Dumars expected to resign as Pistons GM

[The Penguin]

Whether or not Rip was declining doesn't matter, the issue was he didn't fit. He especially didn't fit when we turned around and gave another $50 million to a guy in Ben Gordon didn't have any business being on the court at the same time as Rip.

It's obvious now Joe's plan for the last half decade or more has been "throw a bunch of stuff up and see if any of it sticks" First he made the AI play for a big name/cap room, next he overloaded the team with combo guards/wings that didn't compliment each other, then he went the other way and loaded up on bigs.

Since 2008 he's given out nearly $300 million in contracts to Smith, Jennings, Prince, Rip, Gordon, Maxiell, Jerebko, Villanueva and Stuckey. None of those guys have "2nd best guy on a title winner" ceiling. Those moves don't say "I've got a plan" they say "I'm going to reward loyal soldiers and try to do enough distracting things to stay employed."

Good riddance

Just curious, how did Rip not fit?

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Age, no pg to set him up, no one to stretch the floor after Chauncey left, then later adding Ben Gordon on a bigger contract

[E-Z]

Boozer would have been as equally as bad of a signing as CV/BG.

His moves prior to the signings were a bigger screw up. Trading AA and Amir Johnson for peanuts was probably the most annoying transactions of his tenure. Followed up by the Hamilton and Prince extensions...just awful.

Boozer was entering his prime and would have been a great acquisition

The AA deal pissed me off then simply because we had nothing really up front and $18 mil in space...yet we signed CV & BG then dealt AA to have enough space to sign Wilcox!

We had $18 mil! With Prince, Rip, Stuckey and AA on board. A (Please Use More Appropriate Word) chimp knew we should spend the money on a legit big...and Joe didn't!

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Boozer's durability was a large question mark leading into the off-season. Hindsight distorts what was reality then. This is what's largely going on now. Boozer is a one-dimensional player. Chicago tends to hide him during crunch time because of his liability on that end of the floor. I would have not been fond of him being on the Pistons.

His health and below average defense was enough of a red flag to alert Detroit's FO, but the signing of BG & CV was virtually the same mistake. Anyways, Dumars' philosophy of rebuilding and competing was complete waste of time. It just meant almost a decade of mediocrity. Detroit should either build from the ground up or actually try to deal for real superstars. Not settling for what's in the middle.

If Joe was handcuffed financially, he should have just tore the house down. Last season was about as close as this team got to actually building a young core, and Dumars screwed it up. This was further compounded by Gores' whole "win now" attitude. It's toxic.

[Alexander]

I remember coveting some combination of Boozer, Lee, and Millsap. I'm okay with not getting any of them, but the alternative wasn't great either.

[tradez401]

i'm still mad at dumars for not taking kemba walker in the 2011 draft...we wouldnt have to put up with knight "not getting it" or traded for jennings inconsistency

[Snakebites]

I hate when people make the point that he could have not resigned Rip and still got cap space when Rip still had a year left on his deal. Also there's the fact the extension was agreed upon before Chauncey was traded. As well as the Maxiell deal, that was before the trade. Can these things never be brought up again as alternatives when they truthfully are not?

Also, the Rip extension being "one of the worst contracts" hyperbole has to stop. Rip had just finished dragging the rest of his teammates to the ECF with Chauncey being hurt, Rasheed not caring, Tayshaun being a b***h and Stuckey being green. Look at what Rip did in the ECF in contrast to his teammates, and tell me if that doesn't warrant $11 million/year. For reference, that's Tyreke Evans money. Keep in mind he was showing no signs of slowing down.

Let's not let the way things ended with him cloud just what he was producing and what type of money that production warranted.

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1) The order is irrelevant. He had a bad plan that lead us to ruin, and doing things differently (IE, not giving Rip an extension I still have nightmares about) and not making the Iverson trade would have had better results. That the Rip extension came first is no defense of him unless we're taking the position that all moves should be made in a vaccum with no thought to the big picture or long term planning of the situation. Ditto to the Maxiell deal. The order of the deals does not prevent us from looking at the cumulative effect of those deals as a whole when compared to an alternative plan of action.

2) Rip was one of the worst contracts ever. This isn't a hyperbole, its a demonstrable fact. He was effective because he was paired with a competent point guard. We gave him massive money in his declining years because we were convinced an entirely off the ball player would remain effective under a complete change in the system (both coaching and in terms of who was actually running the offense). We further made things worse by hiring coaches with no concept of how an offense works. Rip was a solid system player who became extremely effective in the clearly established dynamic. Giving him massive money will simultaneously handing the reigns to the 15th pick in the draft who we for some reason thought was going to develop into a franchise point guard was a bad decision no matter how you slice it.

So yes, I feel perfectly fine with leveling these types of criticisms. Your defense lacks proper foundation.

