John Hollinger:
Overrated: Joe Dumars
Let's look ourselves in the mirror, fellow media members: We've all given the guy a free pass because of his amazing run to six straight conference finals and blithely ignored the fact that he's screwed up a hundred ways from Tuesday since he decided to whack Flip Saunders after the 2008 conference finals.
Check out the résumé and find me a correct decision. Just one. Fire Saunders? Wrong. Hire Michael Curry? Wrong. Trade Chauncey Billups? Wrong. Extend Richard Hamilton? Wrong. Sign Kwame Brown? Wrong. Go after Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva? Wrong again.
In two years, the Pistons have gone from one of the best teams in basketball to among the worst. They stink, they're capped out, and they don't have much in the way of young talent; for all we know, in two years they're going to be the Pittsburgh Pisces or the Seattle Grunge or something. If Isiah Thomas or Rob Babcock had done this, we'd have buried them alive by now, so it's only fair for us to point out that regardless of his previous track record, Dumars is on a two-year losing streak of McHalian proportions.
The pitiful thing is that Hollinger is actually overselling Dumars here. He hasn't made any significantly good moves for 5 years, not 2.
2 comments:
Perfect. Do you know who I would hire to fix this whole situation? Joe Dumars! He's great at taking a team from nothing to something over time.
When I look at this list
http://hoopshype.com/general_manager.htm
I see what the Pistons could have, and realize that if the Pistons were to fire Joe D, they get another one of these guys, which means that there is an extremely high chance they get someone worse. Everyone on this list that is seen as a good GM, just hasn't had enough time to decline yet. Except for RC Buford, who can thank 15 years of Duncan for being the lone GM with successful longevity.
I've said this before, but...
Keeping these guys in mind and their average length of stay on one team, if you're a newly hired GM, you're going to feel a ton of pressure to do something, ANYTHING, good or bad, as long as it satiates the hungry fans for the time and gives the appearance that you're going in some kind of direction. Most GMs run their team into the ground, are fired after 5 years, and the team is screwed for the next 10 as a result. Sometimes the gamble pays off, but eventually the bad gambles catch up. I appreciate Joe for being different, even during this time of 10 minor bad investments in a row.
Good thing you chose 5 years, because the decision to not resign Okur and instead use the money to resign Sheed and sign McDyess with the leftovers was a great one.
But, if we're talking 5 years, the decision to not match Big Ben's offer 3.75 years ago was definitely the right one.
Rodney Stuckey was a good pick at 15. Depends on what you mean by significantly though.
I was really surprised that Tay and Rip weren't moved at the deadline, and am pretty mad that they weren't. As a result of the no action, I went from wholeheartedly disagreeing with you, to being too frustrated with the series of events to feel the energy to jump to Joe's defense. But, with Joe I can feel sure that I'm getting a manager proven to be in the top quarter of the NBA, while if he's fired, chances are I get Ed Stefanski.
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