Comments on: The sensibility of trade deadline inaction

By: frankie d

frankie d — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 22:57:17 +0000

@ max
you and others keep making my point for me.
those guys had contracts that were for a specific term and were meant to be honored.
that is what happened.
sure, the last few years of the bulls were an ongoing drama.
jerry krause clearly was interested in moving on from the jackson/jordan years.
which is why he and jackson couldn’t agree on another contract or an extension of the one that expired. and why jordan signed a couple of one year contracts at the end of his career.
contract problems? inability to resolve internal problems?
that is one of those complicating factors i’ve been talking about!!
who was at fault? who knows.
we all know what a self-righteous prick jackson can be.
jordan? his arrogance and the difficulty of dealing with him was well-known. plus, he was making over 30 million + on each of his last contracts. it is obvious that he was no picnic and it is truly laughable that anyone would put all of the blame for the difficulties between the parties on one side: management.
i’m sure krause and reinsdorf were not blameless. just as i’m sure that jordan and pippen and jackson had a good share of the blame for the relationship falling apart.
contractual relationships are like marriages. who knows how the relationship works and the only ones who know are the two parties. and because of their inability to resolve their differences, things fell apart.
everyone honored their contracts and when it was time for continuing a relationship under new contractual terms, no one wanted to continue. it happens. happens in every business.
that is a far cry from what happened in detroit.
there was no difficulty of that sort. all the relevant parties were under contract and committed to a continued relationship. joe made a choice to make a change, despite those commitments.
again, we can talk about whether joe was right or wrong to do what he did. just as many will argue whether krause and reinsdorf were correct to do what they did.
but the two circumstances are very different.
flip was fired with a year remaining on his contract.
phil jackson fulfilled his contract and walked away.
chauncey had just signed a new contract with detroit.
jordan specifically signed two one year contracts in anticipation of not being able to resolve his contractual problems with the bulls.
the last two years of the bulls’ reign was planned and they made the most of it. bravo to them.
i was living in wisconsin at the time, and kept up with the drama because chicago was so close and while no one could quite believe it was going to actually end the way it was ending, it was no surprise to anyone. while some held out hope that everyone would put their differences behind and continue on, that was only a hope. the contracts said something different.
totally different from what happened in detroit. firing coaches and trading players is far different from players and coaches seeking contractual relationships elsewhere after they’ve fulfilled their obligations under previous contracts.
i will acknowledge this: joe d and jerry krause both arrogantly neglected to understand the importance and value of certain players and coaches and they inflated their own worth as executives. there is no question about that. but what happened to the bulls is much more similar to what happened to the ’04 lakers, though it is not identical, obviously. coach/player/management conflict that could not be resolved.
bottom line is this: if you do take the kind of radical step joe d took, you’d better get it right. if you don’t get it right and it fails, the total responsibility for that failure rests with you.
joe took that radical step, failed, and he is suffering the consequences now. and pistons fans are dealing with the consequences of his unprecedented actions.

By: Max

Max — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 21:44:41 +0000

I don’t if you are being intellectually honest or not but the Bulls pushed Jordan and Jackson into retirement and had treated Jordan, Pippen and Jackson badly and shown them disrespect for years. There were rumors even last season that players didn’t want to sign with them because of how horribly management acted towards them at the end of their run. Bottom line: Jordan didn’t want to retire but was disgusted with management and knew they overtly eager for him to leave.

By: frankie d

frankie d — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:11:55 +0000

“What difference does it make whether the run ended because of moves Dumars made or moves he didn’t make? If he had stuck with the core he had and let age run its course, the Pistons would have gotten really bad. He took a chance at shaking things up, and that didn’t work either, but at least it had a chance of working. ”
again, you make my point for me.
i did not argue that it was the right thing or wrong thing.
obviously, history has proven that it was the wrong thing to do.
it did not work.
period.
fact.
all of the good intentions don’t matter on bit.
he screwed up.
whether they could have made another run or whether they would have collapsed on their own…who knows.
my own personal view is that he could have hired the right coach, tweaked the team by adding a good big man and had a team that could have contended for years.
just my opinion.
and nothing but conjecture, as your view is – that it didn’t matter. what you say is nothing but absolute naked conjecture. we will never know what may have happened. we can all guess, but that is all it is…guessing.
and as a result, it may have turned out differently, contrary to your unequivocal assertion that it didn’t matter.
and trying to characterize my argument as “poor” does not change that one bit.
you have, however, conceded exactly what i have argued: that dumars’ moves caused the collapse.
and that has never happened before.
never.
and your attempt to change what i am discussing is simply that: an attempt to present an argument that i’d not made.
i’m more than happy to go move by move, signing by signing, trade by trade and discuss the merits and negatives. that is not what i was doing.
i made a simple point: no team in nba history, has destroyed an elite team that had recently won a title, solely by virtue of its own affirmative moves, moves not dictated by contracts, personnel problems, coaching retirements, any external or internal pressures of that sort.
no, joe decided, as you acknowledged, to blow it up and he did so on his own, because he thought he had a good plan, and we, as fans, are living with the carnage.
thanks for making my point for me.

By: Dan Feldman

Dan Feldman — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 17:01:44 +0000

Frankie, your argument is very, very, very poor. Would you be happier if Dumars had stuck with Billups, Hamilton, Prince, McDyess and Sheed? Would the team be better off now? The Pistons were getting old, and the end of their run appeared near, if it hadn’t ended already.

