Amazing comment from Deetroiter:
Oh please. Not one word about your own two MASSIVE MISTAKES that cost this team a playoff appearance. You shoved an injured PG back in to the starting rotation when he wasn't even close to fully healthy. Your team was 1 game over 500 after 21, thats 4 games over for the season, or it should have been. They had just won 4 of 5 and 3 straight road games in DOMINATING fasion including over the conference eventual number 1 seed and over the Hawks, another playoff team by almost 40 at one point in that second half. The team was high fiving, having a blast, hugging, laughing, they had finally found a winning recipe.
The very next day you shove an injured pg out there to start instead of giving him ten mpg off the bench until he was able to prove he was 100 percent, and that was the beginning of the fall. That was where it all started. That's where the team chemistry went to H E double toothpicks. Nothing was ever the same since.
You made a coaching mistake that was beneath high school level coaching. Then, your ego couldn't let you correct the mistake. No, you tried to sweep it under the rug and pretend it was something else. You began benching Tobias and starting Leuer, as if Tobias was the cause. EVERYONE knew what the cause was. Most fans knew in just a few games that you had made a huge error and many said it could destroy the season and that is exactly what happened.
Your second massive mistake was yet to come. You spouted off about how Baynes was a starter in this league, which was just laughable. He gets hurt, Boban comes in for four meaningful games and averages 10 and 10 in 16 mpg. The fans again said, "Hey, this guy can contribute" He was putting up 20 and 20 in 32 mpg average, that's more than our starting center and WAYYYYYY more than Baynes was putting out. But again, your ego couldn't take it after spouting that nonsense about Baynes, so nope, you wouldn't use Boban.
Now look at what Boban did at the end of the season. 27 in his first game, I know another he had 14 and 11 boards, and good numbers a couple other times. Anyone want to figure out what his averages are now adding these last few games he played at the end to the 10 and 10 average he put up when he got a chance to play earlier in the year?
The point is, Boban put out more production per minute than our starting center. And no one can show some kind of huge defensive drop off. Boban blocks shots, and he also alters shots and makes guys miss around the basket and that easily covers for the times his slow feet allow someone to go around him.
Earlier in the year he came in against the Pacers and Davis was destroying Baynes. I counted in the blog that Boban made Davis miss four of five shots when he came in just raising his hands up in front of him, Boban easily makes up for his slow feet and STILL offers more production per minute than even Drum and far more than Baynes, it isn't even close.
Now, I hope someone will add the last four games that Boban played in at the end and add those averages to his 10 and 10 from the other four he played in earlier, tell me the new average, then explain to me why he wasn't played for any other reason other than SVG refusing to show up Baynes after what he had said about him. Just give me a rational reason for his refusal to play him OTHER than protecting his ego. Show me poor production, show me some defensive drop off numbers that are his fault and show how he was a liability and could not have helped this team.
These two mistakes are WHY this team failed to make the playoffs. Take that team that had won the 4 in 5 and had just pounded Charlotte, Boston and Atlanta on the road, add Boban to it the rest of the year and THAT TEAM makes the post season!!
So come off of it SVG, it was your mistakes that cost this team a trip to the playoffs.
http://www.mlive.com/pistons/index.ssf/2017/04/pistons_losing_season_not_a_fi.html#incart_river_index