Are we being completely fair to Gores?

[Laimbeer]

You cannot deny Gores was willing to spend a ton on Monty and then stand by as he was fired after one season.

I don't care if he gets high or drunk. He doesn't know basketball, but seems to leave it to people he hires. The very large elephant in the room is some of the guys he hired at the top to run the show being busts to date.

But I don't think you can ignore the fact he seems willing to spend money. And that would indicate he at least gives a damn.

[Drwho17]

Well, as one of the beat writers said, this could also be a bad sign, Gores went over the head of the new GM and fired Williams, the beat writer still says there are multiple factions in the front office, Arn Tellem who has been a big wheel in the FO since 2015 should also have been kicked to the curb to cleanse the FO.

[Kalamazoo317]

Gores is constantly spoken of in terms of "at least he spends money." But it's a results business and the results have been terrible. It's completely fair to point that out.

[mike06181]

So he is a less cheap WCF

[flow]

No, not at all. He's closer to being a good owner than a bad one.

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[Sheeeeed]

Well, as one of the beat writers said, this could also be a bad sign, Gores went over the head of the new GM and fired Williams, the beat writer still says there are multiple factions in the front office, Arn Tellem who has been a big wheel in the FO since 2015 should also have been kicked to the curb to cleanse the FO.

That's not what happened tho. People are running with what Goodwill and Woj are saying. Local beat writers are saying Langdon was involved with the decision. Woj clearly is pushing an agenda on Monty’s behalf since they have the same agent. The national media seems to be pushing this narrative that Monty is a good man, and lucky to be out of Detroit, while ignoring the players hated playing for him. Only national writer I've seen alluded to this is Shams.

It's obvious there was discussion going back and forth about keeping Monty, otherwise we'd have the press conference alot earlier. It's no coincidence the press conference was set after Monty was fired.

[Billl]

Ultimately, he's responsible for bringing in the basketball minds to run the day to day of the organization. He's been an absolute massive flop in that department. The fact that he's willing to spend money is proof that he's TRYING, not that he's actually any good at being an owner though. I mean, I'm not sure it's any better if we have an owner that tries really hard but is still putting out an objectively awful product than if we had an owner who didn't care and was putting out an objectively awful product. In the end, it's the results that matter, not his personal feelings about it.

[Mr Peanut]

At the end of the day he's owned the team since 2011 and we've made the playoffs twice in that span and been swept both times. We quite comfortably have the lowest winning percentage over that timeframe too.

It's a good sign that he's willing to spend, but he's also made poor decisions with both his GM/coaching hires and has a history of excessive meddling which is especially concerning given that he doesn't have a basketball background.

This is a proud franchise and Pistons fans just want a winning product, and in 13 years he has been unable to achieve that. If you polled fans around the league who the most dysfunctional franchise currently is we would almost certainly be at the top of that list. And that's on Gores.

[LaSheed]

Yeah great he's trying. Let the people you hire do their jobs. Hire the right people first. Firing guys year after year and not allowing them the power to actually do their jobs creates the culture we now have.

[flow]

Yeah great he's trying. Let the people you hire do their jobs. Hire the right people first. Firing guys year after year and not allowing them the power to actually do their jobs creates the culture we now have.

Which firing upsets you?

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[LaSheed]

Yeah great he's trying. Let the people you hire do their jobs. Hire the right people first. Firing guys year after year and not allowing them the power to actually do their jobs creates the culture we now have.

Which firing upsets you?

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None. Good riddance to all. Just hire the right people. Easier said than done I understand.

[Rip32]

You cannot deny Gores was willing to spend a ton on Monty and then stand by as he was fired after one season.

I don't care if he gets high or drunk. He doesn't know basketball, but seems to leave it to people he hires. The very large elephant in the room is some of the guys he hired at the top to run the show being busts to date.

But I don't think you can ignore the fact he seems willing to spend money. And that would indicate he at least gives a damn.

