Pistons boycott John Kuester

This is way worse than players trying to control what teams they play for. Unless some really awful stuff comes out about Kuester once he's inevitably fired, he doesn't deserve this and the players involved should be fined heavily and their images throughout the league should be tarnished.

 

Kuester would have been whacked weeks ago, but the team is essentially being run on life support as the pending sale of the franchise hangs in limbo and essentially the powers that be, i.e. Karen Davidson, have said they ain't spending one more dime to run the franchise than they have to, so they ain't paying off Kuester and hiring somebody (or anybody) else to coach the team.

Of course the players are fulfilling every bit the stereotype of the egotistical slacker NBA player (due in no small part to the lingering 'i-don't-take-no-shit-from-nobody' influence of Rasheed Wallace, who led Rip Hamilton around like a puppy dog while he was in Detroit, and Rip has now passed on his corruptive attitude), but they do have a point -- Kuester is an ass-horrible coach.

Of course, Dumars had to hire Kuester because the players rebelled against Michael Curry.

Dumars had to hire Michael Curry because the players rebelled against Flip Saunders.

Dumars had to hire Saunders because the players rebelled against (you knew we were going to arrive here sooner or later, didn't you??) Larry Brown. (No, not really, but it was getting close -- Chauncey Billups and Ben Wallace, from multiple reports, hated Brown's guts. Brown bolting saved Dumars from having to replace him).

Dumars had to hire Brown because the players rebelled against Carlisle.

I seem to be spotting a trend here.

 

Don't think any of the players involved here have much of an image left to tarnish.

 

Really, Billups and Wallace had issues with Brown? Billups is getting a slight reputation as a headache. I remember George Karl saying he'd have confrontations because Carmelo wanted the team ran one way and Billups wanted it another.

Shocked that Wallace and Billups have acted this way.

 

Billups thought Brown was overcontrolling (no, I was not counseling him) and stifled him offensively.

Ben Wallace, believe it or not, wanted to be a bigger part of the offense.

So it's not to say both their complaints were valid, but they were not happy campers.

And Rasheed Wallace was going to be happy just as long, and not one second longer, as Brown continued to let him do whatever the fuck he wanted. That wasn't going to last much longer.

So supposing Brown hadn't pulled his little escapade to jump to the Knicks, as soon as Sheed flipped over to the anti-Brown side (which could have happened any time on 15 minutes notice) Dumars would have had to fire Brown anyway.

 

And people wonder why the older white males don't like the NBA anymore.

 

Granted, but let me reiterate: Kuester is an idiot.

He needs to go coach at Hooterville High or some similar level better suited to his skills.

Dumars as outlined above has a long line of screwups (bad coaching hires, bad contracts, allowing a raging cancer to remain on the roster about five seasons too long) which have led to the current situation, and Karen Davidson is a gold-digger strangling the franchise to death waiting for her payday.

This is one of those rare cases (actually they are not so rare) in which pretty much everybody involved in the whole situation deserves all the crap anybody can fling at them.

 

That's probably the best summary of the Pistons I've read in a long time.

 

Brown has a way of really pissing off his players by the time he's done. I covered his Pacers teams. They loved him at first, they hated him by the time he exited stage left for Philly in 1997.

 

Yeah then he went to Philly and somehow got them to the Finals with AI, Eric Snow, Raja Bell, Tyrone Hill (?) and Theo Ratliff. East was weak but still pretty nice job. So yeah, it was his fault.

 

I wonder if Kuester has pictures of somebody. Had one good season at BU inheriting Pitino's remnants and one meh season that somehow got him the GW job. Five years at GW: 47-96, including a 1-27 season.
Sounds like mediocrity whose career was built on the coattails of Dean Smith and Larry Brown.