Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Pistons fire coach Michael Curry after one season

After just one year of coaching, the Detroit Pistons have fired their head coach, Michael Curry. The Pistons went 39-43 under his regime last year, in what was a very disappointing year.

I don't understand why many people praise Pistons Present of Basketball Operations, Joe Dumars. In my opinion, he is extremely overrated, and has made very questionable calls during his tenure. For example, he selected Darko Milicic with the 2nd pick in the 2003 NBA Draft. I know we all know, but he passed on superstars Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Milicic has had a very disappointing career, seeing he's been traded 4 times in 5 years.

Dumars also made the mistake of firing head coach Flip Saunders following the 207-2008 season. Saunders was hired as the Pistons coach following the 2005 NBA season, and from 2006-2008 he led to the team to the Eastern Conference Finals. However, the team failed to reach the finals during this span, this being the reasoning of the firing. I didn't agree with the firing, and it's now apparent this was a bad decision. Why would Saunders be fired because he can lead a team to the Conference Finals, but not the Finals? It doesn't make sense to hire a new coach and understand the new system in hopes of making it one more round.

So after this firing of Saunders, the team hired Michael Curry. Curry, who played for the Raptors during his NBA career, led the Pistons to a very disappointing year, as they had a 20 win decrease from the previous year. But, in my opinion, Michael Curry was set up for failure, and it all stems from the decisions of Joe Dumars. On November 3rd, just days into the 2008-2009 season, the Pistons traded Chauncey Billups to the Denver Nuggets, in exchange for Allen Iverson. This trade was made for financial reasons, as it would help Detroit money wise in the long run. However, it terms of a success, this trade didn't work out for Detroit at all. Allen Iverson is more of a shooting guard then a point guard, so it caused controversy as to who would start at the 2 man position--Iverson or Rip Hamilton? Hamilton came off the bench in 16 games, and Michael Curry was widely criticized for this. But what was he supposed to do? One or the other had to come off the bench, right? It's not Curry's fault Dumars brought in another shooting guard. Many people praised Joe Dumars for this, as it would help the Pistons financially, and many people bashed Nuggets GM Mark Warkentein for accepting this deal. But in my opinion, Warkentein is the one who should be prasied, and Dumars is the one who should be bashed. Whose the real winner? A team who saves money, spends it on solid free agents, and goes into rebuilding mode..or a team who could potentially be an elite team in the Western Conference for years to come?

I think Joe Dumars is a very overrated President. He's the one who put this team into a mess, and it'll be his job to revive it. The Pistons must have a busy offseason if they want success to return to Motown.

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