Comments on: Myth: Trading Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson didn’t make any sense

By: KDOGG

KDOGG — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:36:18 +0000

Wow. Why try and RATIONALIZE this trade?????? It amazes me that people try and justify this trade! This WAS THE WORST TRADE IN THE HISTORY OF THE NBA, or at the very LEAST, worst Piston trade. The idea of let’s be nice and trade him to his “hometown” and SETTLE for AI rather than MELO is absurd. This is a BUSINESS. To DUMP the cornerstone of your team for a SELFISH, trouble-making scorer is absolutely ridiculous. They DIDN’T have a true point guard in Stuckey. They knew this. The Pistons were in no way ready for this type of trade. If anything, trade Hamilton or Prince. If you trade your ROCK, your glue, then you might as well start from SCRATCH and scrap everyone. GM’s should know this. IF you can’t get what you WANT for your STAR, then DON’T DO IT. A GOOD GM would not settle. IF we couldn’t get Melo out of this, and this was their goal, then DO NOT PROCEED. Any idiot could have seen that this would ruin the team. And, as some of you suggested, maybe this WAS the idea??! I think Robert Bayer hit it on the head as he mentioned above that Dumars foolishly thinks he can turn anything into gold. The Pistons had only success up to that point and I think Dumars WANTED to shake things up and completely rearrange the scenery.
The only thing that this trade showed was the complete lack of effective ability Dumars has as a GM. Unfortunately up to that point, Dumars had been lucky. It wasn’t his superb GM skills that put the Pistons where they were year after year unfortunately. We had thought he was a genius and that he absolutely knew what he was doing at the helm. But little did we really know. For the first time in his GM career, he had a chance to really show his true colors and he FAILED miserably. I think he took it all to his head and gave himself all the credit, rather than realizing he was gifted with a wonderful team at the right time and being grateful and building FROM this team would work – NOT dismantling the team. He gave his team NO transition building. He just yanked the table out from underneath his team and thought by his magic, it would work.
Instability showed early in his GM career (maybe a tell-tale sign?). He fired Rick Carlisle after he built a wonderful team and found tremendous success. Why would you fire a successful coach?? Then he picked up Larry Brown (great coach as well), but he also ended up being fired. Same as Flip. Of course you have your arguments on this, but I believe he should have stuck with Carlisle. Why fix what works? The Pistons would STILL BE contenders today if they kept their core team, maybe doing a couple KEY trades. Look at the Spurs. They are good examples of this and how to BUILD FROM SUCCESS, rather than do what Dumars did. No GM wants to lose. This is WHY and only WHY this is ALL ON DUMARS. If Dumars wanted to fail, than he did the right thing. Any fool as a fan can see that this was a stupid trade. Now look at it from a GM point of view. It is their JOB to be successful. This shows the lack of ability in Dumars. It was all in his head and he thought he was a puppetmaster of success.
Another GREAT point – he had MICHAEL CURRY at the helm when he brought over AI. Think about this. Why would ANY good GM bring over a coach killer such as AI in his coach’s very first season?? Michael was inexperienced and this was a cocktail for disaster. Couldn’t he SEE this from a MILE away? WHY in the world bring in AI for a first time coach and give away your cornerstone? Instability at best is what you would expect from this. This is why this was absurd. SURE, AI was a scorer, but even if he averaged 35 points a game his previous year, this STILL would be a foolish trade simply because this is NOT what the Pistons had built from. They were NOT a selfish team by any means. How can you NOT know this was bad? No one really wanted AI. The only teams that would be in the market for such a player are the bottom feeders who need to attract fans and earn more revenue. The Pistons, year in and year out, were SOLD OUT for their HOME GAMES. To make this type of move was extremely risky and it turned 180 degrees from the “blue collar” team mentality they hailed to be and embraced at the time. This was ALL on Dumars and his thinking that he could turn ANYthing into gold.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:51:13 +0000

LOL, your comments on these old posts are great. They read like you just downed a box of wine and are dripping tears on your framed picture of Bill Laimbeer, wondering why oh why won't someone just fire Dumars and hire Laimbeer!

Seriously, the only thing this site should be scrubbed of are the lame comments from the many different screen names you use.

By: robertbayer

robertbayer — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:29:58 +0000

Joe Dumars: “The ultimate team player. Chauncey
represents everything David Stern wants in this league.”

