I have, on numerous occasions, admitted to being wrong on both Curry and Kuester. The Curry post was a parody piece. It was written for a blog called It’s Just Sports. Since you’re not familiar, that blog was intended to be a mix of sports coverage and humor. So yeah, I made a ridiculous comparison to be funny/drive page views during election season/comment on the fact that Curry was presented by the team as some great, innovative motivator who was totally going to succeed in all of the ways Flip Saunders failed. So yeah, the post ended up looking incredibly stupid if taken out of that context, but I knew it would probably look stupid eventually at the time I wrote it.

I thought Curry would be a better coach than he proved to be. It was clear early in his tenure that he was over his head, and I wrote as much when I was writing about the Pistons for MLive.

Kuester was a good assistant coach who deserved a shot at a HC job. He was cheap, and that was important to the Pistons. He didn’t work out, and now he’ll go back to being a respected assistant, which is fine.

I also have to point out that you are commenting on a post that is:

a. A year old

b. Is purposely written to be a counter-point to people like yourself, who are incapable of admitting that Laimbeer is anything but a legendary, tough, whip those guys into shape kind of guy who is such a great head coaching candidate that every team in the league must be beating down the door to try and get him. The title of the series it was a part of was ‘Myth Week.’ Shouldn’t that clue you in that, while I was arguing a viewpoint I agree with — that there’s no reason to believe Laimbeer is more qualified than any other first-time head coaching candidate out there — I was also admittedly doing it in an argumentative way. The series was designed to encourage debate and strong opinions, so I wrote this in a strong and authoritative way to accomplish that. Judging by your previous comments (under all the different screen names you use) here, though, that is lost on you. Everything that doesn’t jibe with your view of things is “biased” and means whoever wrote it is “an idiot who should just zip it.”

Seriously man. Post is a year old. If you’re going to argue, at least try to understand the context. Perhaps read some of the Laimbeer posts I’ve written since then. Or don’t, I don’t care either way. But I’m certainly not going to take your opinion all that seriously if you don’t put in the time to formulate a decent argument.

But when we think about Curry, trying to figure out if he fits
somewhere between Tim Floyd and Red Auerbach on the scale of NBA coaches is
pointless. We need to go outside of the world of sports to find an apt
comparison. Michael Curry is the Barack Obama of the NBA.

Both are great public speakers, both worked hard to get good
educations and successful careers, both have had their experience questioned
and both are trying to redefine their respective professions.

Does it matter that Curry might not be as strong in the X’s and
O’s as Saunders? No, because, like Obama, Curry has assembled an experienced
coaching staff that includes former head coaches Dave Cowens (who coached under
Saunders for two seasons) and Darrell Walker as well as Pat Sullivan, who was
an assistant on the 2004 title team under Larry Brown. Curry also values the
input of those coaches, allowing them to run aspects of practice so that players
don’t quickly tire of his voice

Curry has also been refreshingly accountable. After two years
under Flip Saunders in which the players took the brunt of the media criticism
while Saunders was almost seen as an unfortunate, disrespected figure who guys
would not listen to, Curry has shown he will man up to mistakes:

Patrick Hayes writes…

Dan Feldman with a nice roundup of all the positive things being
said about John Kuester so far. Most of the comments go like this: he’s not
Michael Curry, but an interesting note is that his career is similar to Chuck
Daly’s, who didn’t get his first NBA head coaching job until he was 52. Kuester
is 54.

Think of Kuester more like Rick Carlisle, another longtime
assistant who took over a Pistons team in transition.

As long as fans’ expectations change — namely, be satisfied
with a playoff appearance and a fun offense this year — Kuester should be a
success. His predecessor certainly set the bar a bit lower for him.

Dear Mr. Patrick Hayes … You were really wrong about Michael
Curry .. Wrong about John Kuester .. and had good things to say about Curry and
Kuester even though they NEVER had been an NBA head coach before … So Mr.
Hayes, it is clear you don’t have an objective view of Bill Laimbeer when you
can knock Laimbeer unfairly all over the place even while he at least has head coaching experience in guiding 3 professional basketball teams (Detroit WNBA Shock) to championships .. and yet you give these 2
inexperienced losers complete support and almost flowery bouquets on their hiring as the Detroit Pistons head
coaches
.. You were completely wrong in your
conclusions about who would be a good NBA head coach ..OBVIOUSLY .. Curry stunk! Kuester was
lame! I can
at least say I was totally against Kuester being hired and thought Laimbeer
should have not only been hired instead of Kuester but also instead of Curry,
the disaster clown coach, the guy you supported as the Obama of NBA head coaches and were about as wrong
as you could be in projecting success .. In
conclusion, since you don’t
know what you are talking about ..just zip it!! ….

I will support whomever
Joe Dumars hires …but have to make clear that the way to go on this is for Joe to hire Laimbeer
because he is a smart tough championship head coach who is dedicated to
bringing winning back to the Detroit Pistons.

I’d just like to point out that I wasn’t trying to be objective. If you’d paid attention to the series this post was a part of, it was called ‘Myth Week.’ The point of that series was to take controversial stands on long-held Pistons beliefs and argue that not commonly held side of the argument. I wasn’t out to write a pros and cons analysis of Laimbeer as a coach. I was out to point out some potential downsides to hiring him as a coach, things that are often ignored because, frankly, there is so much undying love for the man in this state that it is considered blasphemy to point out any of his flaws.

That was one of the dumbest article I’ve seen in awhile. It boggles the mind that the author claims to know anything about basketball.
It’s hard to know where to start!
“Bill Laimbeer won three championships as coach of the Detroit Shock. I can’t and won’t argue with the results. What I will argue is that Laimbeer didn’t have to do anything special to win with the Detroit Shock.”
WHAT??? That statement alone lets you know this clown doesn’t know a thing about basketball. I mean, how can you even take this crap seriously?
Then dufus comes up with this gem…
“There were certainly other factors at play, but I tend to think the impact of coaches is a bit overrated when they win and underrated when they lose (except for Michael Curry … he sucked in every way). The Shock won titles first and foremost because they had several great players and a couple legit franchise cornerstones.”
What??? Both things can’t be true!!! The impact can’t be overrated in wins, and underrated in losses, it’s either over or under in both, or maybe this dufus just believes losses are a result of coaching, and wins are a result of players ignoring their coach.
When someone this stupid write an article, well, I won’t go there, but I’m surprised anyone takes this crap seriously.