw in a third one just to spite us. What makes this so bad for us is that all of the nice players that were selected after the 9th pick we could of had if Joe Dumars had just amnestied Ben Gordon instead of sacrificing our pick. Imagine nurkic or Lavine with this roster.

Finding faults with any GM is easy... the sum of the parts = winner

The Going to Work team showed that straight after Joe retired he KNEW who to get!

The longer it went it became obvious he was paralysed by fear of losing his grip.

Break his tenure into 2 parts and his success early more than makes up for his failures - we won a **** championship!

The closest Duimars ever came to a "broke my heart" moment when he traded Corliss to save a little cap space, from a championship team that was already gonna lose people due to circumstances beyond our control.

Wanted Lawson

Wanted Kemba

I'll take SJ over any of them players. Having the pick would of been nice, but I don't think we missed out on much. I also think that had to do with Gores not wanting to spend tho. He learned his lesson (hence spending for Smith to be gone)

Uncle Mxy wrote:The closest Duimars ever came to a "broke my heart" moment when he traded Corliss to save a little cap space, from a championship team that was already gonna lose people due to circumstances beyond our control.

That was due to ownership though. Like some other things Dumars has taken the blame for. No way he wanted to from a basketball perspective.

With a championship team, Dumars should've been able to win that battle with Davidson.
It was Dumars who misprojected the cap-ology, by all accounts.

No one was going to "win that battle" with Karen. The Pistons were Bill's thing, and once he was gone all she wanted to do was cash it in. All I have to say about it is Gores actually seems to care, so it all worked out in the end. I've never blamed Joe for what happened during that period.

He just put the team in no mans land. We needed to bottom out but he kept bringing in just enough vets to keep us from a top pick. We got lucky as hell Drummond dropped.

-When he traded Billups and he was great with Denver.
-When he didn't trade Greg Monroe after we drafted Drummond.
-when he traded our pick that ended up a lotto pick just for a salary dump.

hoophabit wrote:No one was going to "win that battle" with Karen. The Pistons were Bill's thing, and once he was gone all she wanted to do was cash it in. All I have to say about it is Gores actually seems to care, so it all worked out in the end. I've never blamed Joe for what happened during that period.

The Corliss trade was while Bill Davidson was around, right after we won in 2004. I'm ignoring the Karen madness.

Joe built a championship team in a league that was already favoring multiple stars on one team. Tried to strike gold twice rather then attempt to restock team. Many questionable moves, especially if you want to "monday morning QB" several years later.

In retrospective i am surprised Dumars didn't know Billups value. Its like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with Dumars. Getting Big Ben & Atkis for G.Hill, trading Stackhouse for RIP. Drafting Tay, Okur. Trading spare parts for Sheed, Billups for MLE, signing McDyess were all great moves early in his career.
On the other side Ben Gordon, Villanueva, RIPs extension and Josh Smith crippled this franchise for years. I also remember Dumars tried to sign Chris Webber and Tim Thomas to huge contracts.
In the end i think he got very lucky to construct the 04 championchip team. While he was good or at least above average at drafting, his judgement of free agents and his signings showed a lack of understanding things like character and fit which was very disappointing. Like every other mediocre GM he just tried to assemble the most talent (in his eyes) so its really a little miracle the 04 team came together as it did.

Joe Berry wrote:In retrospective i am surprised Dumars didn't know Billups value. Its like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with Dumars. Getting Big Ben & Atkis for G.Hill, trading Stackhouse for RIP. Drafting Tay, Okur. Trading spare parts for Sheed, Billups for MLE, signing McDyess were all great moves early in his career.
On the other side Ben Gordon, Villanueva, RIPs extension and Josh Smith crippled this franchise for years. I also remember Dumars tried to sign Chris Webber and Tim Thomas to huge contracts.
In the end i think he got very lucky to construct the 04 championchip team. While he was good or at least above average at drafting, his judgement of free agents and his signings showed a lack of understanding things like character and fit which was very disappointing. Like every other mediocre GM he just tried to assemble the most talent (in his eyes) so its really a little miracle the 04 team came together as it did.

he may have been decent at drafting but he wasnt great, he missed on a couple of picks, plus he never kept the talent that we found at the back of the draft(Affalo, Middleton, Delfino, etc.) he was terrible at finding parts for the system because he could never find a coach that was worth anything after Larry Brown.

