By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
February 20, 2014
Unfortunately for Detroit sports fans, incompetent and historically bad team ownership isn’t something we are unfamiliar with.
The last few painful years of the Norris Family running the Red Wings into the ground. Mike Ilitch’s dereliction of duty during the Son of Tal Smith/Japanese Bank Debt Era, which culminated in a humiliating 119-loss season in 2003. Bill Davidson’s refusal to pay the luxury tax, which probably would have secured a second title in the aughts. His widow, Karen, publicly defecating all over Mister D.’s Last Will and Testament in ignoring her deceased sugar daddy husband’s succession plan for his beloved Pistons.
And I haven’t even mentioned that the city’s football team has been managed for six decades by the WORST OWNER IN THE HISTORY OF PROFESSIONAL SPORTS.
So while complete ineptitude is not new, it doesn’t make it any more palatable that the current owner of the Detroit Pistons might be as ineffectual and in over his head as any Motor City franchise owner in history who doesn’t have a direct lineage to the Assembly Line and Nazi sympathizing.
Yes, Tom Gores is THAT bad; if you needed any more evidence of his utter incompetence, look no further than the passage of today’s NBA trade deadline at 3pm and Greg Monroe, Rodney Stuckey and Joe Dumars were still employed by this absentee landlord.
It is truly unfathomable that the Pistons allowed the deadline to come and go while standing pat. After back-to-back losses to the Charlotte Bobcats, the Pistons currently reside in the sweet, wet spot of abject 2013-2014 failure …..
Missing the postseason while forfeiting their first-round pick (they currently have the tenth-worst record in the league and they need to get to eighth-worst and not suffer any bad lottery luck) to the same team that humiliated them over the last two days.
This billionaire buffoon who currently owns this team isn’t much different than a deer standing in the middle of the road while an SUV quickly approaches. Go left quickly and you live. Move to the right and the vehicle misses. Stand in the middle of the road?
You miss out on your foolish goal of qualifying for the postseason AND you sit idly by as Michael Jordan swipes your first-round pick in one of the most anticipated drafts in NBA history.
And before we delve any deeper into Gores’ bumbling management of this franchise, let’s first discuss how the Pistons are in this purgatorial predicament in the first place.
Instead of using their amnesty — bestowed upon them fortuitously by the last collective bargaining agreement — to exorcise the Ben Gordon contract abomination, Gores REFUSED to utilize his “Get Out of Jail Free” card and instead sent a protected first-round pick to Charlotte as a means to rid himself of the two-guard’s albatross deal.
This point cannot be stressed enough. The Pistons wouldn’t be in this awful Catch-22 situation if Gores had just authorized the amnesty. Like, can you imagine walking into a Best Buy with a $1,000 gift card, buying a new 60″ HDTV and PAYING WITH CASH?!??!!? Well, that’s basically what Gores did in refusing to use his amnesty ……. with the qualifier that the TV purchase left the electronics shopper flat-broke.
And why did Gores refuse to amnesty Gordon? Well, we haven’t received a direct answer from Arabic, Tanned and Open-Shirted Mitt Romney yet, but his stooges in the media have informed us that Gores is morally opposed to paying someone NOT to do a job.
I have heard Matt Dery and the Bought-and-Paid-For Vincents provide this as a reason the team is one of only ten NBA franchises not to use their Men in Black memory eraser.
That’s why he didn’t amnesty Gordon and that is why Charlie Villanueva still rots at the end of the Pistons bench like some animal carcass. Gores is MORALLY opposed to it.
The same guy who wasn’t morally conflicted when fucking his OWN BROTHER’S WIFE
while he himself was married somehow couldn’t stomach paying Ben Gordon to play somewhere else. Banging your sister-in-law? I don’t see the problem in that. Paying CV31 while he lounges on a beach in Turks and Caicos? Well, we can’t have that!!!!!!
