Playoffs or ping pong balls?

[BasedWiseman]

As for Joe D drafting well I disagree. Monroe and Drummond were the obvious picks and when he drafted Knight he had much better options like Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson, Kenneth Faried and even Kemba Walker.

That's a flat out lie.Knight was by far the best prospect on the board.Klay wasn't even on our radar,nobody wanted Kemba,only a few on this board wanted Kawhi (including myself) and Faried but many thought selecting either with a top 10 pick was a stretch.When Knight fell to us it was a no brainer,we had to take him.

Joe has drafted well,his signings and trades have left much to be desired though.

[Pharaoh]

Has Joe drafted well though?

People claim he's drafted well because we got Monroe, Knight and now Drummond but didn't Joe "merely" take the obvious choice every time?

It's not like there were obvious picks "better" than the 3 he chose. To claim otherwise is just plain silly

Do you credit Joe with making the obvious choice or do you shake your head and laugh at the fools who drafted before us in the last 3 Drafts?

Making the obvious choice does not deserve credit IMO.

It means we played it safe. It's cool to do that - seems we made a good "choice" in all 3 cases but the list of GMs that are screwed up is pretty small....

I wouldn't point to those 3 players as evidence Joe is doing a good job.

He did what most expected, what most would have done.

That doesn't mean he's smarter or better than anyone else. It just means he was smart enough not to **** it up

[BasedWiseman]

Has Joe drafted well though?

People claim he's drafted well because we got Monroe, Knight and now Drummond but didn't Joe "merely" take the obvious choice every time?

It's not like there were obvious picks "better" than the 3 he chose. To claim otherwise is just plain silly

Do you credit Joe with making the obvious choice or do you shake your head and laugh at the fools who drafted before us in the last 3 Drafts?

Making the obvious choice does not deserve credit IMO.

It means we played it safe. It's cool to do that - seems we made a good "choice" in all 3 cases but the list of GMs that are screwed up is pretty small....

I wouldn't point to those 3 players as evidence Joe is doing a good job.

He did what most expected, what most would have done.

That doesn't mean he's smarter or better than anyone else. It just means he was smart enough not to **** it up

It's easy to say Joe made the obvious picks,but why didn't the GM's of the other teams make those same obvious selections? It was obvious to see that GSW needed a big man in 2010,but they selected Udoh over Monroe which was idiotic. Cleveland needed also wanted a big man in 2011,but they selected Tristan Thompson over Jonas Valanciunas (a pick that people bashed immediately).Why didn't Toronto select Drummond last year instead of taking coin toss Ross? What the hell was Cle doing taking Waiters over Barnes and Drummond? I rather have a GM who makes the so called obvious selections instead of trying to outsmart the entire league like Chris Grant has attempted to do in Cle.I can see how ppl can bash Joe based on his signings/lack of trading but to say he isn't a good drafter based on the fact that he makes "obvious" picks is a bit silly because other GM's that are faced with the same obvious selections do not pull the trigger. Is he R.C Buford or Sam Presti? NO.But he's a lot better at drafting than ppl want to give him credit for.Being smart enough to not **** it up is a good trait to have.Go ask the Raptors forum if they would like a GM that had that ability.

[The Penguin]

It's easy to say Joe made the obvious picks,but why didn't the GM's of the other teams make those same obvious selections? It was obvious to see that GSW needed a big man in 2010,but they selected Udoh over Monroe which was idiotic. Cleveland needed also wanted a big man in 2011,but they selected Tristan Thompson over Jonas Valanciunas (a pick that people bashed immediately).Why didn't Toronto select Drummond last year instead of taking coin toss Ross? What the hell was Cle doing taking Waiters over Barnes and Drummond? I rather have a GM who makes the so called obvious selections instead of trying to outsmart the entire league like Chris Grant has attempted to do in Cle.I can see how ppl can bash Joe based on his signings/lack of trading but to say he isn't a good drafter based on the fact that he makes "obvious" picks is a bit silly because other GM's that are faced with the same obvious selections do not pull the trigger. Is he R.C Buford or Sam Presti? NO.But he's a lot better at drafting than ppl want to give him credit for.Being smart enough to not **** it up is a good trait to have.Go ask the Raptors forum if they would like a GM that had that ability.

