OT: Pistons hire Mo Cheeks as Head Coach
"ESPN sources: Mo Cheeks has today agreed to take Detroit Pistons' job. Story posting online at ESPN as we speak"
Many expected Cheeks was the man Detroit wanted, and sure enough they got him. Cheeks has a career record of 284-286 in eight seasonsas a head coach.
Cheeks has played with both Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing, and has coached Allen Iverson and Rasheed Wallace; he’s known to possess an even keel on the sidelines and handle difficult personalities, a trait that works in his favor here.
As coach, one of his main duties will most likely be harnessing and developing young point guard Brandon Knight, if he doesn't move to SG during the offseason. Cheeks was a main influence on Oklahoma City point guard Russell Westbrook, who can be a loose cannon at times.
With a young and promising core of Andre Drummond, Greg Monroe, and Brandon Knight to work with, hopefully the organization can use both the draft and free agency wisely to build around these guys.
Professional sports is "what have you done for me lately". Who talks about the runs the Pistons made? I see what you're saying but when you're plucking 5 or 6 years out of 30, you're really stretching. It's like a high school footbal team calling themselves a dynasty when they were good for 3 years and irrelevant for the previous 10 and post 5 years.
The Spurs have had the luxury of having the best power forward in NBA history during that entire run. They've done a great job remaking their roster around him during his career (see the ongoing Simmons articles in grantland yesterday and today) but they've started from a far more advantageous place.
Because when they had hte opportunity of Robinson being out they weren't afraid to tank the season and get a shot at a top player. It took some luck too, but at least they weren't trying to decrease the odds of getting that pick like the Pistons do every year.
The Pistons got that good team getting a high pick luck, and completely biffed the pick. So you create your own luxuries.
Probably would add Spurs and Heat to that list, but other than that I agree with your point. There just aren't that many organizations with the Pistons track record of success which is what makes this recent run so disheartening.
The Heat? Seriously? Ask Alonzo Mourning, Glen Rice and Dan Majerle how they liked playing the Bulls when they were "good".
Why is Laimbeer untouchable again?
Maybe Joe D doesn't like him either? So he could deal with him as coach of the Shock, but doesn't want to give him a chance with the Pistons.
Which is too bad, because who's going to give him a shot, if not the Pistons? The team isn't so good now, but at least you'd have the buzz from having the former Bad Boy as coach. And maybe he'd turn out to be a good coach. Gotta be better than Curry, at least. And if he didn't pan out, he'd get fired in two years anyway, right?
I don't know if Bill has the ability to deal with a bunch of millionaire prima donnas, but I sure wouldn't mind a coach that didn't take shit from the players.
I find it odd that he hasn't latched on with any other NBA teams, I think it speaks strongly why he hasn't even been considered in the past coaching searches.
From the 80's... Kareem, Bill, Patrick Ewing (only an assistant)
I wonder if some of that is simply other teams seeing that the Pistons won't hire him and assuming that there must be a problem with his candidacy.
The Pistons have been pretty bad the past 5 years or so, no doubt about it. Howeva I don't think they are as far away from turning things around as some of you may think.
The Pistons were in the hunt for an 8th-seed playoff berth for the first half of the season, then rookie sensation Andre Drummond ended up missing 22 games because of a stress facture in his back. Couple that with Frank missing time due to his wife's health, and the wheels just fell off.
I would say the Pistons pre-Drummond injury were just as good if not better than the Bucks, who finished 38-44 with the 8th seed. That's just my opinion.
The team will look a helluva lot different next season with all the free agents on the roster, but I don't think we are all that far from being a playoff team, albeit in the Eastern Conference.
That's the sign of a good team. They were almost the 8th seed.
I didn't say they were a good team, but progress was being made. Drummond was really coming along. He averraged 7.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 1.6 blocks per contest in only 21 minutes of action. His injury made a bad team even worse.
Given the constraints the Pistons operate under (they will never lure a top end free agent), their best case for becoming a contender is the path Indiana's taken. Hope Drummond can develop a post game like Hibbert has, hope Monroe can become a reliable pick and pop guy, hope Knight develops and stops getting posterized, and hope you hit on a mid lottery pick this year who makes the jump by his third year (given Cheeks' history with developing Westbrook, Carter-Williams would be a reasonable pick. He doesn't have Westbrook's athleticism, but he has a ton of untapped ability). And try to pick up a shooter/perimeter defender with the money freed up once Charlie V and Gordon come off the books. Emphasize playing big in a league with a declining number of dominant bigs. It really depends on Drummond's development, but you can see a path to where they become a contender, unlike most other teams around them in the lottery this year (save New Orleans).