And while it might not quite match William Clay Ford, Sr.’s stubborn refusal to fire his golfing buddy, Matt Millen, while the team’s fans were organizing protest marches and chanting “Fire Millen” …… at Wings and Tigers games, Gores has been on a prodigious run of stupidity.
First, he refused to fire the man who, just since 2008, traded Chauncey Billups for a washed-up Allen Iverson; gave away Arron Afflalo; famously over-over-over-overpaid Gordon and Villaneuva; handed out way-too-lavish extensions to Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince; overpaid Jonas Jerebko, Rodney Stuckey and Jason Maxiell; then excreted 2014’s Smith-Brandon Jennings-Billups cap poop bisque.
Okay, okay I don’t want to go all Shia LaBeouf on you here. That last paragraph was lifted from a Bill Simmons’ column this week that rightfully eviscerated Joe Dumars.
Instead of dismissing Dumars after the 2012-2013 season, Gores made the biggest mistake that ANY professional sports owner could make. He gave a LAME DUCK GM — who is a national joke and now synonymous with signing bad free-agent deals — cap space and a “Make the Playoffs or Else” edict.
Are you fucking kidding me with this shit? That’s like giving your toddler a lighter and some kerosene and being shocked when your next calls are to your insurance agent and the burn unit at U of M Hospital.
Like, do you know how they have those rookie conferences for newly-drafted players where they bring in ex-jocks to advise them that raping girls and drinking and driving are probably not good life choices?
If they had a similar symposium for OWNERS, I am guessing the Maloof Brothers would give a lecture that the WORST possible thing you could do is tell an executive with one year left on his contract that he HAD to make the postseason — or else.
And that’s before you throw into the mix that qualifying for the playoffs — only to only get annihilated by the Heat or the Pacers — would result in you forfeiting your first-round pick. In the deepest draft in years.
What the fuck was Gores thinking when he issued that decree? That the city of Detroit would magically become re-enamored with his team if they squeaked into the playoffs as a #7 or #8 seed in a putrid Eastern Conference?
Was he under the impression that hordes of affluent Oakland County residents would harken back to the old days, grab their mink coats from their cedar closets and rush back to the Palace like it was the late eighties if only his franchise could become a sacrificial lamb against Miami or Indiana?
Because the only way this team would advance to the second round would be if a meteor hit the Townsend Hotel while the Pacers were waiting for Game 3 to begin after taking a 2-0 series lead in Indianapolis.
The no-brainer was to shitcan Dumars after last season; hire a new GM, which would have bought the team some time with fans DYING for Joe D. to get shown the door; and regroup after hopefully getting a top-eight pick this summer.
Instead, Gores allowed Dumars to hire ANOTHER head coach in Mo Cheeks (who didn’t even make it to the All-Star break) and make a bunch of offseason moves with the Kyle Singular goal of making the playoffs THIS year.
Was the Platinum Equity CEO shocked when Dumars made a bunch of shortsighted transactions in an obvious attempt to pacify his boss and keep his gig when Gores was the one who gave him that goddamn blueprint in the first place?
Which brings us to the Pistons accomplishing absolutely nothing as today’s 3pm trade deadline came and went with Monroe and Stuckey still on the roster.
I have had a working theory since Cheeks was dismissed by Gores (over the protestations of Dumars) that Joe D. is no longer REALLY the GM of the Pistons.
Furthermore, if Dumars had a respected second-in-command like John Hammond or Scott Perry, #4 would have already been fired. Hell, do you even know who Dumars’ assistant GM is at this point?
It’s George David. Or Larry Costanza. I forget which one. Anyway, it would appear that the only reason why Dumars hasn’t been given a pink-slip by Gores yet is that he Dan Quayle-insulated himself at least until the season ends.
How else can you explain the team’s inactivity at the deadline when they had two extremely marketable trade chips? In Stuckey, not only did you have an attractive expiring contract, but a sixth-man who could have actually helped a team THIS season.
