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Stan Van Gundy robbed the Pistons of Donovan Mithcell, Devin Booker, and now Michael Porter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_NBA_draft

https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/warriors/clippers-trade-blake-griffin-pistons-three-players-two-picks#:~:text=The%20Clippers%20and%20Pistons%20have,pick%2C%20league%20sources%20tell%20ESPN.

S m h

SVG & Gores playoff or bust mandate robbed us.

When we dumped Josh Smith I actually thought we were heading towards a full rebuild.

But it never happened. We made short sighted moves, overpaid vet free agents, drafted poorly, developed poorly...did everything poorly

Find it difficult to pin it all on SVG.

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Pharaoh wrote:When we dumped Josh Smith I actually thought we were heading towards a full rebuild.

But it never happened. We made short sighted moves, overpaid vet free agents, drafted poorly, developed poorly...did everything poorly

We weren't going to do a full rebuild. It was always a rebuild around Drummond. SVG came onboard to do just that, and he did so. It was a bad rebuild, but it was a rebuild.

Part of the badness of the Blake move was that we never successfully leveraged it to get butts in seats. You've got a funny guy who hangs out in Hollywood and reality TV circles, playing at an All-Star level toward the playoffs, and you don't move the needle on the attendance or ratings? Really? Bobi and Tobi got more marketing mileage, I bet.

What kills me is we basically could have had one or both of Booker/Mitchell AND including Porter along for the ride and we'd be better shape than 95% of the bottom feeder teams right about now.

Both Booker and Mitchell look ready to lead a playoff win.

It’s kind of maddening. Booker and Mitchell on the wings. 12th overall in 2018. Plus the sixers traded boban and tobias to philly for back to back 1sts, Landry shamet( decent 3 and d), and Wilson chandler.

We’d be the next big thing by now.

It looks worse then darko over melo

Pharaoh wrote:SVG & Gores playoff or bust mandate robbed us.

When we dumped Josh Smith I actually thought we were heading towards a full rebuild.

Find it difficult to pin it all on SVG.

Fun fact: the Pistons could've avoided buying out Smith, because the Kings (thanks to their own idiot owner) wanted to trade for him in SVG's first offseason. But SVG the moron thought that one of the league's worst contracts belonged to a positive asset, so he kept Smith, made him the center of the offense, and alienated Monroe on the way to a 5-23 start to the season. By December, even Ranadive had realized that Smith was absolutely terrible, and so absolutely nobody was interested. And so the Pistons ended up paying Smith for the next five seasons. SVG used most of the cap saved from the stretch buyout to sign Leuer and Boban.

This is to say that SVG sucked as GM from the beginning. Bower (who handled the in-season stuff) did well in trades, many of which were serendipitously delivered into the Pistons' lap, but SVG nonetheless managed to construct a team centered around an inadequate big man, led by a mid-tier point guard, populated with nothing like enough shooting or creation, and devoid of any promising talent for the future. Then came the Griffin trade, which was the worst decision of them all.

He was completely incompetent. I could not understand why people did not perceive this before he was fired. It should be no news at all to anyone in hindsight. I'm also completely at a loss as to why some folks still insist he was a decent coach. He was terrible in that role also.

Uncle Mxy wrote:Part of the badness of the Blake move was that we never successfully leveraged it to get butts in seats. You've got a funny guy who hangs out in Hollywood and reality TV circles, playing at an All-Star level toward the playoffs, and you don't move the needle on the attendance or ratings? Really? Bobi and Tobi got more marketing mileage, I bet.

Exactly how are you going to get butts in seats for a team that sucks? Fans left because the Pistons were a bad, dreadfully mismanaged team over an extended period. Hype over the Griffin trade, stupid as it was for the team, brought the fans back for a little while, but then it became quickly apparent that the Pistons were still awful.

The presence of Blake Griffin isn't enough to bring disgruntled fans flooding back into the arena, especially after he ended up as just one more disappointment in a line of many disappointments after it became clear that even the big-name superstar wasn't going to make the team not suck.

