Comments on: Joe Dumars almost had it

By: Max

Max — Mon, 28 May 2012 18:33:22 +0000

Long ago, Dumars was quoted as saying he would know the team’s run was over when the bigs declined.   It seems to me that he acted consistently with that quote when he gradually tore the 2004 group down.
The Spurs run will be over when Duncan retires or declines and they will not somehow remain a good team without a break in their playoff run when that happens because they have such overwhelming great management.   For one thing, despite their success, reputation and great teammates to offer, much like Detroit, great free agents almost never sign there unless they are being resigned. They are mostly limited to draft and trade. All of the great pieces that constiture their depth are role players who couldn’t consistently win games without any two of their big three. They are basically like an old Thunder (though they kind of have a big four) or Mia with a deep rounded cast instead of a thin one.
@Patrick…..I get that you really love Big Ben and I do too but the Wallace’s helped each other a lot and it’s notably that ‘Sheed has gone to conference finals and finals without the Pistons and his tandem of playing Shaq in POR with Sabonis was also amongst the most effective ever at playing a prime time Shaq–I’d throw Divac and Webber and obviously Robinson and Duncan in there as well.   I say this because beating a prime time Shaq twice was probably Big Ben’s and that entire group’s greatest accomplishment and it absolutely required both Wallaces.
I don’t know if you were very angry at Dumars when he failed to match the Bulls ludicrously high (and spiteful to the Pistons) offer for Wallace but I was not. I was much more angry when he signed Gordon and Charlie V because in my mind that (and the RIP extension) was the first time he overpaid anyone and I had previously taken that as one of his strongest points.

By: Max

Max — Mon, 28 May 2012 17:11:37 +0000

And just so I am not understood or characterized. I did not bring up the Suns because I misunderstood anyone’s premise but rather because I assessed the Suns pool of talent and age as being more comparable and even said it still doesn’t hold up because their players (former or otherwise) remain more relevant.
Look at the 86 Celtics. They kept their players together and made some smart moves but it all fell apart because their stars fell apart. If the Pistons had stayed together and done a better job of incorporating their young role players (and they didn’t have a young chip in Reggie Lewis or the 86 Celtics’ kind of stars) what would have prevented them from falling apart anyway as Rasheed, Hamilton, Billups and Big Ben absolutely declined and retired?

By: Max

Max — Mon, 28 May 2012 17:01:33 +0000

My attempt to sum up why this irritates me.
Duncan is perhaps the easiest player in all of NBA history to build a championship or dynasty around because he quite possibly has the best and most congenial attitude of any of the true elites–excepting Magic Johnson who wasn’t a true big or dominant defensive player.
Dumars put together a bunch of parts that no one seemed to want and built a championship team that had an amazing run that no one could have really predicated or forseen whereas Duncan is the kind of player that gets a fan base thinking multiple titles as soon as he is drafted—and I’m not taking about the Spurs particular situation with David Robinson. In the last 20-30 years, the only two players who seemed more highly touted as draft picks were LeBron and Shaq and their fan bases were surely thinking about future titles on draft day. These type of players are foundational in themselves and while the Spurs have certainly done admirably, they could have done much worse and possible won titles and remained relevant. For instance, I can’t imagine the Magic having done a worse job of building around Howard since he was drafted and yet, they have made the finals and posted good records on a yearly basis.
I feel like it’s incredibly unfair to Dumars to put him in comparison with the Spurs because it’s like looking at two players who sit down at a poker table and expecting the player who is holding a far inferior hand with fewer chips to boot to somehow win.

By: Max

Max — Mon, 28 May 2012 16:45:13 +0000

I read most of your posts in their entirety and this was a particularly long one that irritated me within the first few paragraphs and went on irritating me through the next few.   What argument am I attributing to you or Goodwill that isn’t being made? This is what I see: You are basically saying the Pistons could have stuck with their core and still compared to the current Spurs or Celtics.   I think such an opinion is well beyond crazy but am I reading that wrong?
People have engaged with me and you consistently attribute all posts as a response to your post when my last post was in response to Desolation Row.   He made a comment that Dumars severely underestimated how sports medicine impacts veterans longevity and brought up KG, Nowitski and Duncan and that’s just nonsensical to me.   Kareem, Malone and Stockton played till they were 40 without such advances but once again, those players are just even more special and higher ranked all-time than those the Pistons had in 2004.
Which by the way since I read his whole post:   @Desolation Row: I wish the Pistons had just kept Carlisle and never really understood his firing.

