Shane Battier Getting Second Interview with Pistons
https://www.detroitbadboys.com/2018/5/22/17381314/shane-battier-expecte…
Pistons seem to like Shane. Not sure exactly what the position would be, but would have to assume either GM or Pres. He's pretty high up already with the Heat organization, so I doubt he'd do anything laterally to leave Miami for Detroit.
Poor Jeff Bower. Dude literally has no direction right now.
my first thought was "Shane Battier!! He's a great player!!"... Yeah yeah, get off my lawn while I yell at a cloud...
say that, because when I heard Trajan Langdon I felt the exact same way. I didn't realize he was still in basketball.
If you think you're old, imagine how Manu Ginobli must feel right now. He's older than Battier and still playing for the Spurs..
I remember my Literature teacher in high school said she had a family friend who was a 6'8" freshman named Shane Barrier.
I thought he was in the drivers seat for the GM job no? I was bummed when the Cavs missed out on him last year when Gilbert low-balled the contract offer (shocking I know) and we got Aultman instead.
I think Billups wil be an excellent GM for whoever gets him.
to take over this mess unless he gets an 8-year deal because it will take at least that long to purge all the bad contracts SVG signed on
That was all fan speculation. I've yet to see any type of media report that he's in the running, on top of the fact that it has been reported the Pistons are looking for someone with FO experience.
that ex-players like Chauncey with zero experience can simply take over running a team? You would never see that in other leagues (matt millen being a prominent reinforcement of how dumb that is). It's ludicrous to take any ex-player and put him in charge of drafting and building a team
And yet it happens in the NBA a lot, and with a track record that is at least not embarrassing. The Joe Dumars era finished with a whimper, but not before his team won a title and went to game 7 of a second Finals. The guy they beat for the title? A team mostly assembled by Jerry West. Danny Ainge's team is missing its top two stars and is still tied in the Eastern Conference Finals right now.
And coaching? Phil Jackson was a player before he started piling up NBA titles. Steve Kerr was a player from the era that people are griping about with Laimbeer, which suggests that just maybe some guys are capable of changing a bit with the times. Former players become successful head coaches all the time.
Playing experience guarantees neither success nor failure, but a lot of guys make such transitions in the NBA and it actually works.
Don’t forget Danny Ainge or Jerry West
I agree with you that playing experience doesn't guarantee being good or bad, but you did cherrypick the good ones. Isiah Thomas in NY was absolutely awful, same with Stojakovic so far in Sac. I think being a coach with playing experience has a much better track record, especially recently with Kerr, Lue, Phil Jackson, and Doc Rivers. But we all saw the tirefire that Jackson left behind in NY as a President/GM. I think usually the best GM's are analytics/stats nerds from the likes of Ivy League schools, Stanford, UM and the such. The league is trending in such a direction towards that, that even the intelligent former player coaches are not equipped to handle it usually. Doc Rivers as a coach:mostly good. Doc Rivers as a President/GM: mostly awful.
In the end, like we both said, it can go either way, but I think the track record of players being Presidents/GMs is more bad than good. We like to revere the players for their smarts and leadership on the court, but that does not mean that they will be good leaders of analytics teams and scouting teams that are the backbone of NBA franchises nowadays. It's completely different to be a leader of a bunch of nerds(in a good way), than a bunch of NBA players who look up to your skill on the court.
I’d prefer Battier, at least he has front office experience. Also it was glossed over during his playing career but his sexual assault settlement will be front and center if he is picked to run the team.
Never heard about a sexual assault with Battier, link?
I’m referring to Billups. Sorry if that was unclear.
Never heard about that, but what a former neighbor of mine said about him years ago makes sense now. She said that her granddaughter had an internship with the organization, and that she was hit on numerous times by him; despite him being married and having a child recently.
According to her granddaughter, her was quite the flirt with the women there.
in salary cap hell, no real way to compete in the East, let alone with the West
Gores needs to sell the team and they need to ride out these bad contracts and re-set
The other owners/NBA could step in and do something about Gores.
Actual evil-doer Donald Sterling for decades, and seems fine with Fredo adjacent jazzman James Dolan owning a team in its largest market. It ain’t happening.
From what I read he'd be a solid hire.
I want Bill Laimbeer as head coach and Rick Mahorn as the assistant. That is what it will take for me to watch another Pistons game.
Lord no. I don't want either of those dudes within 50 miles of the Pistons facility.
Not sure if this is a sarcastic comment.
Laimbeer played in an age that doesn't exist anymore, and I'm pretty confident he would not adapt to the new style. I do not understand Detroit's really odd fascination with old players and nostalgia.
