For me, I prefer to have more than just a year’s worth of evidence before I declare that Gores is definitely willing to spend money on his basketball team. Honestly, the only basketball things he’s spent money on so far is paying players to go away — Hamilton’s buyout and giving up a first round pick just to get rid of Gordon. The facility upgrades are nice, but it’s possible those things will benefit his entertainment properties as much, if not more, than his basketball property.

I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, but you and the defensive way you interpret things are the problem here. If a post is not all about sunshine and rainbows, you get all bent out of shape. Our goal is to be as objective as possible. That means we write about good things happening, like spending money on facility upgrades (incidentally, here’s another team news release about upgrades that I ran on the site just a couple weeks ago, so again, we cover this aspect too), and it means we write about things that are less positive, like the team electing not to fill a position in their basketball department that was previously staffed.

I want to respond to a few of your points:

“You say they didn’t fill a roster spot last year. Are you saying that’s unusual?”

No, it’s not unusual. Many teams do this. Do you know why they do this? To save money. And that doesn’t mean we’re calling the Pistons or any of those teams cheap. Salaries, even minimum ones, are expensive for players who probably won’t play a lot, so it makes financial sense sometimes not to do it. But I’m still going to call it what it is — a cost savings move.

“Many teams do this an what were we gonna put in that spot? Someone to ride the bench?”

Again, I didn’t call not filling that roster spot a positive or a negative. Sure, I think they could’ve used it to audition some D-League players on 10-day deals. But I’m also not bent out of shape about them not filling it. But like I just wrote, the reason they didn’t fill that spot was a financial one. It’s 100 percent OK for me to say that. It’s not a criticism. It’s just a face.

“But I can SEE the money Gores is spending with the upgrades to the palace an team facilities!”

So can I. We’ve written about it many times. But I think you’re forgetting an important piece of the puzzle here. Gores didn’t just buy the Pistons. He bought Palace Sports and Entertainment. For the last couple years, the ‘Entertainment’ side of that business has been lucrative. The ‘sports’ side, I.E. the Pistons, has not. Their attendance has been lousy. So yeah, facility upgrades benefit the basketball team, but they also benefit the business as a whole, particularly the aspect of the business that is by all accounts doing well financially.

“But Patrick your lookin at league minimum positions of 1mil an front office job of 450k.”

“So Gores spends close to 20mil on palace etc. But Patrick your lookin at league minimum positions of 1mil an front office job of 450k.”

Upgrades are nice. Good for him for investing in keeping his facility top of the line. I actually really like that about him — too many owners see a building that is as old as the Palace and just immediately want to go build another monstrosity somewhere else. I’m really glad Gores isn’t pushing for a new build like Ilitch was reportedly going to do if he’d been the one to buy the team.

That being said, I’m a fan of the Pistons. The actual product on the basketball court. Not halftime entertainment, not ‘fan experience’ stuff, not better chairs, etc. As a fan of the basketball team, I want them to use every resource possible for the basketball team. So if I see a front office position not filled, that means the Pistons lose a resource that could help them find talented players. If they don’t fill a roster spot, that means they won’t have a chance at being the next team that finds a useful rotation player by auditioning guys from the D-League.

“An owner who has started community involment programs to reward ppl who help the community with free tickets!”

Uh … you know why they give out free tickets, right? Because so few people have been buying tickets the last few seasons. The Palace was pretty empty most nights last season. Can you imagine how empty it would’ve been if they didn’t do free ticket promotions? Do you really think that if attendance perks up, if they start selling out games again, that they’re going to continue to give tickets away for free?

“Don’t know if you guys go to games or not but the customer experience has been increased as well.”

I’m glad. Fans who pay for a ticket deserve to have good customer service. Fans who watch the games in any capacity, though, can see that the Pistons still need to add more talent. So if they lose a resource in their front office that could help them find talent or if they can’t use a roster spot for an entire season as a way to look for talent, that’s worrisome to me. It doesn’t mean I’m convinced it will be that way forever or that I think Gores definitely isn’t going to invest in the basketball aspect of his business. But it is certainly worth paying attention to and following.