I was just about to say how I would much rather have Monroe-Knight-Drummond than Wesley Johnson, Ekpe Udoh, Tristan Thompson, Jan Vesely, Biyombo, Dion Waiters or Terrance Ross.

[The Penguin]

2009- Joe blew the draft, taking Daye over Holiday (my pick at the time), Lawson, Jeff Teague, Eric Maynor, Darren Collison, Taj Gibson then coming back and taking DaJuan Summers over DeJuan Blair or Jeff Green and selling Chase Budinger while keeping Summers. (Joe also took Jerebko, perhaps a little high). Joe took 3 wings in Daye, Summers & Budinger and the best one was the guy he sold on draft night.

2008- the infamous DJ White and Walter Sharpe over DeAndre Jordan, Mario Chalmers, Omer Asik, Mbah a Moute, Dragic year.

2007- Stuckey & Afflalo- two good picks, two cases where he miss evaluated actual NBA guys. Think how much better off we'd be if we sold high on Stuckey and kept Afflalo.

2006- late 1st traded for Carlos Arroyo

2005- Maxiell at 26th, could have had David Lee, Monta Ellis or Gortot but adding a rotation piece that late, not bad.

2004- Pick traded for Rasheed, A+

2003- DARKO!!!!

2002- Tayshaun - good pick, some real garbage that year

2001- Rodney White - 9th overall, missed on Joe Johnson, Richard Jefferson, Zach Randolph, Gerald Wallace, Gil Arenas, Tony Parker. (Did take Okur in the 2nd). I think this draft gets forgotten about, but with the 9th pick there were at least 6 guys available who were all star/borderline all star level players. Think how much better the 2004 team would have been with one of these guys on a rookie deal.

And this is what people are saying he's done best....

[BasedWiseman]

It's easy to look at our draft history with 20/20 hindsight and say what Joe should've done.However,it's not really fair.For example the Austin Daye pick was a real head scratcher especially with Jrue sitting on the board.However to say Joe screwed up by passing on Eric Maynor and Taj Gibson (a pick everyone at the time lol'd at) is a little silly. Eric Maynor is horrible,Taj Gibson was looked at as a 2nd round prospect,Collison is nothing more than a run of the mill back up PG and nobody expected Lawson to be more than anything than a offensive spark off the bench. Joe had a bad run,but to say he hasn't turned it around with good pics recently is absurd.Look at the Phoenix Suns draft history.Things could be much worse.

--
Also I find it hilarious that people bash Brandon Knight but then list Jeff Teague as a good young PG.

[The Penguin]

It's easy to look at our draft history with 20/20 hindsight and say what Joe should've done.However,it's not really fair.For example the Austin Daye pick was a real head scratcher especially with Jrue sitting on the board.However to say Joe screwed up by passing on Eric Maynor and Taj Gibson (a pick everyone at the time lol'd at) is a little silly. Eric Maynor is horrible,Taj Gibson was looked at as a 2nd round prospect,Collison is nothing more than a run of the mill back up PG and nobody expected Lawson to be more than anything than a offensive spark off the bench. Joe had a bad run,but to say he hasn't turned it around with good pics recently is absurd.Look at the Phoenix Suns draft history.Things could be much worse.

--
Also I find it hilarious that people bash Brandon Knight but then list Jeff Teague as a good young PG.

I gave him credit where credit was due (Prince, Okur, Maxiell, Stuckey, Afflalo) but the simple fact that outside of the last 3 years (where consensus was all 3 guys we took) his "hits" have been 5th-6th guys at best. To use a lotto pick on guys who are little more than victory cigars is bad, to do it 3 out of 4 chances is something else.