What difference does it make whether the run ended because of moves Dumars made or moves he didn’t make? If he had stuck with the core he had and let age run its course, the Pistons would have gotten really bad. He took a chance at shaking things up, and that didn’t work either, but at least it had a chance of working.

The Pistons had a foundation that was about to crumble. You’re right, most teams in that situation let it crumble on its own. Dumars tore it down first. What difference does it make here? The foundation was coming apart either way.

By: frankie d

frankie d — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:29:55 +0000

@patrick,
thanks for the response.
as you so often unwittingly do, you make my point for me with your own words.
thanks.
let’s examine the examples you bring forth.
the old celtics died a death the old fashioned way, of natural causes.
they got old.
parish, bird, mchale, and dennis johnson all retired as celtics. that was the core of their team. certainly one can argue whether the team should have aggressively tried to trade those old guys for new blood, but what happened, happened. a team of champions got old and the team collapsed.
and as you mentioned, it certainly did not help that the two best young players they drafted within a few years of each other died.
no, management did not commit suicide in boston.
the lakers? again, thanks for bringing up the kobe stuff because that was a very unique factor in the collapse of a title team. as detroit fans knew, kobe and shaq hated each other and basically gave management an ultimatum: one of us has to go. management decided to keep kobe and trade shaq. there was also the tension between phil jackson and kobe, which probably factored into another problem for the title team: phil jackson’s retirement.
let’s summerize: hall of fame coach leaves, hall of fame center is traded because he does not get along with hall of fame shooting guard. a mess? absolutely. something management created by it’s own affirmative moves? hardly.
one can quibble with the way management may have handled the situation, but it certainly was not a crisis created by them, by their own decisions and moves.
the team may have died, but the franchise did not commit suicide.
the old bulls?
did management break up the team?
unhh…i guess…after their star player and the best player, ever, retired.
after their hall of fame, phil jackson retired because his contract had expired.
yes, they decided that they probably needed to go in another direction, but that can be excused considering the key players on their title teams had gone.
could management have done more to keep the band together for one more run? maybe, but it’s mere conjecture on anyone’s part. a perfect storm happened: jackson’s contract was over, jordan retired – again – and the strike happened. bulls management then took the opportunity to blow what remained of the team up and start over.
again, not suicide by the franchise. maybe not handling external and internal problems – the impact of the strike, contracts – as well as could be done, but no affirmative actions.

on the other hand, as i stated, what the pistons did was unprecedented. solely because of management decisions and affirmative actions taken by the general manager- firing flip,trading the team’s leader, a player who did not want to be traded for a player who was so bad he was out of the league in two years – the team collapsed. it went from a conference finalist to a a first round playoff casualty, losing 20 more games than it had previously, becoming a sub-.500 team for the first time in 8 years.
it has never happened before.
unprecedented for an elite team.
franchise suicide.
no title team, one that maintained its level of excellence as detroit had, has ever been destroyed because of that kind of incompetence by management, as happened in detroit. no other management in the history of the nba has done what joe dumars did to an elite team.
detroit fans should be aggrieved. they’ve suffered something no fans have ever suffered in the nba.
do your research.

By: frankie d

frankie d — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:45:35 +0000

total bs!
there are plenty of guys here that i care not to read.
i dont read their posts.
whenever i see their name, i scroll past.
simple.
easy.
the idea that someone “uses” space and is rude as a result is ludicrous.
absolutely ludicrous.
not much more to say than that.
i don’t do ad hominem attacks.
i dont go after people personally.
often i respond to others who have posted something about my posts.
if it costs the blog, that is one thing.
the idea that someone is inconvenienced because they have to scroll past, using their index finger for a second or two…hilarious!

By: dandresden

dandresden — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:00:38 +0000

i think at this point dumars “strategy” is to just not admit he fucked up with BG and CV, play them and hope one catches fire enough to be traded for salary relief. The way things stand now i dont think there is any deal he could have made that benefitted the team other than making all of us happy that those two are gone. My theory is that he is just going to keep stocking mid-lotto picks, let all of the garbage he signed expire or trade when they are close to expiring and then try to fill in the holes he hasnt filled with his middle of the lotto picks with FA’s once he recovers cap space. I really dont see any other way he can go. This win streak probably ruined any chance of a top pick and there isnt any cap room to sign anyone to help til like the end of next year maybe. simply put he has thrown off the karen davidson handcuffs and handcuffed himself. Maybe some GM will get desperate and decide that the thing they need to keep their superstar is some washed up nobody like “olympian and NBA champion Tayshaun Prince. I think Dumars is pretty stupid these days but there are lots of other idiot GM’s out there too. Nothing to do but be patient, maybe develop another hobby instead of watching the trash that dumars assembled for the near future.

By: tarsier

tarsier — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 21:57:28 +0000

What’s not to love about the idea of Millsap next to Monroe? And who cares if Sullinger and Smoove are 6’9″? Besides Howard and maybe Bynum, who’s gonna punish them for a lack of size?

By: tarsier

tarsier — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 21:53:21 +0000

Yeah, to rate how good his draft was, imagine that he had taken Jerebko 15th and Daye 39th. JJ would represent maybe average value at that pick. Not shabby but certainly not great. And then he got a complete non-contributor in Summers and what looks like another in Daye. All told, a below average haul for having 15th, 35th, and 39th picks.

By: tarsier

tarsier — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 21:40:54 +0000

You’re forgetting 2nd rounders/cap holds. Those will take away another couple million. So then, by major players, you mean the Pistons can hope there is one guy worth targeting that summer for about $12-13M/year who decides to come to Detroit. It’s possible, but it’s also a really frial basket to be putting your eggs in.