Richard Hamilton number to be retired

[joedumars1]

http://www.mlive.com/pistons/index.ssf/2016/12/pistons_to_retire_richard_rip.html#incart_river_mobile_index

[Kilo]

Fooey. Rip went out like a bitch. You don't reward that.

On an aside, I thought the nickname "Rip" came from his youth and was given it by his father(?) after the sound of the ball swishing the net would make.

[mattao313]

Good for him he was big part of a championship team.

[Snakebites]

Yeah, I don't like Richard Hamilton. He bashed the team repeatedly after he left, highlighted by telling Ben Gordon how happy he was for him after he was traded to the Bobcats- a team that had just come off the worst season in NBA history. And that's without even mentioning how terrible he was the last couple years leading up to his departure. Screw that guy.

Sheed should be getting it first. Tay too.

[JD43320]

Rip bashed management and coaching not Michigan or Detroit. Can you really blame him? Anyone think he was wrong about Curry, Kuester and Dumars?

[Han Solo]

I'm fine with his jersey getting retired. Sheed should have been first. We don't win that title without getting him during that year. I watched every game that season. We didn't have enough in the tank without him.

[ChuckVanBrown]

I'm cool with his jersey getting retired. The leading scorer on a championship team is worthy of the honor, but I can see how some have issues due to his behavior at the end.

I say retire his jersey and Sheed's and that's a good representation of the Going to Work era. I think Grant Hill should get his jersey retired too someday, but not until after Sheed.

[MrBigShot]

His time here didn't end well but Joe D essentially extended him, traded his best friend and back court mate very shortly afterwards, and then went on to sign Ben gordon to create a logjam at SG and hired the joke known as Kuester the following off season.

I choose to remember the good times and his positive contributions to the team.

[thesack12]

I've said these three things before and I'll say them again now.

1) Many people are quick to remember Rip's attitude towards the end, but those same people don't factor in how he was treated towards the latter of his Detroit tenure.

2) Ben Wallace CHOSE to leave a championship caliber team and a fan base that absolutely adored him, simply to chase money. I'm in the minority on this but from a fan's perspective to me, that is a much more dislikeable departure, than the way Rip's end went down.

3) If your franchise's all time leading playoff scorer's jersey isn't hanging in the rafters, then you might want to re-evaluate what the criteria is for attaining such an honor. I mean this isn't the Charlotte Bobcats here, with a miniscule historical postseason script. The Pistons have a well storied, multiple championship banner owning, legendary playoff pedigree that critically acclaimed documentaries were made about.

[Kilo]

Ben was criminally underpaid here and didn't complain but when it was his time to get paid, Detroit was all about paying him for what he'd give us on his next contract rather than some/any "back pay" for drastically outplaying his contract during our championship/finalist years. Hamilton was a whining queen his last years here, and trashed the org seemingly every chance he got after he left.

[JD43320]

Was he wrong about the organization? Did he insult them personally? Did he ever take shots at the city or the fans? No.

Could he and should he have handled it better? Yes. Absolutely. But it's not as if him being a malcontent was a reason we stopped winning. The teams failings during his tenure was completely on management and ownership. He handled it poorly but people act as though he sabotaged a good thing. Rip isn't the one that gave away Billups, Dice, Sheed, Afflalo, and Amir Johnson for the cap space to sign DNP-CV, Ben Gordon and Chris Wilcox. Rip isn't the one that fired Flip Saunders and replaced him with Curry and then Kuester.

[hoophabit]

Rip was a fixture on a Piston team that had a long period of success and one championship. Retiring his number is a reasonable act on the part of the franchise.

[ImHeisenberg]

Rip bashed management and coaching not Michigan or Detroit. Can you really blame him? Anyone think he was wrong about Curry, Kuester and Dumars?

Dumars made a lot of bone headed moves towards the end of his tenure, but he was still getting paid tens of millions of dollars to shoot a piece of inflated leather through a metal hoop. He handled it like a spoiled kid putting on a public tantrum. Warranted or not, he was much less than professional and actively worked to tarnish the Pistons' reputation to the league- which unquestionably had an effect on free agent interest.

Gores paid him to just shut up and leave in the end, and he still couldn't be professional about it. Ultimately, all Richard did (Rip was always a stupid nickname - that he gave himself) was ruin my opinion of him as a person.

[thesack12]

Ben was criminally underpaid here and didn't complain but when it was his time to get paid, Detroit was all about paying him for what he'd give us on his next contract rather than some/any "back pay" for drastically outplaying his contract during our championship/finalist years. Hamilton was a whining queen his last years here, and trashed the org seemingly every chance he got after he left.

"Back Pay?"

How often does something like that happen in the NBA, even when it does when is it ever considered a good move for the franchise? Last time I can remember something of the sort was the last contract LA gave Kobe, which proved to be a colossal mistake.

