Names that have been mentioned as possible candidates to be the new head coach of the Detroit Pistons include Jeff Van Gundy, former coach of the New York Knicks and Houston Rockets.
Based on Van Gundy's comments this week to host Chris Russo on SiriusXM's "Mad Dog Radio" program, that's probably not going to happen.
Without mentioning Joe Dumars by name, Van Gundy blamed Detroit's president of basketball operations – and not Lawrence Frank, who was fired Thursday after two seasons – for the Pistons' failure in the past few years.
Here's what Van Gundy had to say when asked about the recent NBA coaching changes that included Doug Collins resigning in Philadelphia and Byron Scott getting fired in Cleveland.
"Detroit Pistons basketball slogan: When the going gets tough, we fire the coach," Van Gundy said. "It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. You know what surprises me, Chris? These new owners in Detroit have to be exceedingly bright to have made as much money as they have. And to be duped again that your G.M. tells you that the roster is good and the coach is bad ... what was the problem with Michael Curry? What was John Kuester? Now Lawrence. They run through coaches and they haven't even begun to address their problem. They have very little talent and very little basketball character. You combine that, you're going to be in a long rebuild.
"I'm just surprised that when everybody acknowledges it's a player's league – everybody would agree with that – then the most important player or person in any organization is the person that picks the players. But we don't, as organizations, examine them. We just take the easy way out time and time again. You lose, the G.M. convinces the owner 'We got good players. It's the coach's fault.' We fire the coach; we bring a new coach in; we continue to lose. We fire that coach, saying that 'We have better players.' It just goes on and on. It's typical and I can't believe that the Detroit owners fell for it. I just can't believe it."
http://www.mlive.com/pistons/index.ssf/ ... _duma.html
No matter if you think JVG is right or not, i think Dumars is a mayor disadvantage right now when you want to hire the best coaches available. I now can understand why some coaches dont even want to interview for this job. Every smart coach knows he will get blamed rather sooner than later for the GMs failures. Why would a good coach come here? Only because we have 2 good big man going forward? Gores will have to pay a lot of money to lure a good established coach to the Pistons.
