Sports

Yashinsky: Dumars Was a Genius . . . And Then a Buffoon

April 18, 2014, 2:29 PM by  Joey Yashinsky

Featured_dumarsscreen_shot_2013-04-16_at_5.56.54_am_4708

Joe Dumars was a genius.  And then a buffoon.  And now his tenure as Pistons GM is complete.

His time as lead decision maker for the franchise can be very cleanly separated into two distinct halves.  

The first, where he took a mangled roster and eventually turned it into the league’s best.

And the second, where he mismanaged draft picks and free agents so grossly over a six-year span that the team he is now leaving is likely in the worst shape its ever been.

Did Joe just suddenly lose his touch following the 2008 season?  Or was that successful period more driven by luck and good fortune in the first place?

It’s difficult to find a proper label for Dumars.  It is wholly unfair to call him a complete failure since the team he was hired to oversee once advanced to six consecutive Eastern Conference finals.  30 teams in the league and the Pistons were one of the last four remaining in every year from 2003-2008.  You can’t ignore such a feat.

But as good as Dumars’ crew was in those salad years, they were as bad, if not worse, in the half-dozen to follow.  

Whereas the franchise once held firm on its identity of hard work and overall toughness, Dumars suddenly began opting for players that wouldn’t know tenacity if it slapped them across the face.  

He added Charlie Villanueva and Austin Daye, the first set of teammates in league history to ever play an entire season without stepping foot in the paint.

He dealt the face of the franchise, Chauncey Billups, for the league’s foremost authority on sulking, Allen Iverson.

And as the years passed, Dumars began to relax.  His moves lacked imagination.

Doing the Job on Auto-Pilot

He needed another big body for the bench, so he signed a 35-year-old Ben Wallace and kept him on for three full seasons.

He hung onto Tayshaun Prince and Jason Maxiell for three years too many.  Same goes for Rodney Stuckey.

The teams weren’t winning, but they weren’t changing a whole heck of a lot, either.  The formula did not make sense.

And then there were the coaches.

Most quality NBA franchises talk about the importance of stability and continuity at the top.  Look at the Spurs.  They don’t change a secretary in the office without major reason to do so.  Yet Dumars shuttled coaches in and out of the Palace so often that you wonder if it should have just been referred to as a “temp” position.

You kept waiting for Joe to swing for the fences; to make a super-creative hire; to bring in a guy that would send a jolt of electricity through the Palace and maybe, just maybe, get more than three thousand fans in the building again.  

But it never happened.

The hopelessly inexperienced Michael Curry was followed by the hopelessly overmatched John Kuester.  Then came Lawrence Frank, the definition of the “coaching retread.”  

The coup de grâce was this year’s selection of Maurice Cheeks.  Never were the Pistons more in need of a solid leader that wouldn’t be afraid to shake things up and start forming some new team-wide habits.  

Instead, Dumars hired the exact opposite in Cheeks -- a sleepy leader lacking any discernible system or previous post season success.  It was a nightmare from jump street and Dumars had to abandon the Cheeks ship just 50 games in.

Night and Day

Early in Joe D’s reign as the man in charge, he exhibited patience and confidence.  The moves never reeked of panic.  Building his champion didn’t take one year, it took four or five.  

He has done a full-180 in the time since.  He became the nine-year-old kid that somehow got stuck in the deep end of the pool, flailing away with both arms trying to find the wall.  A long-term solution was not the answer anymore.  His decisions were now based on sheer desperation, plain and simple.     

As the count went full on Joe D’s career, he made one last unforgivable decision -- the signing of Josh Smith.  It was strike three, and a loud one at that.

The addition of Smith never made any sense for this club.  The Pistons were blessed with a pair of talented young big men in Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe, yet Dumars somehow thought it necessary to add a brooding forward with a penchant for selfish play to the mix.  

2003 Dumars would have laughed at such a signing.  He would have quickly said, “No thanks” and moved on to a player with a steadier game and a stronger work ethic.  

But the post-’09 Dumars could never pass up the false bait at the end of the hook.  

If a particular summer was lacking in quality free agents, he didn’t stow away the cash and wait another 12 months.  He stepped right up and made an outrageous bid, never stopping to wonder why he was the only one that showed up for the auction in the first place.

Everything Begins at the Top

In summarizing the job Dumars has done, you need not look any further than the teams he put on the floor.

Early in his regime, the squad would put forth a strong effort 82 nights a year.  They would battle for a high playoff seed and then battle hard for another month or two once they got there.  They never had the biggest names, but it didn’t matter.  The attitude and culture was firmly in place, all starting with their calm and confident general manager.

And as his choices became lazier and less inspired, the on-court product followed suit.  There were too many blowout losses to count.  Winning streaks that would inevitably halt at one.  The sickening knowledge that it’s been 2,153 days since the Detroit Pistons last won a playoff game.  

When Joe Dumars took over 15 years ago, he was given a clunker -- a beat-up model with a few useful parts, most of which needed to be replaced.  And he did just that.

He patiently rebuilt the vehicle, taking great care with each step.  In 2004, his reclamation project was complete and the Detroit Pistons were NBA champions.

Today, the end of Dumars’ journey has arrived and he’s leaving behind an even bigger mess than the one he inherited.  Now the garage is virtually empty, the exception being Drummond, an offensive rebounding demon that treats the free throw line like one of those rigged up “land the key ring on the Coke bottle” carnival games.  

Aside from that, there is nothing.

Highest of Highs and Lowest of Lows 

Joe Dumars did the impossible -- twice.

He took a 32-win club and turned them into champs.  

Then he took that same perennial power and turned them into an annual punchline. 

We’ll remember and cherish the good times, but will be hard-pressed to forget the unending misery from 2009 and beyond.

Dumars will always be a legend in this town for what he accomplished both on and off the court.  Nothing can ever erase that.

But great performers know when to walk off the stage; how to leave on a high note.

Joe D lingered for a few years too many, and as a result, left behind a confusing legacy marked by periods of brilliance, and unfortunately, a painfully long finishing stretch of outright cluelessness.  

The next GM will have a hard time ever doing the job better than Dumars did it.

But he can’t be any worse, either.  That would be impossible.

 



Leave a Comment:

Photo Of The Day