If you were ever a fan at any point, I think you'd return if they started winning again, regardless of who is running the team.
was a big who could shoot the 3
and he coached successfully in the WNBA
he'd be fine
32.6 percent from three. He was not great at it, at all.
OK? Coaching in the WNBA translates to the NBA?
I'm tired of these franchies looking to the past. I don't want to see Bill Laimbeer here. Which is good, because I'm pretty sure he probably doesn't want to coach the Pistons.
Well, 1: I think his point was that he was a big who shot the three in an era where that did not happen much. There weren't a lot of Dirks and guys like that playing the perimeter with Bill was around. He probably understands that part of the modern game.
2: Here are the league averages for 3p% from 87-94, when Bill really started to shoot from out there:
.301
.316
.323
.331
.320
.331
.336
.333
He was above league average in 6 of those years. Different time, different era, but Bill could hit 3's for a big back then.
However, he still existed in an era that's gone by. He played a physical style, often times dirty, that isn't allowed or done in today's NBA. And I think he's the type that would embrace that Bad Boy stuff that doesn't win anymore.
He's also been considered to be a pretty huge jerk, and he's had a cup of coffee at most as an assistant. I don't want him getting a gig because of Piston nostalgia.
They have connections from Miami, having played together and stayed on after their playing days ended.
He went to Detroit Country Day so it could be a homecoming of sorts. That in addition to a promotion could be enticing enough for him.
he already seemed like a future governor or senator type when at DCDS. impressive guy.
His wiki page says he turned down a career in politics so take that for what its worth
I'm ok with this. Fun fact he is married to Bob Ufer's grand daughter
Aside from being a DCDS alum (where he won the Headmaster's Cup for being the best all-around student), the Sporting News rated him one of the smartest athletes in sports. He was Academic All-American of the Year at Duke. Michael Lewis profiled him in the New York Times as a guy who made teams better without flashy stats. Runs the analytics program with the Heat. This is the kind of guy who can identify diamonds in the rough.
Best quote from the Lewis article (which is a fabulous read in its entirety):
“I call him Lego,” Morey says. “When he’s on the court, all the pieces start to fit together. And everything that leads to winning that you can get to through intellect instead of innate ability, Shane excels in. I’ll bet he’s in the hundredth percentile of every category.”
hundredth percentile you say. Hmm.
The only difference between Bill Laimbeer and the last guy is that I will watch a game if Bill was coach. I haven’t watched a game since they traded Chauncey.
Take a chance, Columbus did.
Please sign Hinkie and promise him 5 years and full control.
That would be the smartest thing any team that needs a rebuild could possibly do. Ace has been saying it on Twitter ever since he got forced out in Philly. Dude is absolutely the most thoughtful and intellectual person I have ever heard and hopefully has learned his lesson about media silence from his days in Philly.
Just please let him see the whole thing out because he isn't just a tanker. He was Morey's 2nd hand man in Houston for like 5 years and knows what it takes to remain a contender. You gotta Trust The Process all the way through.... I hate the Sixers owners/NBA for forcing him out before he could watch his Process bear fruit.
/rant over
Boy did that feel good
I would be absolutely thrilled if somehow we got Sam Hinkie. I would gladly tank for a few years to end up with a core like PHI, especially considering we have spent almost 10 years on the treadmill of mediocrity.
Yes please. And Philadelphia made the wrong choice a few times. We don’t even need to draft perfect and it will work out.
But the point off the Process is to put as many bullets in the chamber as possible to maximizing your chances. And he absolutely won every single trade he made convincingly(especially in hindsight). All it takes is one look at the assets he started with and the assets the Sixers had when he left to understand that he conducted probably the best 3-year rebuild of all time. I can find that chart for you if you would like to get really sad about the last 8 years of Pistons basketball.
Drafting up for Fultz oooks like the one really bad move and that obviously wasn’t Hinkie. I’m still hoping Fultz ends up being great. He’s only 19 so who knows. But Tatum would have been a lot better. Oh well. Hopefully they can add lebron. If they can’t add a superstar, at the very least a new all star.
It's pretty much impossible if every bad team decides to tank and many will now.
won the lottery only once. Which also happened to be the only year they finished with the worst record in the NBA during Hinkie's tenure. Although the media will tell you that the Sixers went 0-82 for 7 years in a row only to draft Okafor and a bunch of injured rookies. Good thing we now have Brian Colangelo who brought us JJ Redick for $23 mil and Amir Johnson for $11mil. He is the true savior.
Can he not trade away every first round draft pick? Good start.