Comments on: For better or worse, Rodney Stuckey and Joe Dumars will forever be linked

By: frankie d

frankie d — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:48:21 +0000

he was in very exclusive company before his recent screwups.
now, he’s definitely putting that at risk.
mike tyson was in very select company before his problems.
i’m sure he’d prefer to have his initial legacy untarnished, rather than being able to say, yea, i was one of the baddest men on the planet…once upon a time… before i screwed up.
no one wants to take that kind of fall. even if the perch is pretty lofty, and the fall not as catastrophic as it might be for a lesser mortal.

By: Max

Max — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:20:38 +0000

I wrote it about in the development of the Stuckey thread where I was much more clear, but the Dumars-Stuckey marriage could end very soon and still be redemptive analogous to how Ainge seasoned and traded Al Jefferson–and this has nothing to do with the fact that Stuck is not as good as Jefferson.

By: Max

Max — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:10:10 +0000

Well then I guess he’ll never become the new logo. He’ll never be as good as Jerry West. I’m glad you enlightened me. This is almost as bad as when he wasn’t as good of a player as Michael Jordan. However will he live down the disgrace?

By: frankie d

frankie d — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:44:04 +0000

his early half – when he had much success, but not as many wins – will undoubtedly be looked at as a contrast to his later success, as a champion.
pierce is not a good comparison, as pierce always had lots of individual success, while his team’s fortunes went up and down. a player is judged by his individual accomplishment and his team’s success.
an executive is measured only by the wins and losses.
that is going to be dumars’ legacy.
unfortunately – or fortunately, perhaps – the only other gm/former player who’s had his success and the person he’ll invariably be compared to is jerry west. and the comparison is not a good one. except for a short slump caused by the premature retirement of his franchise player, magic johnson, west’s teams enjoyed almost constant success over a 20 year period.
what makes the pistons’ fall totally dissimilar and so damning for dumars is that detroit’s fall from grace can be tied directly to a failed gamble.
no retirements…no injuries…no free agent leaving…no, his own decisions and his disastrous gamble led to the team’s failures.
not a pretty part of his legacy no matter what happens in the future.

By: Max

Max — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:08:03 +0000

Twenty years from now, which half of Paul Pierce’s career is going to be remembered and which will be largely forgotten?–or am I wrong in thinking the early half will have little to do with his ultimate legacy?

By: frankie d

frankie d — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:39:12 +0000

even if the team turns it around with dumars, that is likely to happen not next year, but at the earliest, the year after. and an optimist could expect that the team might win a playoff round. assuming that optimistic outcome, one could then reasonably expect, most optimistically, a challenge for the conference finals in another 2 years.
so effectively, the team would have endured 6-8 years out in the wilderness, after being one of the league’s elite teams. as a direct result of joe’s gamble on stuckey. at that point, i’ll certainly applaud the progress and enjoy a return to prominence, but those 6-8 years would represent a long period of bad basketball and failure.
i went back to the post-chauncey trade chad ford article linked in the previous post, what is stunning is the fact that almost all of the potentially negative things anticipated actually happened, while none of the possibly positive things anticipated happened.
in other words, the trade essentially failed on just about every issue it was designed to address.
what is clear, going back and reading the contemporaneous reports – like ford’s- at the time of the trade, is that the trade was a spectacular failure, even according to the terms that dumars set out, as criteria to be considered.
so, yes, it will be nice if joe d finally turns things around in a few years with a bit of hard work and luck, and there certainly is potential for redemption, a long time in coming, yes, but redemption, none the less. but this period cannot ever, imho, be looked at as anything but a spectacular failure of leadership and judgment on dumars part. no matter what ultimately happens 2-3 years down the line.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:26:24 +0000

Sure, that’s the one thing Dumars still has going that some of the other GMs I mentioned don’t: Stuckey is still a functional player who just didn’t hit the ceiling the organization felt he had. If Dumars stays on the job, Monroe continues to be the guy and they had more pieces and Stuckey stays and continues to be a contributor, there is certainly a redemptive potential here for how that Stuckey-Dumars marriage plays out.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:24:04 +0000

Yeah, Bad Boys through present. Specifically, there are Bad Boys-related chapters on Laimbeer, Rodman and Isiah.

By: Max

Max — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:49:45 +0000

I actually agreed with most of this article even though I think Stuckey and the team have been hurt more by the decline of the bigs than anything to do with the guards, but isn’t is possible that some years from now that Moose will be the guy? I mean, some Pistons fans seem pretty hopeless now but if Dumars can mount another great run of years around Moose and Stuckey remains and is a big contributor or not, won’t the negative emphasis shift and can’t the image of Dumars become framed differently? I remember thinking Danny Ainge was the absolute worst GM in the league before he acquired Garnett and Allen and now I’ve all but forgotten his first few years in terms of remembering his bad moves with the exception of such occasions as this when it comes to mind.

By: Max

Max — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:28:00 +0000

Your repeated insults wouldn’t stop me from reading your book, since reading about the Pistons is like getting to eat candy, but as the description says the essays regard the modern Pistons, I’m just wondering how far back you go because modern could be defined very differently by different people. I guess more specifically, do you cover the bad boys?