I still don't love the Cheeks pick but if he's viewed as more of a developmental coach for a young team that can be potentially replaced in 2-3 years when they begin to hit the front end of their competitive potential, it could work.
Indiana is a team that will lose a lot of conference championships, and in a good year, lose the NBA Finals. They're a Utah Jazz /Sacremento Kings/Seattle Supersonics/Phoenix Suns. Teams that will be good for decent run, but don't have the star to carry them to a championship.
Their best bet is to get one through the lottery, but they always seem to win just enough games not to have that top pick. One you get that guy, then you put enough good players around him that he might stay because he's winning.
There's a lot of hope in your post. I think Drummond is going to be a good player, maybe even an all-star, but he's not a franchise player. If he's the Pistons best player, they're not winning anything. He might be a solid #2 guy. Gasol, or Pippen, to some to be named Kobe or Jordan.
There's a LOT of hope that Knight amounts to anything more than a really good third guard/6th man at this point. And somehow even though no one else even wanted to interview him Cheeks has somehow gotten all the credit for Westbrook, even though he hasn't developed any other point guards anyone can point to. (Maybe Westbrook is just really good all on his own). What the team really needs is someone who can develop big men. Because those are the best players on the team.
Spending all that cap space on an outside shooter is a waste of a lot of cap room. Great, they'll be the 7th seed next year. Dare to dream. None of that makes them a contender; it just makes them a playoff sacrifice. For a team with three titles, that's pathetic.
So my disappointment with every move they've made recently other than lucking into Drummond is that I see no path to them being contenders. You're right, none of the teams in the lottery seem to have any better path. The difference is, one of them will be in the lottery again next year, with a high pick, and guys to choose from who COULD lead a team to contention. Where this move signals the Pistons are going all in this year to make the playoffs, not have a high pick in the good draft next year, spend their money on ok players who will make the team marginally better but tie up their cap space for half a decade, and be stuck in mediocre limbo for a good portion of Drummond's career. Yay.
they really need to suck because anything higher than 9th goes to the Bobcats/Hornets from the Ben Gordon trade
The Pistons just hired themselves a great human being: and a mediocre coach.
No way we could attract a coach like Hollins or George Karl to Detroit. With right moves were still a year away from playoffs.
Hollins just left Memphis not LA, NY, Miami. Its Memphis for crying out loud. If he was cool in Memphis then the right amount of money would have made him cool in Detroit in my opinion. I'm not saying it would have been easy, but at least float a story out there saying Detroit at least contacted Karl, Shaw, Hollins, Del Negro, Avery Johnson etc to show the fanbase that you tried. Monroe and Drummond have the potential to be better than Z-Bo and Gasol. That combo has to be attractive to anyone interested in coaching in the NBA.
Del Negro? You really want that? I'll take Cheeks in a second over him.
Both Karl and Hollins are going to wait for the Clippers and the Clippers aren't going to hire anyone until the Chris Paul situation gets sorted out. Whichever doesn't get that job likely goes to the Nets, unless the Nets decide to go for JKidd (which would be a terrible, but very Nets like move).
Lawerance Frank 2.0, why couldnt we have went with Brain Shaw. This probably is last straw for Dumars dont think he can make it through another losing season.
I'm pretty happy with the pick-up. Cheeks may not be the coach to leads the Pistons back to a championship, but he's a good coach and should be able to right the ship after Frank. What drove me crazy about Frank was that he hadn't really proven himself as a coach, yet people remember him taking over some good Nets teams and equating a decent record there as proof that he was a good leader. By all accounts the players ignored him, and I saw little development the past couple of years that wasn't organic and brought about by age and talent. I know the complaint is that the players shouldn't run the show, but this doesn't feel like those post-championship Pistons teams where everyone thought he was the floor general and Flip Saunders just rolled the balls out.
....but Cheeks has?
And Cheeks was walked all over by the players twice before, so he's going to be a cure for that problem?
They should save some future money and sign him to a one-year contract.
I know this echoes what most have said but it's unconscionable that Dumars is still running this team. As another Detroit failure once eloquently put: What's a guy gotta do to get fired around here?
Laimbeer... Young team, no superstar egos to deal with. I think it would've been a good fit and an experiment worth trying.