Teams should always offer contracts relative to the expected production of said contract. Past contributions, are exactly that, in the past. Also, in this particular case don't we need to consider that Detroit pretty much made Ben Wallace? He was as anonymous of an NBA player as they come prior to being traded to Detroit. His career as impact player died the day he signed with Chicago. He was truly terrible after he left Detroit.

Basically Detroit needed Ben Wallace, and Ben Wallace needed Detroit but he chose to leave and chase money, to a division rival no less. I'm not going to sit here and criticize somebody getting their money, but from a pure fan's perspective he turned his back on championship caliber team and fan base that truly loved the guy. Now I don't remember the exact contract numbers at the time, but I know it wasn't some giant disparity between what he got from Chicago and what Detroit offered. Its not like he got 10 mil more per season or something. I also have to believe that he could have easily made up a huge chunk of the extra money with endorsements had he stayed in Detroit. Its not hard to imagine that he wasn't getting too many calls for extra side gigs after his first couple months in Chicago, he was awful there and people didn't like him for it.

For the record, I still hold much affection for Ben. But as I said, in my eyes what Ben did is a helluva lot worse than anything Rip said or did.

[thesack12]

Was he wrong about the organization? Did he insult them personally? Did he ever take shots at the city or the fans? No.

Could he and should he have handled it better? Yes. Absolutely. But it's not as if him being a malcontent was a reason we stopped winning. The teams failings during his tenure was completely on management and ownership. He handled it poorly but people act as though he sabotaged a good thing. Rip isn't the one that gave away Billups, Dice, Sheed, Afflalo, and Amir Johnson for the cap space to sign DNP-CV, Ben Gordon and Chris Wilcox. Rip isn't the one that fired Flip Saunders and replaced him with Curry and then Kuester.

Exactly.

One thing most people don't reflect on is the simple fact that NBA players are human beings. Its human nature to be disgruntled when the company you work for lies to you, and on 2 separate occassions brings in new people that hold the same position as you and both immediately pass you up even though you brought your company to the absolute pinnacle of success and are still performing at a very high level.

If similar things happen to any one of us, you bet your ass we are gonna be quite raw about it.

[JD43320]

Rip bashed management and coaching not Michigan or Detroit. Can you really blame him? Anyone think he was wrong about Curry, Kuester and Dumars?

Dumars made a lot of bone headed moves towards the end of his tenure, but he was still getting paid tens of millions of dollars to shoot a piece of inflated leather through a metal hoop. He handled it like a spoiled kid putting on a public tantrum. Warranted or not, he was much less than professional and actively worked to tarnish the Pistons' reputation to the league- which unquestionably had an effect on free agent interest.

Gores paid him to just shut up and leave in the end, and he still couldn't be professional about it. Ultimately, all Richard did (Rip was always a stupid nickname - that he gave himself) was ruin my opinion of him as a person.

Rip bitching about the Pistons did not hurt the Pistons prospects in free agency. That is just silly. Our chances in free agency sucked because the team sucked, management lost it's mind, the coaches sucked and Michigan isn't 80 degrees in the winter. Before the bitching started we had to give huge money to Ben Gordon and DNP-CV to get them to come to Detroit.

[sc8581]

I think rip was also salty about the situation because he was on his way to a possible HOF career and his numbers took a big hit having 4 SGs trying to share the ball, 5 if you count Villanueva.

[Laimbeer]

A wimp of a player who was lucky to be propped up by mentally tough guys who did the dirty work. And his thanks was trashing the team. Screw him.

[Cowology]

It's been some time, but irrc we offered Ben $12 mil per year. That *was* overpaying for backpay. Based on where he was at in his career and the current economic climate that was arguably a fairly sizeable overpay for a 1-dimensional player on the backside.

Then Chicago swoops in and offers a truly egregious $15 mil per. One of the worst contracts handed out in recent memory. I neither fault Detroit for not matching such an atrocious offer or for Ben finally getting his. At the end of the day it's still a business.

As for Rip... he was a whiney bitch who did actively work to sabotage the team his final few years. The fact Dumars and the Pistons organization was a complete **** doesn't absolve him of that. That said, we had a great run with him and I'm Ok setting aside an unfortunate end to instead honor what we accomplished 2003-2008. This isn't high school and I ain't got time for all this petty ****. Forgive and move on.

[ImHeisenberg]

As for Rip... he was a whiney bitch who did actively work to sabotage the team his final few years. The fact Dumars and the Pistons organization was a complete **** doesn't absolve him of that. That said, we had a great run with him and I'm Ok setting aside an unfortunate end to instead honor what we accomplished 2003-2008. This isn't high school and I ain't got time for all this petty ****. Forgive and move on.

Good points.

It's also no surprise that this announcement comes in the midst of a team melt down and public interest waning quickly. Retiring Hamilton's jersey will fill up the arena that night. If the team continues to blow, Sheed will probably be next, with Prince's eventual retirement. (Is Prince even in the NBA this year?)