Let's not hate on Joe D. His accomplishments as a player and a gm far outweigh what he did the latter half of his gm tenure. A case can be made that we wouldn't be where we are today without his blunders.

DCintheD wrote:Let's not hate on Joe D. His accomplishments as a player and a gm far outweigh what he did the latter half of his gm tenure. A case can be made that we wouldn't be where we are today without his blunders.

We would probably be in a lot better spot. He spent like 5 straight years picking in the back of the top 10. We should have had a couple top picks being as bad we were. But he always signed just enough talent to try and build a 8th seed that failed every year. Not to mention his stupid signings, One which we are still paying to just stay away. SVG has done a hell of a job cleaning up his mess in such a short amount of time though. I am thankful he got us Drummond who is like getting a top pick but that felt like a no brainier pick.

Joe Berry wrote:In retrospective i am surprised Dumars didn't know Billups value. Its like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with Dumars. Getting Big Ben & Atkis for G.Hill, trading Stackhouse for RIP. Drafting Tay, Okur. Trading spare parts for Sheed, Billups for MLE, signing McDyess were all great moves early in his career.
On the other side Ben Gordon, Villanueva, RIPs extension and Josh Smith crippled this franchise for years. I also remember Dumars tried to sign Chris Webber and Tim Thomas to huge contracts.
In the end i think he got very lucky to construct the 04 championchip team. While he was good or at least above average at drafting, his judgement of free agents and his signings showed a lack of understanding things like character and fit which was very disappointing. Like every other mediocre GM he just tried to assemble the most talent (in his eyes) so its really a little miracle the 04 team came together as it did.

Villanueva was the move that really made me question Joe. A lot of the stuff we have the benefit of hindsight, but even at the time, I knew signing Charlie to that contract was just a bad move.

That said, championships go a long way, and I'll always be thankful to Joe for building that team from '00 thru '04.

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MotownMadness wrote:

DCintheD wrote:Let's not hate on Joe D. His accomplishments as a player and a gm far outweigh what he did the latter half of his gm tenure. A case can be made that we wouldn't be where we are today without his blunders.

We would probably be in a lot better spot. He spent like 5 straight years picking in the back of the top 10. We should have had a couple top picks being as bad we were. But he always signed just enough talent to try and build a 8th seed that failed every year. Not to mention his stupid signings, One which we are still paying to just stay away. SVG has done a hell of a job cleaning up his mess in such a short amount of time though. I am thankful he got us Drummond who is like getting a top pick but that felt like a no brainier pick.

Seriously. The guy never learned how to fully bottom out, which is a disaster in a team that had a mismatch of characters and dead weight contracts.

Appreciate what he did as a player and getting a ring also as a GM, but really far outstayed his welcome.

It's a can't win situation for Joe. Draft Drummond and it's a no brainer, but apparently there were a few GMs with no brains? I didn't like letting Corliss go either, as I liked his game. That said, it wasn't wildly irrational. I guess "He who shall not be named" was the biggest ?, but was it that he was backed into a corner or just losing his edge? That FA deal is the lingering debacle that haunts the franchise to this day. I suppose I object to the "broke our hearts," as, for me, that would be an intentional abandonment of the franchise and I don't think Joe ever did that. How much was having his hands tied, and how much was losing his edge, I guess we'll never know, but I don't think he ever intentionally betrayed the franchise. I suppose it's just remembering him as the surprise great pick at #18 out of McNeese State who helped win two championships with his great all around play.

Incidentally, here's a comprehensive list of Pistons transactions, season-by-season.

http://www.nba.com/pistons/history/transactions_alltime.html/

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