(Best E Casino) - Detroit's president of
basketball operations Joe Dumars gave Flip Saunders a raw deal when he relieved him of his duties as head coach of the Pistons on Tuesday.
Yes, the Pistons lost for the third straight year in the Eastern Conference finals, as they fell in six games to the Boston Celtics, who finished a league-best 66-16 during the regular season. During Saunders' tenure, Detroit also lost in six contests to the Miami Heat in 2006, and last year to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the conference finals.
But, instead of throwing his coach under the bus, maybe Dumars needed to look in the mirror to see if he could have done some things better. After all, isn't it Dumars who puts the roster together for his head coach?
The fact is that Detroit - the first team since the 1984-89 Los Angeles Lakers to reach the conference finals six years in a row - has had a great run. But, after last year's loss to LeBron James and the Cavaliers, it was evident that the roster needed to be a little more than tweaked.
When Boston put the "big three" of Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce together, Dumars had to know there was a new leader of the pack. Instead, he stood pat, and is now in a position to cast the blame on the departed Saunders.
Dumars should have started with 33-year-old forward Rasheed Wallace. Wallace was once an unbelievable talent, but has not come through for Detroit since its two championship appearances in 2004 and 2005. Dumars did not identify the fact that Wallace's act - including his on-court tirades and pouting when things aren't going his way - had grown stale. This problem should have been fixed soon after Detroit lost to Cleveland.
But it wasn't, and throughout the 2008 playoffs, the North Carolina product looked like a player more worried about his relationship with the opposition. than his own play. His joking around with Philadelphia 76ers players in the first round, and his antics with Boston's Kevin Garnett during the East finals, could not have been appreciated by the rest of the team, Saunders included.
Perhaps Saunders' biggest failure was his inability to coach Wallace, who was clearly not on the same page with his teammates during the playoffs. Otherwise, it is difficult to argue with Saunders' body of work. He compiled a 170-76 record in the regular season as Detroit's general, and in the playoffs went 30-21.
Justifying the firing by pointing to the loss of the Boston series is unfair. The Celtics were the better team, and Saunders led Detroit as far as it was going to go. It didn't matter who the coach was, Boston was going to advance.
But moving forward, Detroit had the formula to win the East again and return to the NBA Finals with Saunders still on the bench.
Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince - the only players who have been on the roster for the entire six-year stretch of Eastern Conference finals appearances - form an elite-level nucleus. The 31-year-old Billups is one of the top point guards in the league, Hamilton is old school in the way he approaches the game, and Prince is the Pistons' unsung hero.
Dumars should have kept this group in place, while ditching Wallace, after the 2007 loss to the Cavaliers. As it was, he still should have allowed Saunders to work with the threesome after this year's loss to the Celtics, while injecting some more youth into the mix.
Dumars added Rodney Stuckey and Arron Afflalo in the first round of the 2007 draft. Stuckey played well in the playoffs and looks like he has a bright future ahead of him, while Afflalo appears to be a defensive specialist in the making. Saunders should have been given an opportunity to succeed with both players receiving more consistent minutes.
Ultimately, Saunders should have been allowed to complete the final year of his contract, while Dumars re-organized a few personnel pieces.
Faces and names on the uniforms needed to change in Detroit, not the voice in the huddle.
Wrong move, Joe!