Svg, at the time, was viewed as a decent coach partially because of some of the really bad examples that preceded him. Hi john kuester.

Josh smith never really made sense. Even before floor spacing became as important/recognized as it is, it never made sense to have a front court of smith Monroe and Drummond.

Never felt like svg deserved/earned being hired as a head coach/gm.

Just glad it’s over and he never reached isiah thomas running the Knicks level incompetence

Crymson wrote:Hype over the Griffin trade, stupid as it was for the team, brought the fans back for a little while

It did? Could've fooled me.

Uncle Mxy wrote:

Crymson wrote:Hype over the Griffin trade, stupid as it was for the team, brought the fans back for a little while

It did? Could've fooled me.

The Griffin trade created some buzz but not enough for casual fans to go out and buy tickets. The buzz wore off quickly once the Pistons were still mediocre.

Uncle Mxy wrote:

Crymson wrote:Hype over the Griffin trade, stupid as it was for the team, brought the fans back for a little while

It did? Could've fooled me.

Attendance increased for a couple of weeks after the trade, the consequence of the acquisition of a big name plus a string of home games against exhausted opposition which made it appear that the team had actually improved as a result. In reality, the Pistons were probably playing the easiest stretch of schedule enjoyed by any team in the league over the course of that season, and the continued feebleness of the team became rapidly apparent once it began facing opponents on equal terms.

Shai gilgeous would have been nice as well.

Pistons fans love talking about tanking but they had opportunities to draft a young star in the 7-14 range MULTIPLE TIMES.

And no im not talking about the paul george, kawhi, or giannis picks. Im talking about picks where a star went 1-3 picks after Detroit's selection:

Kemba Walker
Cj mccollum
Booker
Mitchell

These arent guys no one was talking about, these were all known to be options on Detroits board and they got it wrong everytime. Bookers favorite player is rip hamilton and pistons were his fav team. Mitchell thought it was a lock Detroit was going to draft him. For all the talk about not attracting free agents, you have a player who could have been a lifer here. This org has had zero respect for the draft process for so long its no wonder why Detroit has one of the tougher rebuilds in pro basketball.

The positive about weaver is hes been in the drafting game for many years with no breaks. Bower/SVG and stefanski were out of the league for many years before they returned and that reflected in some of the horrible draft decisions they made. I hope weaver knows drafting well for this franchise is a non negotiable if they ever want to win

I think we have picked to “safe” all the time. I believe you go full rebuild you are more likely to take a chance on a risk pick. Also there is no denying that we have made some bad choices.

Mitchell and booker are two great examples of guys that we absolutely should have taken.

I still want a full rebuild because of the hiring of weaver and the fact that we really haven’t done anything close to that since grant hill left

chrbal wrote:I think we have picked to “safe” all the time. I believe you go full rebuild you are more likely to take a chance on a risk pick. Also there is no denying that we have made some bad choices.

Mitchell and booker are two great examples of guys that we absolutely should have taken.

I still want a full rebuild because of the hiring of weaver and the fact that we really haven’t done anything close to that since grant hill left

This is it right here. When you're a treadmill team gunning for the 8th seed or bust mandate, under that modus operandi, you can't afford to wait 3 to 5 years for a raw draft prospect to grow in that system. It's almost always going to swing for the positional needs which is why the SJ's, Ellensons, and Kennards happened. SVG was never coming here to uphold the long term view, it was always going to be "Build around Dre" at whatever the cost but don't kill our future too much since he never traded away 1st round picks besides the Griffin trade. and SVG did just that.

DBC10 wrote:

chrbal wrote:I think we have picked to “safe” all the time. I believe you go full rebuild you are more likely to take a chance on a risk pick. Also there is no denying that we have made some bad choices.

Mitchell and booker are two great examples of guys that we absolutely should have taken.