We'll just agree to disagree. Rip had just murdered Boston in the ECF and all of a sudden he was declining? Even in the chaotic 08-09 season when he was jerked around, he still had a good season. No signs of decline there. Starting off 2009-10 he had an excellent game against Memphis, was playing garbage time in a blowout for some strange reason, and broke his ankle landing on someone else. THAT is what led to Rip's falloff. Calling it the worst contract ever means absolutely nothing without context. If you think he's in Arenas/Rashard category, then ummm.....

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You need to take another serious look if you think Rip wasn't declining in 2008-2009 season. His dropoff from 07/08 to 08/09 was just as severe as his dropoff from 08/09 to 09/10. I don't even think that's up for debate.

Not that that's relevant. The signing occurred before the decline was fully evident, but it was still an absurd contract to give a system player when you're taking away what made him effective in that system. That we then proceeded to give another 11 mill/year to a shooting guard who couldn't play other positions only made things even worse. We had 22 mill per year invested in shooting guards and I still found myself wanting an upgrade at the 2.

It baffles me that we essentially chose Rip over Billups and Gordon/CV over Afflalo/Amir/Financial flexibility.

Oh, and Tyreke Evans was an absurd deal too.

[ImHeisenberg]

You need to take another serious look if you think Rip wasn't declining in 2008-2009 season. His dropoff from 07/08 to 08/09 was just as severe as his dropoff from 08/09 to 09/10. I don't even think that's up for debate.

Not that that's relevant. The signing occurred before the decline was fully evident, but it was still an absurd contract to give a system player when you're taking away what made him effective in that system. That we then proceeded to give another 11 mill/year to a shooting guard who couldn't play other positions only made things even worse. We had 22 mill per year invested in shooting guards and I still found myself wanting an upgrade at the 2.

It baffles me that we essentially chose Rip over Billups and Gordon/CV over Afflalo/Amir/Financial flexibility.

Oh, and Tyreke Evans was an absurd deal too.

Good points here, Snakebites. I'd also like to point out that it isn't a reasonable defense to say that "you're only criticizing Joe in hindsight", as a GM you have to have foresight and have a plan. The contracts Dumars has given out since the Rip extension have been deplorable at best. Seriously, the only good contract I've seen him put together is Kyle Singler's rookie deal.

Additionally, saying "11 million is Tyreke Evans money" is far fetched. Do you honestly believe New Orleans is happy with that contract? It was a terrible deal. But, at least they were bidding on a restricted free agent, whom they had to overpay. Dumars, in a classic move, was bidding against himself and overpaid for Rip.

[mercury]

From Mlive:
"The embattled Dumars is widely speculated to be on his way out after his contract expires this year.

Whether there is a front-office overhaul or not, Gores said it not a decision that will be allowed to fester.

"Yeah, after the season, we're going to address it right away," he said. "We have to. We have to let the season play out, then we've got to get it done."

[Snakebites]

Translation: He'll resign the day after the last game and the coach and GM search will begin the day after the season is over.

Loyer doesn't need to be fired. They will announce they do not intend to bring him back and that's that.

[Invictus88]

Translation: He'll resign the day after the last game and the coach and GM search will begin the day after the season is over.

Loyer doesn't need to be fired. They will announce they do not intend to bring him back and that's that.

Yup. This might as well be final confirmation that JoeD is a lame duck GM (as if anyone really needed it).

[Kilo]

New GM search hopefully has already begun - at least the background and first draft list of possibilities. We need to hire a GM ASAP especially if we tank good enough to keep our pick.

[WC NBA Fan]

Any chance that Gores would sell to Mike Ilitch? When the Pistons were originally up for sale, it looked like Ilitch was going to get the team but he declined at the last second due to miscalculating Piston finances. I know that he's 84 but his heirs know business and sports well so it would be nice to see a known winner take over the team.

Also, he's close to breaking ground on a new downtown arena. With just about every other team in the league playing downtown, he'd be joining the club. The Pistons are the only team in the suburbs while the Sixers, Bulls, Spurs, Warriors and Kings play outside downtown but within the city limits. The Kings and Warriors are currently building downtown arenas so that will make just 3 teams outside downtown. Not to mention that the Wings, Tigers and Lions all play downtown as well. The Pistons would be joining the rest of the city teams as well as the rest of the NBA.

Back to basketball, I'm worried about how much I see Isaiah Thomas hanging out at Piston road games with good seats. I'm wondering if Gores has been talking to him. It would be nice to bring back a Piston great but his Knick resume has me a bit scared. I'd prefer someone like Glen Grunwald or Geoff Petrie.

[MotownMadness]

Any chance that Gores would sell to Mike Ilitch? When the Pistons were originally up for sale, it looked like Ilitch was going to get the team but he declined at the last second due to miscalculating Piston finances. I know that he's 84 but his heirs know business and sports well so it would be nice to see a known winner take over the team.

Also, he's close to breaking ground on a new downtown arena. With just about every other team in the league playing downtown, he'd be joining the club. The Pistons are the only team in the suburbs while the Sixers, Bulls, Spurs, Warriors and Kings play outside downtown but within the city limits. The Kings and Warriors are currently building downtown arenas so that will make just 3 teams outside downtown. Not to mention that the Wings, Tigers and Lions all play downtown as well. The Pistons would be joining the rest of the city teams as well as the rest of the NBA.

