OT Bye Bye Joe D?
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/pro_sports/basketball/nets/97784594_Talk_with_Dumars.html
Who could blame him with the mess going on up the,too bad if it happens though!
Please warn us next time.....thanks.
If you hold the arrow over the link, you can see where it'll take you before you click it. Then the MGoPopulation that isn't devoting its life to eradicating all information from the Freep doesn't have to waste its time typing needless warnings.
about whether it's a Freep link... but my computer doesn't do that on hyperlinks, as I am on a Mac. If I used the status bar, it would show that...
but I thought it was pretty much common practice to state the link's origin, especially when it's the freep or a paid link [($, info in header)]
it's generally just a few words like "ESPN has a story on this: (hyperlink)" or whatever
as I'm on a Mac, too, and it displays the link target for me in Firefox. Even when you don't use the status bar, you can hold the mouse over the link for a second and the target will pop up (edit: it does for me in Safari; I don't use Chrome, so I can't speak for that).
As far as sourcing, that's more common in OPs than it is in comments. I don't think the commenter was out of line in just linking without extra information.
I'm sure the new owner of the Pistons will want to bring in their own people ... I think joe will build a winner in Jersey if he goes , especially with a billionaire owner who will spend money to get players .
The most likely buyer are the Illitches...and they know Dumars quite well. I seriously doubt there will be any immediate leadership change.
. . . but there are signs that they won't. Why would Palace Sports and Entertainment file a lawsuit against someone who may buy the team? Davidson said on draft night (June 24th) that there would be a buyer in place by the start of the season. So if the lawsuit was filed on June 10th, there would be a push to buy the team in the span of two weeks? The Ilitches may be in one group to buy the team, but I bet there are others in play as well.
If he makes draft decisions like Darko, building a winner in NJ won't be easy.
With the drafting of players such as Darko onto the Pistons, I find our chances of winning an NBA Title or making 6 straight trips to the Eastern Conference Finals to be highly unlikely. Nobody stupid enough to draft Darko can produce a winning basketball team. Hence, I will go back to my Detroit Lion loving ways as I know they have always produced winning and competitive teams.
Darko was considered the perennial European player at the time of the draft. I wouldn't place the blame on Dumars, but on Darko himself for not living up to the hype.
Even with the uncertainty surrounding the ownership of the Pistons at the moment, I have a hard time seeing Dumars leaving just yet. He is a Piston through & through and has played a large role in building two championship runs with the team (actually three titles since they repeated in 89-90). Until it is somehow settled that the new ownership disagrees with him in style/philosophy/whatever, I cannot imagine he'd chuck all that personal history just to be part of the next hot thing over in New Jersey.
If the Ilitch family buys the Pistons, I could see Joe staying, but I don't think it would be a lock. New owners like to put their own people in management positions, and rightfully so. I don't think it would be a great move, but anyone who is going to dump millions into a professional sports franchise has the right to bring in his own people.
Trying to see it from Joe's standpoint, I would imagine that "his" Pistons ceased to exist when Mr Davidson died. He was a one-of-a-kind owner, and I can't see anyone else coming in and being anything but a letdown. Maybe Joe could use a fresh start. It would be interesting to see what he could do in a market where top-tier FA's actually wanted to play.
... he gets out of Dodge as soon as he can.
He won a championship, but now the Pistons are a bottom-third team and falling. Current uncertainty is bad, the Ilitches may be no better. Heck, they may have told him to "explore other options."
The fact of the NBA is unless you have 1 of the top 5 players, and another 1 of the top 10, you ain't winning. The Piston's 2004 championship was sort of a fluke.
Good luck Joe, you are a class act. If not for Darko, you'd probably have a few more rings right now...
Maybe the lesson here is for us as Piston's fans to temper our criticism of Joe D. How many times do we hear people rip him and continue to cite "Darko" as Exhibit A. I think it says something about how highly he's respected as a GM if the new Nets franchise is looking to woo Joe even as they're attempting to bring LeBron into town.
When you stop to think of how many people have built NBA championship teams over the past twenty years, it's a pretty short list (and even shorter if you don't count teams with megastars named Michael, Kobe, or Shaq).
With respect to Dumars moving to Nets, that is also a pretty unsettled situation since they don't yet have Lebron & Co. Unless Joe D knows something that we don't, it doesn't seem to make much sense to leave.
On the other hand, if Bill Davidson really did treat the team like family, then maybe Joe is jealous that the old man didn't leave the team to him in his will.
funny how all arm chiar GM's continue to rip Dumars for drafting Darko as if the other GM's in the league wouldnt have. Stop going off the media and deal with the reallity that Darko was the consensus number 2 that year. Any GM would have drafted him that year at that spot, and for all Piston fans to continually bash him is ridiculous. Won two titles as a player and traded his best player(Hill) for scraps and three years later wins a title(as a GM), and now all of a sudden because we live in this era of selfishness and win right now mentality that everyone has forgotten that in the last 20 years, Detroit outside of Chicago has been one of the Eastern Conferences best teams. Why? Joe Dumars . So I kinda want him to leave so we can see what the fair weather fans have to say when we get a owner and Gm that only cares about the bottom line and not winning e.g. Lion fans,Clipper fans, Maverick fans etc. Always teasing with title aspirations but never really reaching the pinnacle. Oops my bad did I mention Lions? I guess that would be the wrong example, but I think most get the picture.
I doubt Mavericks fans will ever complain about Cuban only caring about the bottom line instead of winning, unless by bottom line you actually mean paying a ton in luxury tax and trying to get players to come to Dallas.