By: Max

Max — Mon, 28 May 2012 16:28:05 +0000

It’s about the direction of team. I like my Pistons to be a deep talented bunch that has better chemistry and defense than everyone else. No ‘Melo team will ever be like that unless they compromise an entire team to fit him like Philly did with Iverson. And I had a poor opinion of him coming out of college in spite of his national championship because he seemed like a clown to me from the beginning. Sorry, I have a mold and special definition of what it means to be a Piston that is based on the great and beloved players and teams they have had and Anthony doesn’t remotely match up with it. Also, I live in NY and most of my friends who are Knicks fans wish the Knicks had never acquired him and are going through the issue of having a hard time rooting for him so I’m hardly unique in my thinking. Basketball definitely operates for me on the level of entertainment and I want to be able to fully get behind the team I love and wish them every success so I don’t think it’s crazy for me to not want a player on my team that will make me struggle and possibly fail to do so.
BTW: The only two players I positively couldn’t stand in Pistons’ history and couldn’t root for were Mark Aguirre and Bison Dele and they were good players. I way preferred Kwame Brown to either one of those guys and I don’t care that it doesn’t make pragmatic basketball sense. Loving your team is about passion and goes beyond anything purely rational.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Mon, 28 May 2012 15:27:02 +0000

As someone pointed out above, you are consistently mischaracterizing what this post is saying. That's fine, you're entitled to it. I get that misinterpreting things is kind of your schtick around here. But you should just know that no one is really engaging with you because you are arguing about things that have no merit.

I mean, it's really easy to do what you are doing. You are creating points that don't exist, attributing them to me and other commenters who didn't make those points, then arguing against them. I mean, I could easily say, "Max argues America, kittens and Memorial Day barbecues are evil. Here's why he's wrong." But that wouldn't really be fair of me to do, since you never specifically said those words. But just know, that is exactly what you are doing. Hell, in one comment, you even admit that you didn't even read the post you are attacking in its entirety. If you want to have honest dialogue, then first actually understand the point that's being made and then go from there. If you don't want to do that, then don't expect anyone to engage with you like a thinking human being.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Mon, 28 May 2012 15:21:47 +0000

LOL

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Mon, 28 May 2012 15:20:09 +0000

@Max:

Yeah, why would the Pistons in 2003 have wanted a talented scorer, a really good rebounder for a small forward, who just dragged his team to a national title? What a loser that guy is!

Listen, I get that Anthony as a pro hasn't always been a model teammate. I even get that, statistically, he's overrated. But he's still far, far superior to the incumbent the Pistons had at the time (Prince), he wanted to be in Detroit (he said so in an interview before the draft, where he mentioned that Rip Hamilton was his favorite player and he'd love to play with him) and, like him or not, he's been a go-to player on playoff teams much of his career. So no, I'm not happy the Pistons passed on Anthony. Even if he wouldn't have fit here long-term, he would've still represented an incredibly valuable asset. Look at the haul Denver got for him. You're telling me you would just turn down someone who would fetch what he did in a trade simply because you don't like him and "would have a hard time" rooting for him? That's craziness.

By: Patrick Hayes

Patrick Hayes — Mon, 28 May 2012 15:14:34 +0000

"But I don’t think he deserves credit that he “almost made it” for these last three years."

I fully, 100 percent, agree with this. I didn't write this necessarily to give him credit for coming close. It was more just a reaction to watching how San Antonio and, to a lesser extent, Boston, have evolved as they've aged, worked younger players into their rotation and maintained their runs longer than many thought they would. It's also really interesting to watch specifically because we were fed talking points from the organization all those years the Pistons were winning that basically said player development of guys like Delfino, Johnson, Maxiell, Afflalo and even Milicic had to be put aside because this was a veteran team close to winning, so there was no time to waste devoting minutes to younger players. The Spurs and Celtics have proven just how detrimental that thinking was to Detroit. It would've been a semi-defensible position for the Pistons to take had those young players proved to be lousy elsewhere, but as we've seen, they've been solid or better in their different roles.

Anyway, hopefully it didn't come off as a defense, more just me watching these playoffs and getting a little depressed/nostalgic because Detroit basketball never had to sink to the depths it has these past few seasons.

By: Max

Max — Mon, 28 May 2012 08:21:47 +0000

Dumars never had a single player the likes of those three players you named and part of the reason those guys have lasted so long is that they are just more special. KG? Duncan? Nowitski? How dare you even mention such names?
You guys are acting like Dumars acted like Jerry Krause and broke up the Bulls or something and just dropped Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, Jackson and more after they had just won the title because he wanted to reload. And guess what? The Pistons five year plan looks a lot rosier than the Spurs right now to me. Duncan is still great but he and Ginobili will fall off the cliff within two to five years and chances are that they will be done and have to go through the lottery process. And most believe Pop retires when Duncan retires.
The Pistons will have Monroe, Stuckey, Knight in their primes and other players, and the Spurs will have an aging Parker Leonard and what? You guys are nuts.