There is no greater opportunity for the type of disconnect between the front office and the basketball court that led Tom Gores to hire one man for two jobs than the NBA draft.
There might not be a perfect model yet devised for operating a professional sports franchise, but Gores came to understand the potential benefits of integrating the coaching and front office staffs as he absorbed NBA culture over his first three seasons as Pistons owner.
When a coaching search led him to Stan Van Gundy, it didn't take him long to conclude he'd found the ideal candidate to not just fill both roles but to make it work. It goes beyond the model, of course, because in the wrong hands it's a model that could condemn a team to the depths of the league very quickly. But Gores quickly spotted in Van Gundy two essential elements – an astonishingly quick mind and an almost complete absence of ego – that gave him a real chance to allow the Pistons to thrive under his unified leadership.
A fair question to raise as the June 25 draft approaches and the Pistons enter it with a lottery pick is whether Van Gundy's role as coach will unduly influence the selection of a prospect more ready to contribute immediately over a player who brings less certain 2015-16 help but greater future potential. It's a question that gains a little weight by Van Gundy's candid admission that he doesn't consider himself an especially patient guy.
One person not concerned: Pistons general manager Jeff Bower.
"Stan has a long-term approach," Bower told me as he gears up for the draft and the July opening of free agency. "He's got the ability to see a strength in a player and envision how he can work with that player on that strength to make it an even bigger strength. And then what he could take advantage of as a coach on the floor."
The net effect, Bower said, is Van Gundy's ability to spot a strength and fortify it into a greater strength will shorten the learning curve of a prospect. There's at least a decent chance the Pistons will draft a player who comes to them in his teens – of DraftExpress.com's top 12 prospects, nine are under 20 today – and such players are a long way from finished products.
Some teams keep their coaches removed from the draft process entirely. More and more, that's becoming a thing of the past. But anybody who's been around the NBA for any significant length of time probably knows of situations where a player's career got sidetracked because of a power struggle between the front office and the coaching staff – either a player buried on the bench by a coach who didn't want him or thrown into the fray before his time to embarrass the front office that picked him over the coach's objection.
What Bower believes about the model Gores established for the Pistons by hiring Van Gundy to oversee the front office as well as coach the team is that they'll pick a player who will have the full investment of the coaching staff's interests.
"Every coach has to believe in the draft pick and in the players that are added," he said. "When that coach has an active role in the evaluation process and the selection process and the developmental process, generally there's more buy-in and more of a chance for that prospect to be successful sooner. It's a plus that we have and it's up to us to take advantage of it."