And instead of attempting to deal Monroe before his notorious agent, David Falk, lands a max contract in Atlanta or in some other NBA city that is willing to OVERPAY the unathletic, defensively-challenged big man, the team sat on its hands and now finds itself in the unenviable position of either losing Monroe for nothing or having to match an outlandish offer.
The Lions current contract conundrum with Ndamukong Suh looks tenable by comparison.
Before Gores overruled his GM and fired Cheeks, there was league-wide speculation that both Monroe and Stuckey could be had. Hell, Monroe himself admitted to being bothered by the rampant rumors.
But after Gores clipped Dumars’ nuts 11 days ago, basically telling the world that his GM was no longer in charge, various league sources said that all of the Pistons trade chatter stopped. Dumars went radio silent.
Until this morning, when there were whispers that the team was shopping Josh Smith. And not just for dead contract weight in order to rid themselves of Method Man’s 4-year, $54 million contract, but for actual assets!!!! Hahahhahaha.
Other teams say Pistons indeed shopping Josh Smith, but demanding more than just dead expirings.
— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) February 20, 2014
Who dropped that lead trial balloon while working the phone lines for Gores? Dennis Mannion, Mark Barnhill, that overweight kid who dances in the Palace aisles?
Seriously, it would appear that the Pistons approached the most important trade deadline day they’ve had in years with a Dead Man Walking General Manager who is fully aware that his days are numbered.
And if you don’t believe me, check out this Twitter conversation I had with MLive.com Pistons beat writer David Mayo this morning:
@JeffMossDSR maybe a lack of motivation to pick up the phone on behalf of someone for whom you’ll work only a few more months…
— David Mayo (@David_Mayo) February 20, 2014
A guy who covers this team for a living is publicly speculating that Joe D. has ALREADY packed it in!!!! Ya gotta believe me.
Hey, why improve the Pistons when your agent, Adrian Wojnarowski, probably already has your next gig lined up anyway?
Especially if that new job is a current division rival. The Cleveland Cavaliers have a GM vacancy; would it surprise anyone if Dan Gilbert hired Dumars this offseason? Hell, he already did us a favor once by taking Fred McLeod off our hands.
Look, you can be angry at Joe Dumars all you want — and believe me, I am disgusted with most of his recent moves — but a lot of this has been set in motion by an owner who is completely out of his element. This dude is freaking clueless. I mean, DOES THE GUY EVEN REMOTELY LOOK like a sports fan?
Bill Davidson resembled a sports fan. Mike Ilitch was an athlete himself.
Tom Gores looks like he is ready to replace Danny Terrio at a moment’s notice on a revival of “Dance Fever” for Christ’s sake.
A sports fan would know not to rush the court after a meaningless PRESEASON victory.
A sports fan would have known that employing a lame duck GM with cap space and a “Win Or You’re FIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRREEED” approach is a toxic cocktail.
For all of the angst about Dumars, he will FINALLY be gone soon enough. The real question is how long will we be stuck with Chest Hair McGee calling the shots at 3 Championship Drive? (Sorry, I don’t count non-Pistons titles in the address. I will take my chances with mail getting lost.)
There is real interest from potential investors to purchase the team and move it to Downtown Detroit; Wayne County executives are chomping at the bit to see this occur.
How long must we wait before the venture capitalist flips this team?
I am not sure there has ever been a more tumultuous ownership period in Detroit sports. The Pistons are run by a morally bankrupt venture capitalist who lives thousands of miles away and is probably biding his time until he can flip the team for a sizable profit.
It would appear that Bill Ford, Jr. is calling the shots in Allen Park, and his resume highlights include suggesting to his old man that the Lions hire Millen and Jim Caldwell.
And the Red Wings are in a holding pattern while Mike Ilitch lives out his remaining days on the planet and Chris Ilitch makes plans to eventually sell the Tigers and Red Wings to fully concentrate on Little Caesar’s.
The old, lame fallback sports talk radio topic used to be, “Which Detroit sports team will be the next to win a championship?”
The prescient question would be ….
Which will be the first to sell?