Comments on: Thank you, Karen Davidson

By: tarsier

tarsier — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:57:57 +0000

You’re right. I don’t mean that I don’t know what the article said, but that I don’t think those are things to thank someone for. But you’re correct that I was wrong to infer and then imply that the other writers of this site agree with whoever wrote the article.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:35:38 +0000

Well, only one of us wrote the post, first of all, not that I disagree with Dan. But if you don’t “know what the PP writers have to thank her for,” maybe you should read the post? I think Dan is pretty clear. He’s thanking her for dealing with a difficult sale that took way longer than she thought. He’s thanking her for getting out because she didn’t love it rather than hanging onto the team simply because it meant a lot to her husband. It’s not that difficult to figure out.

By: tarsier

tarsier — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 00:59:03 +0000

Again, I don’t get why anyone bothers to bring up what sort of person she is. I mean, if the title of the article was “We are changing this website’s name to KD fan club,” it would make sense. But whether we should be grateful to her or not is completely limited to what she tried to do for the Pistons, what she did to the Pistons, and what could be reasonably expected of her to do for the Pistons.
That said, I see no reason to thank her. Booing her could be considered excessive, but I really don’t know what the PP writers have to thank her for.

By: Dan Feldman

Dan Feldman — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 23:45:42 +0000

I never said it was published anywhere else. It wasn't. I heard it from someone credible, though, and combined with Sharp's report, it's enough to convince me it most likely happened. I'm not going to explain anymore details about it. If I was comfortable revealing more info about the source, I would've published it on the site long ago.

If that's not enough to convince you, that's fine. But I believe it.

By: Kim Jong Skillz

Kim Jong Skillz — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 22:24:24 +0000

gores business is to buy things cheap & sell high. in reality thats everyone objective. so to cut davidson some slack & give more credit to gores for extending negotiations is just sympathy. yes we know davidson didnt want the team. but a sale of a team shouldnt have taken this long. look how quickly the atlanta thrashers were sold to TSN. yes i know its not the nba, but its still a major sports franchise & relatively the same thing. the pistons sale didnt have to go on as long as it did. for that fact alone i believe karen deserved the flack she received from the fans. greedy, stubborn & selfish are all adjectives that were used to describe her & rightly so.

By: Laser

Laser — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 22:21:03 +0000

feldman, who else substantiated this bogus claim that a hamilton-for-boozer trade was agreed to by the pistons and utah before karen davidson nixed it? ever since the time i was anxiously waiting to see if antonio mcdyess was going to come back after being bought out by denver i’ve been compulsively checking pistons news daily and devouring everything anyone writes on the internet about this team, and i have never ever EVER ever NOT ONCE ever read anything anywhere EVER that asserted that this trade would have been possible if not for karen davidson’s interjection. ever. never ever. never read that anywhere ever. not once.

it was thrown out into the ether repeatedly by fans and writers as a potential fantasy solution to trading rip and fixing the front line, but sharp’s vague assertion that it was “believed” to have almost happened is the very first time i’ve heard anything of the sort. first time ever in life. and i can’t possibly stress enough how often i google pistons news.

it looks totally absurd on its face. the strongest claim i’ve ever read is that it was “believed” to have been in the works. and that didn’t come out until two years later. i’m guessing you can’t direct me to a single source anywhere in the world that had this bit of information phrased even as vaguely as sharp did, and his phrasing was vague and speculative. so that means the only source i’ve got that claims in concrete terms that this trade was actually in the works is YOU. and having read your source directly, it’s clear that you took a leap to say it was a fact.

By: tarsier

tarsier — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:45:35 +0000

I don’t think the sale dragging on was her fault at all. I think keeping Dumars hands tied for the whole time was her fault. What I meant by my comment was that if she could sell the franchise quickly, it would be fine to keep Joe from making significant moves. But you can’t do that for a long time.
Why would Davidson take boos personally rather than professionally? The fans don’t know her personally. She has to know they are unable to have personal opinions of her. They only know her as the owner of the Pistons who kept Dumars from getting things done.

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:13:43 +0000

What a perfectly written response, Patrick. Couldn’t agree more with this..

By: Laser

Laser — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:17:05 +0000

eh. for one, i’m not convinced you can meet someone “a few times” and draw any real conclusions about what kind of person she is… unless she displays some truly extreme behavior. you could meet some of the worst criminals in the world a few times and find them charming and sexy. just sayin’.

also, she’s made some public comments that seriously rubbed me the wrong way. specifically as it relates to her late husband and his relationship with the team. she called it his “toy,” which i think sheds a lot of light on how much it (and its importance to bill) really meant to her. it was her decision to make as far as selling the team goes, but everyone knew he wanted to keep the team in the family. it doesn’t take a passionate, involved owner to field a competitive team; bill davidson was pretty hands-off for the most part.

i think she made some mistakes in selling the team, and she would have been better off in every way if she’d waited for the team to bounce back a little before trying to sell. but the thing that raises my ire is how she discussed her decision, trivialized the team’s meaning to bill, and basically patted herself on the back for maintaining a minority ownership. she said bill left it up to her, then immediately referenced (as in, with a semicolon) the fact that he left everything to her. we’ll never know what she told him behind closed doors, but it’s safe to say his attitude wasn’t that he always wanted the team to remain in the family… except if the next immediate owner wanted to sell it after a year. between what we all know about his wishes and the way she handled everything, it’s probably safe to say he died under the direct impression that the team would remain in the family indefinitely, she knew all along that wasn’t going to be the case, and she used some bogus phrasing to make herself look like less of a villain.

but, of course, the buck needs to stop at the top. mr d could have kept it in the family if he was smart enough not to trust her.

By: Laser

Laser — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:03:36 +0000

if joe dumars’s idea of admitting and “correcting” his mistakes is to give away so precious and indispensable a resource as next year’s first rounder in order to get rid of a contract he handed out, while the organization maintains firmly that ben gordon and charlie vilanueva actually have trade value, i want none of it. it’s plainly obvious that all three of these guys are going nowhere here.

the fact that the attempted salary dump to cleveland was his first course of action is very telling. paying a hefty tax to get rid of a player who’s still productive and only under contract for two more years, when the team’s entire roster is a mess, would be one of the last courses of action i’d pursue. that’s not even “selling low” on rip; that’s “buying high” on the opportunity to be rid of him. there’s nothing in the world this team needs more than solid draft picks right now, including being rid of players.

to me, this is the mildest possible indictment joe could make of his own bad decisions. trading rip would be his attempt at saving face on the catastrophic gordon/villanueva signings. a smarter man who was less stubborn and driven by pride would have tried to cut ties with gordon (and/or villanueva), but rip’s storyline makes him a face-saving move at the expense of the franchise.