By: robertbayer

robertbayer — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:11:24 +0000

Really Dan .. You should scrub your site of this article because it was and is so wrong in so many ways .. Billups was the
leader of the team that had gone to 6 straight conference championships .. He
was their only PG .. and a star PG .. This began a series of playing players
out of positions by the Pistons .. Stuckey at PG .. Prince at PF (not due to
this trade but …). .. ect ect .. and it all stunk to high heaven ..
Iverson was a punk selfish ball hog his whole career .. not an ounce of
leadership .. in fact quite the opposite … The truth is Joe lost his
way .. success spoiled him and he started to think he could do anything and
make it work .. like a team composed of pretty much just SFs and SGs .. that
followed in the next few years .. So many mistakes have followed .. Billups
is still a great leader and PG .. Good GMs .. which Joe Dumars used to be ..
can evaluate players . and all your .. “gee .. who would have thought that?” is truly
irrelevant, illogical, over-protective, and patronizing .. Maybe Dumars would have
wised up if you and other writers who cover the Pistons didnt spend 24/7 for the3 past 4
seasons sparring his behind even a semblance of ever having made
a bad decision ..

By: slammer

slammer — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 19:39:29 +0000

Iknew Iverson was not going to work out when he came here as soon as the trade happen. I felt it to be the dumbest decision that Dumars could have ever made. Iverson never won a Championship always prone to injury, and other then one time his teams always suck in the playoffs.

He is no leader, and trading billups destroyed everything of the pistons in one go. @Glenn no I didnt see it as the best move at the time, thought it was stupid and just destroyed the pistons because Iverson may score alot when he is healthy, but he was no leader.

By: travis

travis — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:53:30 +0000

Well Patrick, Chauncey didn’t have a bigger role in Denver? even though he played about 3 min more a game there, than he did for the pistons in 07-08. But besides the Mins per game, If you think his role on Denver didn’t increase then well… He was big time on the Pistons, but every starter on that team thought of themselfs as one of the leaders and equals, and it is plainly obvious that everyone on Denver (except Melo) looks to Billups as their leader on and off the court. Not to say he wasn’t on the Pistons but more so on Denver.

By the way, Chauncey took about 100 more shots in 08-09 than he did in 07-08, same amount of games. And even more shots last year, in only 73 games and a worst fg% both years in Den than Det in 07-08. Oh, and his assists were lower. so yeah, I think he had a bigger role in Denver than the Pistons not that he was better. And not becoming a better player, maybe it’s the offense, but as I remember Flip Saunders had the Pistons running pretty well on offense….considering he only played for Curry for 2 games.

By: frankie d

frankie d — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 19:32:27 +0000

hard to see it coming?
i don’t think so, but even if it is that is what a gm is tasked with doing. that is his job.
and if he doesn’t see it coming, then he bears responsibility for his failure.
whose fault is it, if it’s not the gm’s fault?
in past jobs, i’ve hired and fired people.
when i hired good people, i got credit. if i hired someone who didn’t work out, somehow, someway, that blame flowed to me.
dumars is, after all, the boss, and it was dumars’ decision.
and, sorry, but a guy like iverson, despite attempts to soft-sell his later reputation, has always been a well-known malcontent and a coach-killer. with a guy like that, a savvy nba executive has to consider all of the possibilities. (which was one reason lots of teams stayed away from him.)
yes, including the possibility that a guy like iverson might act like a complete idiot and take down your team at the same time he commits hari-kari with his career.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:51:21 +0000

@thebinxster
“the idea that dumars should be absolved of understanding that dynamic is amazing.”
the idea that a guy you are paying $20M fakes a back injury so he doesn’t have to come off the bench is also pretty amazing. =D
yes, AI had shown signs of having a poor attitude in the past. (“we’re talking about practice.”) but the guy essentially committed career suicide while in detroit. hard to see that coming.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:21:04 +0000

@travis:

His role didn't increase in Denver. The Nuggets have just as many (if not more) weapons on offense than the Pistons in Melo, Smith, Nene, Martin.

The thing that increased is the pace. More possessions in a game b/c Denver plays faster means Billups' scoring/assists numbers were going to go up.

He doesn't have a "starring" role in Denver. He's actually transformed the way Denver plays. They share the ball better and while their pace is faster than what the Pistons played at, it's still slower than what Denver played at prior to acquiring Billups.

By: frankie d

frankie d — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:56:58 +0000

nuetes,
i think you are right on target.
that has always been what i’ve thought.
fans here forget, apparently, about the fact that dumars chased melo that summer, and came up short.
AI was the consolation prize.