Bower will continue to operate as the GM, league sources said. He is expected to lead Detroit's contingent at the draft combine in Chicago next week and oversee the team's individual draft workouts and draft planning. The rest of the front-office staff is expected to continue, too -- until further notice. Most of Detroit's front-office contracts expire this summer. Tellem, a longtime agent in the NBA, will not become the president of basketball operations or general manager, but he could have an expanded role beyond the business side, sources said. KP: What went wrong for the Pistons, and how can they fix it? [...] Overpays painted Detroit in a corner If you want to understand why Van Gundy struggled overseeing basketball operations, I'd suggest going back to listen to his interview with Zach Lowe on a Lowe Post podcast during the summer of 2015 after his first season in Detroit. Van Gundy defended his team winning a bidding war for center Aron Baynes in free agency, pointing out that Baynes would help the Pistons win and citing the example of how Rashard Lewis helped Van Gundy's Orlando Magic reach the 2009 NBA Finals. The Baynes contract was part of a series of deals where the Pistons paid heavily for role players. While the players themselves -- like Baynes, now a part-time starter for a Boston Celtics team on the verge of the Eastern Conference finals on a smaller, one-year deal -- were useful, that extra salary added up. The $10 million for Jon Leuer here and $7 million for Boban Marjanovic there, in addition to Josh Smith's stretched salary (on the books through 2019-20) and larger contracts for anchors Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson, put Detroit in luxury-tax peril last offseason. In order to avoid the tax, the Pistons renounced the rights to restricted free agent Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and replaced him by dealing Marcus Morris to the Celtics for Avery Bradley, hoping to upgrade at shooting guard in the process. Instead, Bradley was a disappointment in Detroit and Morris' departure compromised the Pistons' wing depth. When Jackson went down with a severely sprained ankle, his absence caused Detroit to slide into an eight-game losing streak that left them on the wrong side of the playoff line in the East. Believing their options to be limited, the Pistons pulled the trigger on a massive, risky trade with the LA Clippers for Blake Griffin. Taking advantage of a friendly schedule, Detroit won the first four games with Griffin -- all of them at home against teams on the back end of a back-to-back -- before falling violently back to earth. A late, five-game winning streak wasn't enough to salvage the Pistons a playoff berth, or ultimately Van Gundy's job. [...] The Van Gundy era has made the path to contention a challenging one.
he did a very mediocre job as a coach, and some of those contracts that they had given out were just dumb
Translation: To not have the opportunity to take this franchise further down the dumpster than I already have, I'm not going out on the terms I would like.
The Warriors would be a one dimensional defensive team struggling to score 95pts under JVG. He's overrated & his coaching style doesn't fit today's game
I disagree with everyone here, SVG is a competent coach during his years on the Magic, that team had lots of 3 pt shooters like Rashard Lewis, Reddick and Hedo Turkoglu so it's not like the concept of pace and space is foreign to him he can easily adapt his style to match today's, I mean look at the Celtics it's not like they are a 3 pt gunning team like GSW or the Rockets but they are the best coached team in the league. And if you look at Brad Steven's playbook a lot of it is similar to the Spurs golden era with crisp execution and on point defense so it shows you the "old style" of coaching still works in today's NBA. The problem with SVG is the ownership made him both GM and Head Coach. That's just dumb nobody can do both roles well, Popovich is the only exception because he had his assistant Buford actually doing the day-to-day running of the operations. As a GM there's a lots of things you need to do like drafting, looking for trades, scouting and salary cap management that a Lifer coach wouldn't necessarily know how to do. There's also not enough time to do both jobs, you can't do a great job as a GM if all your time is spent on coaching and vice versa. Finally as another poster said the coach and GM have different goals, the coach tries to win now all the time whereas the GM needs to keep an out for the future. A head coach will always want to trade away picks and cap flexibility for instant impact players and that's what happened to the Pistons, they overpaid a lot of role players because SVG was focusing on how these role players can immediately help the team. IMHO the PIstons made the right move by firing SVG because taking the GM job from him and demoting him back to a head coach position would be like a slap to the face. What they need to do is hire Hinkie and have him start The Process in Detroit. Look at Sixers, in 4 short years they have cornerstones Simmons, Saric and Embiid along with a boatload of capspace and that's not even counting wasted talent like MCW, Okafor and Noels.
I honestly think Thibs needs to go next, they have so much potential, these old school styles are no good
SVG shouldn't have wanted to be the GM. But I will forever grateful that he gifted us JSmoove to beat the Clippers.
I bet Battier would make a good GM. Not at all averse to analytics while also not forgetting the human part of it and judging guys hearts and desires.
Stefanski, who will report to owner Tom Gores, has a three-year contract and will be tasked with overseeing the assemblage of a new Detroit front office and coordinating a head-coaching search in Detroit's post-Stan Van Gundy era. The Pistons' top target in the coaching search is former Toronto Raptors coach Dwane Casey, according to league sources. Stefanski and the Pistons will immediately start a coaching search and plan to engage Casey immediately, league sources said. Stefanski was part of a Raptors front office, along with Bryan Colangelo, that hired Casey in 2011. The Pistons' new front office, centered around Stefanski, will look closely at hiring a rising front-office executive in a general manager-type role, league sources said. Brooklyn Nets assistant general manager Trajan Langdon met with Detroit officials to discuss such a high-level role and will remain a serious candidate, league sources said. Television analyst Brent Barry, a 14-year NBA veteran and two-time champion, is a front-runner to land in a complementary role in the Pistons' front office. Popular ex-Pistons player Tayshaun Prince -- who is completing his first year in the Memphis front office -- will be a strong candidate to join Stefanski in Detroit too, league sources said. http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...fanski-oversee-overhaul-basketball-operations