I still want a full rebuild because of the hiring of weaver and the fact that we really haven’t done anything close to that since grant hill left

This is it right here. When you're a treadmill team gunning for the 8th seed or bust mandate, under that modus operandi, you can't afford to wait 3 to 5 years for a raw draft prospect to grow in that system. It's almost always going to swing for the positional needs which is why the SJ's, Ellensons, and Kennards happened. SVG was never coming here to uphold the long term view, it was always going to be "Build around Dre" at whatever the cost but don't kill our future too much since he never traded away 1st round picks besides the Griffin trade. and SVG did just that.

You cant discuss building around dre and then draft 2/3 players that cant shoot. If dre was the focus in drafting then booker was the obvious player to draft. Im not going to say i was aboard the book train though but its clear they drafted kennard to make up for not drafting a shooter the year before.

That front office seemed to have zero vision and why a coach should never be the president of basketball ops at the same time. He ruined his own team.

The_Irony wrote:You cant discuss building around dre and then draft 2/3 players that cant shoot. If dre was the focus in drafting then booker was the obvious player to draft. Im not going to say i was aboard the book train though but its clear they drafted kennard to make up for not drafting a shooter the year before.

That front office seemed to have zero vision and why a coach should never be the president of basketball ops at the same time. He ruined his own team.

The idea that a successful team could be built around Drummond was tragically misguided from the outset.

Booker and Kennard were two years apart. 2016 was Ellenson. Beasley and LeVert, who were taken directly after Henry, were excellent shooters in college. Ellenson shot 29%. There was no rhyme or reason there. It was a bad decision made by an incompetent executive.

SVG was ruinously unqualified for both of his roles.

chrbal wrote:Mitchell and booker are two great examples of guys that we absolutely should have taken.

And that's not hindsight either. There were a WHOLE lot of people on this board who wanted both of those guys. If a bunch of yahoos on an internet forum just happen to want a couple of guys who just happen to turn out to be pretty damn good NBA players while the front office picks turn out to be garbage, what does that say about the front office?

But I learned that about executive management a long time ago. Early in my career (automotive) I thought that the guys at the top had to be the brightest, smartest, and best at their job. Wrong. In most cases you'll find that they're no smarter or more talented than the rest of us--they went to the right school, or knew the right people, or were in the right place at the right time and hung on long enough (i.e. didn't do anything bad enough to get fired from the industry forever) to become EXPERIENCED. And that's why you see the same old retreads in sports as coaches and GM's continue to get hired when you wonder what in the hell they did to deserve it. Other industries are no different; it's a good ol' boys club across the board.

In the Stanley Johnson draft, most of the fans were on board, but I think Winslow was who people wanted, Booker wasn't even in the conversation really. In the Kennard draft, I think most of the fans on boards and such wanted Mitchell. The Ellenson draft, people were very happy at the time, because he was projected to be a top 10 pick in most mocks and had produced well in his 1 year in College, let us not forget Ellenson was a 5-star recruit and top10 player in his class.

Deyonta Davis-MSU. When the ellenson draft starting playing out the way it did, I thought for sure we were getting Davis. And by the time we picked Henry I’m pretty sure it was just blind guessing by that point

The problem with many of gundys drafts was that there were guys still on the board that made more sense around Drummond, but they were risky.

chrbal wrote:Deyonta Davis-MSU. When the ellenson draft starting playing out the way it did, I thought for sure we were getting Davis. And by the time we picked Henry I’m pretty sure it was just blind guessing by that point

The problem with many of gundys drafts was that there were guys still on the board that made more sense around Drummond, but they were risky.

There was never any realistic likelihood of building a truly successful team around Drummond. That plan was nothing more than one of SVG's many mistakes. The fact that he made it his plan didn't mean that it was plausible. He was simply incompetent enough to believe that it would work.

Oh believe me I agree. You could build a team where Drummond was a key piece, but not the centerpiece.

I mean even with Drummonds flaws a lineup featuring ; mitchell, Booker, Drummond, and let’s say Michael Porter jr would have been insane