One of the greatest players in franchise history, Dumars became the Pistons’ general manager in 2000. Since then, he’s been rated as the league’s best GM and it’s worst. No doubt, he fits somewhere between, but where?

This week, in addition to our normal coverage, we’re going to present a series of posts on Dumars – a referendum on his tenure as Pistons president, and ultimately, whether it should continue.

Ladies and Gentleman, Joe Dumars Week begins.

Most of our coverage of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement will focus on what it means to the Pistons, but if you want to understand more about what’s happening league-wide right now, Royce Young of Eye on Basketball and Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press each wrote very informative Q and As about the lockout ending.

I’m sure I speak for many of you when I say it’s great to get this ship sailing again.

The first is Game 4 of the 1989 Eastern Conference semifinals against the Bucks:

Pistons G Isiah Thomas had a triple-double to lead the Pistons into the Conference Finals

That’s followed by Game 6 of the 1989 Eastern Conference finals:

Despite Bulls G Michael Jordan’s 32 points, the Pistons, lead by Isiah Thomas, defeated the Bulls once again in the Playoffs.

If you can’t watch at 2 p.m. today, don’t fret. NBATV will continue to show both games in four-hour blocks through noon tomorrow.

And if you can’t watch any of those showings, you can read about the games (and even if you watch, you can still read about them). I plan to write Matt Moore-esque recaps of each game. Hopefully, I can start watching at 2 p.m., but slight chance I’ll have to wait until a later showing.

So, watch along, and then we can discuss the games in the comments.

But fret not – or at least don’t fret too much. We’re still here, and we’re not going away. Plus, our site won’t regress back to the “stone ages.” We might even make upgrades!

We have a lot planned for the summer:

• A book club
• Continuing Assist Charts
• Ranking the Pistons’ seasons

That’s just the start. We have a few more ideas we’re kicking around, too.

I can also say with almost complete confidence, there will be a next season. I have no idea when it will begin, but I can’t imagine the NBA will fold. So, that means we’ll continue to look back on last season with an eye on next year. Especially, we have a few rookies who we don’t know as much about to analyze.

And we’ll cover that whole player-owner thing, too.

So, please, stick around. There’s no hiding that the lockout stinks, but we’ll do our best to keep this site enjoyable during the stoppage.

If you’re having trouble viewing the site, check to see if you have the AdBlock plugin enabled in your browser. If so, it’s relatively easy to add PistonPowered.com to the whitelist so that it’s disabled only when you visit here (though I’d encourage you to add other sites you trust to the list as well).

A quick Google search should give you all the details, but if you’re having trouble figuring it out, leave a comment on this post with your browser of choice and the name of the plugin you’re using and I’ll try to point you in the right direction.

We try our best to make AdBlock unnecessary here by keeping ads that are offensive or invasive off the site. If you ever see one you think falls into either category, don’t hesitate to bring it to our attention.

There are few things on the internet that I hate more than intrusive advertisements, so I understand any frustration you may have experienced with these new ads. They help pay the bills, but our goal first and foremost here at PistonPowered is to always make great content available to our readers without interruptions or distractions. Sorry for the inconvenience.

But we’re not going anywhere.

This won’t be a quiet summer for the Pistons, who have a new owner to get to know, a high draft pick, key free agents, players they probably want to trade and a soon-to-be-fired coach. Just like during the season, there are still ideas to generate, decisions to analyze and charts to make.

Patrick and I have big plans for the offseason – however long it may be. To give a preview, we’ll have:

• More Draft Dreams
• A review of The Big Questions
• Myth Week

That won’t be all, so stick around and join us as the Pistons hopefully enter a new era.