Pistons coach Michael Curry... oops. Wait.

All as of now, more to come I would assume...

Pistons fire coach Michael Curry
The Detroit News

Auburn Hills -- Pistons coach Michael Curry has been fired, the team announced Tuesday.

"This was a difficult decision to make," Pistons president Joe Dumars said. "I want to thank Michael for his hard work and dedication to the organization. However, at this time, I have decided to make a change."

Curry was 39-43 in his only season as Pistons coach. Detroit was swept by Cleveland in the first round of the playoffs.

 

Joe Dumars takes the Gannett approach. Just fires everyone.

 

So Bill Laimbeer or Doug Collins?

 

No and No.

Yahoo is reporting Collins, like Dumars wants to go through THAT again.

 

I'd like to know the details about this.

I mean, they've gone through the draft already. I know system and style aren't as vast in the NBA as they are in the NFL, but you've gotta draft "your" players, right? So Austin Daye is going to fit with whomever they hire? That team's identity is in flux right now anyway, so I'm curious what Dumars is going to do about this open gig.

 

Dumars must have a fairly big name coach lined up though to make this move now.

 

An amusing footnote: Dumars fired Flip Saunders, who has coached 14+ NBA seasons with a winning percentage of nearly .600, because Rasheed Wallace (and to a lesser extent his sidekick, Rip Hamilton), "didn't respect him."

Then he hired Michael Curry, who had coached exactly zero games in the NBA, apparently because his coaching credentials met the exacting standards of Wallace and Hamilton sufficiently for their "respect."

 

What "fairly big name coach" could Dumars possibnly have lined up?

I hear Isiah is available.

 

And the Wolves fired Flip because a year after going to the WCF - where they might have beaten the Lakers if Cassell was healthy - they struggled and McHale replaced him with...himself! And then Don Casey, and Randy Wittman, and...Kevin McHale. The Wolves were completely irrelevant for six years before Flip. They've been irrelevant four years without him.

The guy can coach. Yeah, they lost three straight years in the ECF, and the Wolves only made it out of the first round once, but he's one of the better guys out there.

 

Joe Dumars picks the players and assigns playing time in Detroit. Not the coaches. This is why Rodney Stuckey was untouchable last year even though he can't shoot, or dribble.

 

Yea, stang, I'm not sure why people are so high on Stuck,either. He's a poor man's Ben Gordon.

 

The big problem with Saunders as far as Rasheed Wallace (and to a lesser extent, Rip Hamilton, who follows Sheed around like a puppy dog) was concerned was that he was white. Sheed will listen (occasionally) to white guys if they're grumpy grandpa authority figures (Dean Smith, Larry Brown), and that's it.

Although it is to be noted that the policy of Larry Brown, the world-renowned disciplinarian, toward Sheed was basically, 'let him do anything he goddamn wants.' This worked OK for a season or so when the things Sheed wanted to do coincided with the things the team needed him to do. Once those things were no longer synonymous, trouble followed.

Of course, Sheed didn't listen to Curry, either. :