Back to basketball, I'm worried about how much I see Isaiah Thomas hanging out at Piston road games with good seats. I'm wondering if Gores has been talking to him. It would be nice to bring back a Piston great but his Knick resume has me a bit scared. I'd prefer someone like Glen Grunwald or Geoff Petrie.

Illitch probably could have bought the Pistons for around the price of that contract he just gave to Cabrera, lol. I cant see Gores selling low, He will probably sell once he gets money coming In down the road.

[WC NBA Fan]

Any chance that Gores would sell to Mike Ilitch? When the Pistons were originally up for sale, it looked like Ilitch was going to get the team but he declined at the last second due to miscalculating Piston finances. I know that he's 84 but his heirs know business and sports well so it would be nice to see a known winner take over the team.

Also, he's close to breaking ground on a new downtown arena. With just about every other team in the league playing downtown, he'd be joining the club. The Pistons are the only team in the suburbs while the Sixers, Bulls, Spurs, Warriors and Kings play outside downtown but within the city limits. The Kings and Warriors are currently building downtown arenas so that will make just 3 teams outside downtown. Not to mention that the Wings, Tigers and Lions all play downtown as well. The Pistons would be joining the rest of the city teams as well as the rest of the NBA.

Back to basketball, I'm worried about how much I see Isaiah Thomas hanging out at Piston road games with good seats. I'm wondering if Gores has been talking to him. It would be nice to bring back a Piston great but his Knick resume has me a bit scared. I'd prefer someone like Glen Grunwald or Geoff Petrie.

Illitch probably could have bought the Pistons for around the price of that contract he just gave to Cabrera, lol. I cant see Gores selling low, He will probably sell once he gets money coming In down the road.

I was thinking the same thing while driving into work today. The one good thing about that contract is that it shows that Ilitch isn't hurting financially so theoretically, he could afford to buy the Pistons.

Gores won't sell low but with just about every franchise value going way up after the new collective bargaining agreement, I can't see him selling for less than he bought the team for. The one smart thing that Gores did was buy the team before the lockout. Once they came out of the lockout, franchise values skyrocketed so I bet he could sell for at least $50 million more than he bought it for. Throw in the Palace and other entities under the Palace umbrella and you have a good deal for Ilitch. He can have his 2 sports teams downtown then leverage other events to the Palace if downtown is already booked. Great deal all around.

More importantly for Piston fans is that you have an owner with a very good track record.

[Clarity]

i'm still mad at dumars for not taking kemba walker in the 2011 draft...we wouldnt have to put up with knight "not getting it" or traded for jennings inconsistency

A lot of us knew Kemba was the pick we should have made.

That really wasn't difficult, it reminds me of CJ/KCP last year, it wasnt difficult to see who the better overall player was.

However in Dumars defense slightly, Knight is about as high character & hard worker as an athlete gets which is admirable.

[Sheeeeed]

Any chance that Gores would sell to Chris Ilitch? When the Pistons were originally up for sale, it looked like Ilitch was going to get the team but he declined at the last second due to miscalculating Piston finances. I know that he's 84 but his heirs know business and sports well so it would be nice to see a known winner take over the team.

Also, he's close to breaking ground on a new downtown arena. With just about every other team in the league playing downtown, he'd be joining the club. The Pistons are the only team in the suburbs while the Sixers, Bulls, Spurs, Warriors and Kings play outside downtown but within the city limits. The Kings and Warriors are currently building downtown arenas so that will make just 3 teams outside downtown. Not to mention that the Wings, Tigers and Lions all play downtown as well. The Pistons would be joining the rest of the city teams as well as the rest of the NBA.

Back to basketball, I'm worried about how much I see Isaiah Thomas hanging out at Piston road games with good seats. I'm wondering if Gores has been talking to him. It would be nice to bring back a Piston great but his Knick resume has me a bit scared. I'd prefer someone like Glen Grunwald or Geoff Petrie.

Fixed

Grunwald and Petrie are guys that have no business running teams in todays NBA. Time has based them by.

[The Infamous1]

The beauty of the Jennings and Smith deal was it came after essentially the same tandem of Gordon and Villanueva burned him

[triplet1984]

The beauty of the Jennings and Smith deal was it came after essentially the same tandem of Gordon and Villanueva burned him

That's the really unforgivable part. That he made the SAME EXACT MISTAKES 4 years apart. It's unbelievable. He got inefficient chuckers with low basketball IQs at (some) positions that we were stacked at.

[Kilo]

Interviews HAVE to be happening right now, if not be far down the hiring process. Dumars isn't just resigning, his contract is going to expire - so Gores isn't doing anything shady in doing a replacement hunt if he's decided to let him walk - as long as Dumars knows the situation.

We need a GM in place ASAP in order to then hire a coach given there will probably be 4-5 other teams also looking for new coaches and they'll have front office already in place.