[theBigLip]

When you look at playoff teams, how many of their starters and rotation players did they actually draft? I don't know for sure, but I'm sure the percent is not that high. Sure, you may get and keep a franchise player if you get a top 5 pick, but I think trades and free agency define a good GM. Let's face it - once you are a playoff team, your draft picks are not going to be that high anyway. So the real questions:

How well do you manage your cap space?
Do you get value spending your cap space on free agents?
Are you active in making trades and do they improve your team?

I don't think these questions shine a very good light on Dumars. He looked like a genius getting Sheed, and actually I don't think the Billups/Iverson trade was as bad as most. He did get us huge cap space between Sheeds and AI's expiring deals - he just f--ked it up by using it on CV and BG. But bottomline, he hasn't made a good trade and got a great free agent deal in forever.

[DetroitPistons]

I think the Thunder, Warriors, and Wolves are all teams that built through the draft. The Warriors is a great example of a team that finally broke through due to their draft picks developing and staying healthy. 4 of their 5 current starters are draft picks and 2 of them are rookies. I can see us having a similar rebuild.

[Spider156]

I'm a big Dumars supporter. Always have been. But my patience with him is wearing down. He needs to make a trade or else we won't go anywhere this season. I expect a trade before the deadline. If he doesn't make a trade, then I'll jump on the Fire Dumars Wagon. He's had way too much time to not do anything.

[Snakebites]

Honestly, before these last couple of years drafting was something everyone said Dumars was awful at.

I remember in the 2003-2006 range everyone was saying the opposite: Joe D is a wizard with trades and free agency, but man, keep him away from the draft boards.

He's got an extremely mixed record that I'd probably say is typical of the majority of GM's in the league with a few notable exceptions.

At this point honestly I'm starting to wonder if a little new blood in the FO isn't a decent idea. Dumars has either lost touch with what made this team successful or he was just extremely lucky before and is being revealed as an average excecutive who can't pull a team out of the cellar a second time.

[Kilo]

If we're going to replace Dumars - this off-season will be the one to do it. High lotto pick, a ton of cap space, a young team with solid foundation.

However for those reasons, I think Gores would take a **** in the media for screwing over Joe, who set-up all that.

But if Joe blows this off-season, we're likely screwed for a decade - spends money on CV/Gordon II, blows the draft pick, Frank back again (surely would be) means another sad sack year and Monroe looks to bolt. Then Ilitch's new downtown arena is built and steals all the Palace acts other than the Pistons - leaving Gores losing money on the Palace, so he gets cheap on the Pistons.

[Snakebites]

Honestly, I'm completely underwhelmed by the realistic free agent targets.

Unless you think we can somehow lure Dwight or CP3 away from LA using jedi mind tricks, I'm not sure what we expect.

[Cowology]

Yes, the team is terrible right now...but honestly the franchise is not in a terrible position. Obviously we have some glaring holes and some depth issues, but we have a really promising young frontcourt with Monroe/Drummond, And remember BK is only 21 years old. I don't think he'll ever be a top 5 pg or anything just because there are so many good young point guards in the league right now, but his game is nowhere near polished. By all accounts he's a work-a-holic, and while not a "pure" pg if he can eventually reduce his turnovers and learn how to actually run an offense/manage a game then we've got a pretty solid player at a competitive position. That is a very solid foundation.

We've also got a few other young players that may turn into decent rotation players, we're likely to have another early to mid Lotto pick and we are about to have a ton of cap room. Granted we'll have to manage our cap wisely in order to be able to resign our core trio, but if I were a GM looking for an opportunity to come put my stamp on a team there are all sorta of assets to either build or play with.

So yeah, we suck. A lot. It hurts to watch. But whether it was luck or skill I have to give Dumars some credit. He did a good job of cleaning up the mess he made and loading up with talent/assets. And I'd say the man deserves the opportunity to see what he can do with it. Wouldn't hesitate to pull the plug on him at the first sign of trouble though (ie another CV/BG type signing). Hopefully he's learned from his mistakes.

