Comments on: Detroit Pistons Coach Dreams: Kelvin Sampson

By: Cliff

Cliff — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:18:53 +0000

dan/ patrick, is there ANY chance that isiah is going to coach this team? i do hope you agree with me in the sense that we DO NOT want this to happen.

By: 2011 Coaching Search - MotownSports.com Message Board

2011 Coaching Search - MotownSports.com Message Board — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 13:42:04 +0000

[...] has a writeup on Sampson. Decent if you don't know much about him. Detroit Pistons Coach Dreams: Kelvin Sampson PistonPowered So far, no candidate really wows me. Hopefully that changes. I will stick with anyone but Woodson. [...]

By: Mr Happy Mushroom

Mr Happy Mushroom — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 03:50:15 +0000

As I’ll keep writing every time Sampson’s name comes us, I really think this would be a huge mistake. He has no pro head coaching experience (and little overall). But beyond that, he’s left two consecutive college programs in the crapper because he has blatantly violated rules and lied about it. I understand that these rules don’t apply to the NBA. But given the repetition and the degree to which he did them, I could easily see reckless (or even unethical) behavior like this being a personality trait of his.

By: BIG MARV

BIG MARV — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 03:36:13 +0000

I dont wanna hear one word from the writers that Laimbeer shouldnt be a coach after I just seen the golden state warriors hire mark Jackson as a Head coach. This Guy hasnt coached a AAU summer team and all he did was be a commentator on ESPN hell we midas well give Greg Kelser a shot if he wants to coach smh. Lambeer has experience as a head coach on a professional setting/he’s a assistnat in the NBA for crying out loud, dont matter if it was women or coaching men overseas. The guy knows how to make GM descions and other professional duties and he knows how to win.

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 23:52:52 +0000

I agree with you that they shouldn’t worry about hiring a first time coach otherwise they may make the wrong decision. Interview the candidates and pick the best one, just get it done by the draft, so they can be on the same page with the players they pick in the draft.

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 23:45:19 +0000

Since the Pistons did their best to sit and wait for the best coach available to be scooped up in Mike Brown, we are now looking for a candidate to fit our scheme. We need to hire a guy who will bring a completely new scheme, not this boring, slow, impossible to watch team we have now. I love the Pistons, however, we need a guy like Van Gundy or Lambeer who will get the best out of our guys. But, in order to do that we need to clean house with our depleted, under sized roster. Maxiell, Prince, Wallace, Bynum, etc. need to go! All I know is if we don’t make some moved in free agency we will be watching the same boring team of the last 3 years!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 23:24:35 +0000

This would not seem a smart hire. In any industry, someone who lost a high profile job due to compliance violations, got hired to another high profile job and lost that one for compliance violations too would seem to be at serious risk of breaching ethics rules elsewhere. At minimum, it demonstrates a willing to gamble with his employer’s reputation (as well as potential sanctions on both him and the employer). The NBA has rules too, different rules, but if he broke other rules he may well break NBA rules if he felt he could get away with it and that doing so would give him a competitive edge.
Taking the risk to hire someone like that may be defensible if he had a demonstrated record of excelling at player development, but like the post pointed out, his pupils don’t seem to have demonstrated unusually rapid development. I’d say Lambeer has a much better argument there based on his work with Kevin Love.

By: BIG MARV

BIG MARV — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 23:04:21 +0000

I think this will be somewhat of a cheap desperate move almost similar to hiring kuester. I see this happening if only Tom Gores is high on him or one or both of the pistions top coaching prospects(Woodson,Laimbeer,I.Thomas) are long gone.

By: detroitpcb

detroitpcb — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 21:56:23 +0000

Dan, you are right about the pace and that is one thing i forgot when looking at Sampson’s pluses. I couldn’t care less about the fact that he didn’t follow the NCAA rules but the drug issue is a more serious concern. And you are correct that Jennings did not have such a great year of development.

Might be the wrong situation but i think Sampson will be sucessful when he finally gets his chance.

By: rob

rob — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 21:26:10 +0000

I admittingly didnt know much about him at first, but after reading this and seeing his impressive career coaching record, I’m on the bandwagon.

As for his violations in the NCAA, it kind of seems like this is a guy that should’ve been coaching in the NBA, but maybe was stuck in college trying to work his way into the NBA first. In other words, he coaches like an NBA coach, in terms of how he approaches the business side and building his teams, just that those methods are illegal in college. But in the NBA he would be considered a successful coach for tirelessly pursuing and acquiring a player he wanted. I think he was maybe born to coach in the NBA, but just happens to excel at developing young players as well. which most NBA coaches dont. I think thats a positive, and could be exactly what we need.

Our core is basically a group of kids a few years removed from college, so it wouldn’t be much different for him to relate to them. Its not like we have a bunch of grizzled old NBA vets anymore.