The word is out Gores is a bad human being. It doesn't matter how much money he's willing to spend. The nba is a brotherhood especially amongst the players. They know about the alleging gouging by prison telecom firm Gores own. What race groups are primarily incarcerated, black and brown? This situation can't be repaired. He is a liar and some consider him a snake. Honestly, the team will never win as long as he owns the team. He can hire 4 Trajon Langdons, IT WON'T MATTER!!! What he did was a tough pill to swallow.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-20/tom-gores-s-prison-investment-drags-nba-into-controversy

[Snakebites]

1) No issue with the firings at the end of the day. I could quibble about the way the Monty one went down but they needed to happen. Both Monty and Troy will be fine- not that we need to care.

2) I don’t particularly worry about any supposed drug use and don’t think you need to know the sport to be a good owner. You have to trust the right people. That said…

3) He hasn’t. I hope Langdon is the right guy. Troy and SVG both have their strengths but shouldn’t have been running this team. They were the wrong people. The through line is Tellem, who’s also the wrong guy.

4) A good owner opens the check book, trusts the right people, and keeps his hands out of the day to day work. He’s one out of three.

5) Outside the court I don’t like him. Rip32 has why. I don’t personally like how he makes his money. I doubt I’d like how most of these owners/governors made their billions. If you don’t want to root for a team with an ethically dubious owner behind them that’s a short list. Billionaires don’t get to be billionaires by building kindergartens and animal shelters.

If Gores wants less criticism it’s not complicated. WIN.

[DBC10]

Yeah great he's trying. Let the people you hire do their jobs. Hire the right people first. Firing guys year after year and not allowing them the power to actually do their jobs creates the culture we now have.

And to add on to the point, Gores should absolutely catch flack for this entire coaching fiasco. You don't get a pat on the back for hiring a buffoon who had no desire to coach let alone be in the city with an ailing wife at home and then firing him a year after

Like great, you just wasted $65 million out of your own pocket but we need to be fair as fans? What the hell does that even mean? How about actually hiring the right people, at the right place, and right time the first time?

That ish should be called out and ridiculed not overanalyzed, and debated as if we're somehow the problem. Let's not mess with Stockholm's syndrome with Gores. Just make fun/critical of the fool and move on, it's not hard

[JennetteMcCurdy]

Gores is the worst owner in the NBA, if not all of sports. The fact that he hired Billy King, who might be the worst GM in history, to find Langdon says it all.

[MrBigShot]

We have been atrocious in his tenure, largely because he just hasn't done a good job of hiring people. He is willing to spend which is nice at least, only thing worse than being a bad owner is being a bad owner who is cheap.

[Uncle Mxy]

This is a simple, solvable problem. I'll be fair to Gores once we win another championship. <holds breath>

[Crymson]

Gores is enthusiastic about the team, has genuinely invested himself in its success, and is willing to spend toward the end of making that success happen. Those are positive qualities.

Unfortunately, he's also been inept across the entirety of his tenure to a degree that could be reasonably described as comical. He has consistently hired the wrong people. He has wasted years by pushing foolish directives. He has persistently made shortsighted, amateurish, and altogether unwise decisions. He has constantly meddled where he should not have, and his meddling has invariably been very costly. Come the start of the ongoing rebuild, there were encouraging signs that he was going to finally keep his hands out of things. He ultimately couldn't resist interfering yet again, this time by means of a headlong lunge at the perceived shortcut that was Monty Williams, and the result was yet another mess. It's just plain and simple cartoonish incompetence. He's been terrible for this organization.

I hope this is the point at which he has finally hired the right professionals and will finally, truly, stay out of their way, but I'll believe it when I see it.

You cannot deny Gores was willing to spend a ton on Monty and then stand by as he was fired after one season.

Monty was a disaster of Tom's own making. While I consider it mildly admirable that he took responsibility for it, he did nothing more than fix his own foolish and very avoidable error. And from a strictly financial standpoint, continuing to employ Monty may well have cost him more in the long term than the price of bringing in a new head coach.