[qm22]

The odds of the Pistons making the playoffs were (predicted) ~0.2 while the odds of a high lotto pick were about 10 fold less (from Hollinger's team predictions). Whether that is highly accurate or not I think it is an unfortunate fact that the team has a far higher likelihood of making the playoffs than being in a good drafting position, but that the likelihood of playoffs are still low.

I'm still a big surprised by this. Milwaukee was close with us last season and I thought we had better prospects and we'd be in Milwaukee's position, solidly in the playoffs. However, after watching numerous games with preseason-like focus and organization (i.e., the very high amount of times we get a time violation during inbounding) I can accept being bad is a large part of the current group's nature.

[mercury]

Yes, the team is terrible right now...but honestly the franchise is not in a terrible position. Obviously we have some glaring holes and some depth issues, but we have a really promising young frontcourt with Monroe/Drummond, And remember BK is only 21 years old. I don't think he'll ever be a top 5 pg or anything just because there are so many good young point guards in the league right now, but his game is nowhere near polished. By all accounts he's a work-a-holic, and while not a "pure" pg if he can eventually reduce his turnovers and learn how to actually run an offense/manage a game then we've got a pretty solid player at a competitive position. That is a very solid foundation.

We've also got a few other young players that may turn into decent rotation players, we're likely to have another early to mid Lotto pick and we are about to have a ton of cap room. Granted we'll have to manage our cap wisely in order to be able to resign our core trio, but if I were a GM looking for an opportunity to come put my stamp on a team there are all sorta of assets to either build or play with.

So yeah, we suck. A lot. It hurts to watch. But whether it was luck or skill I have to give Dumars some credit. He did a good job of cleaning up the mess he made and loading up with talent/assets. And I'd say the man deserves the opportunity to see what he can do with it. Wouldn't hesitate to pull the plug on him at the first sign of trouble though (ie another CV/BG type signing). Hopefully he's learned from his mistakes.

Good Post Cow... this team is moving in a positive direction... just gotta see past this year.

[princeofpalace]

We are likely in a position where we dont make the playoffs and we dont get a lot of ping pong balls. I agree with Cows post that we are headed in the right direction. Hopefully with 1 more good lottery pick we will start trending upward.

[Pharaoh]

I agree it's easy to go back and look at each Draft with hindsight...

but let's look at some of them and use the info that was available at the time and see if Joe "drafted well"

2009- Holiday was the pick. It's really that simple. Not hindsight, not anything. Holiday was the guy.

2008- DeAndre Jordan was the pick. Again, not hindsight, based on what was known at the time.

2007- Stuckey & Afflalo - no mistakes here - just moronic to give up a young kid on a rookie contract because the $23 mil you had in cap space wasn't enough for you to sign a big man!

2006- late 1st traded for Carlos Arroyo...

2005- Maxiell... with the team we had (Ben, Sheed, Prince, Rip, Billups) taking a career role player was the dumbest possible move Joe could have done! Yes, he got a rotation player that in the Draft... but we were a quality team with the starters we had and Joe should have used that pick to swing for the fences. Monta Ellis was that pick. And even if you believe that Ellis wasn't on anyone's radar how did we pass on David Lee? Lee killed it at the Chicago pre-Draft camp... and wasn't a 6'5" PF! Big blown opportunity IMO

2004- Pick traded for Rasheed, A+ (actually traded 2 picks... one of which became Josh Smith!)

2003- Darko... WTF? Everyone thought he'd be great... everyone was wrong!

2002- Tayshaun - quality

2001- Rodney White was supposed to be the 2nd coming of Glenn Robinson.... a scorer who could kill it from everywhere... Joe Johnson or Richard Jefferson were the guys on the radar at the time... Joe picked the worst of the 3

But what's done is done... can't undo it.

[Gram]

I want McLemore or Porter, I think they'd help us a lot.