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Michael Curry was introduced as the Pistons head coach on Tuesday, June 10 at The Palace of Auburn Hills.
Allen Einstein (NBAE/Getty)
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Langlois: Two days on the job. Is there anything you’re doing in the last two days you’re doing as a head coach that you wouldn’t have been doing as an assistant? You’re probably busy hiring a staff, right?
Curry: That’s the biggest difference. Trying to make sure I get a really good staff in here, but we’ve been having some workouts. I was prepared to coach the Summer League anyway, so I’ve been preparing for Summer League and just getting the guys ready and taking the draft-eligible guys through a workout. That’s how my days have been going so far.
Curry: Yes.
Curry: I’m more patient than I would have been three years ago. I understand even more now how to make sure each component, each player, who has a certain role or can be a key component in your drive to winning a championship, understand how to get to each player and make sure we maximize whatever they’re able to bring to the table for the team to have success. Basically, developing the guys and using them to their max and the patience. The patience is patience in teaching, patience in listening and patience in my reaction to what’s going on.
Curry: It’s funny. As you sit around, you prepare and I’ve always thought at times it’s difficult to get to a point unless people really see you in that light. I’ve seen some guys I thought were really good coaches that everyone kind of saw as an assistant coach. I didn’t want to take a job as an assistant just to be an assistant coach. I wanted to be a head coach. I’m a leader, I have a strong personality and I crave leadership positions. So that wasn’t quite the offers that were there when I first came out, once I interviewed with the league office, with what I could do in basketball operations and what I would be able to do within the D-League, it would be the best of both worlds. It would quench my thirst as far as the actual and on-the-court aspect in the D-League and the business side of basketball working in basketball operations.
Curry: I’ve always liked that part of basketball as well, being a general manager or being a head coach. Either one of those leadership positions. I knew after my two years in the league office, just talking with guys and GMs around the league and some of the interaction I’ve had with players. A lot of guys outside where I’ve been, they didn’t know me as well. But in that same setting, they knew I possessed the qualities to lead. Halfway through my second year in the league office, I knew that right now I craved being on the court more so than being a general manager. If I was a general manager right now, I’d probably get in my own way – in the way of the coach I hire – because I still see a lot of things I want to do and being on the court actually coaching is one of those things.
Curry: I think if you start adding those extra components into it, it becomes complicated. But what I always try to do with basketball and with any type of leadership is keep it simple. I’m a big Maxwell, John Maxwell guy, and I read a lot of his books. A lot of stuff with leadership is simple. When Chuck Daly said that 20 years ago, it was simpler then, but he basically said – and it works in today’s society if you don’t add all those things, the agents’ influence and the contracts and things of that nature – and what I do know is, players want to play. They want playing time. When you go out here you have 15 players. If you preach certain things to the guys and this is what you are going to hold them accountable for, if you allow two or three guys to do what they want to do, then not only those two or three are gone but you lose the other 10 that are not playing at the time. The best thing to do is make sure you follow what you’re teaching the guys and what you’re saying are your points of emphasis and make sure you keep those other 12 that are doing right and the other two or three, they’ll conform and be the way you want them to be.
Curry: I think the toughest is when you’re making lineup changes, especially when guys are doing everything that you ask them to do but maybe for the team’s sake you need to adjust their role. I think that’s always the toughest, but if you’re honest then I don’t think you have as much of a problem. No matter what, at certain times players are not going to like decisions you make. When I was a player, I was the same way. But they respect it knowing that you’re honest and truthful with them and that you’re doing the things that are best for the team and the organization to be successful.
Curry: I think it was because of the way I went about my business. That was one of the things toward the end of my career, everyone was saying, “You’re going to be a coach, you’re going to be a coach.” And I wanted to make sure that’s what I really wanted to do. From my experiences in the union, I loved the collective bargaining aspect. I loved being at the meetings with the owners and discussing the business of basketball. Having a background in finance and then getting my master’s degree, I enjoy those aspects of the game as well. I always wanted to make sure. I wanted to put myself in the position that whatever career path I decided to go down, that’s the one I wanted. I didn’t want to do it just for a job or just because the compensation was better, I wanted to make sure that’s what I wanted to do. I’m a big believer that if you’re passionate about what you’re doing, you’re halfway there to being successful.
Curry: I think Doug Collins has been really good. He was a guy I was around that really understood the game and really could teach the game. That’s one of the things I make sure, that I’m always a teacher of the game. Being here in Detroit, just being around Joe Dumars, just the way he approached things. It’s funny, a lot of times everyone talks a bout being a former player and having friends, but the way Joe can be friends with guys and then go into management, the reason he can trade guys and not sign guys and then let guys leave in free agency like Ben or trade guys like myself and Chucky Atkins, and you still reach back to him, just because you know he was always truthful to you. I’ve taken that. Those are two big things. And I think my time in the league office, working for Stu Jackson. Stu, the position that he’s in, he doesn’t make all the decisions, but he gets all the blame. You have to be really strong and strong-minded to be able to handle that type of situation. Being around him, I really picked up a lot of that from him and understood the patience and the way he dealt with people on a day-to-day basis. I think those three guys, all around, taught me a lot and I picked up a lot from them just from how they did things.
Curry: We’re very much on the same page. It’s funny, I was telling someone when we were talking about when Joe traded me and Cliff Robinson and I don’t know if Jon Barry didn’t get re-signed as a free agent. I was telling guys I knew it was coming because years before he had talked about how certain teams in the NBA got old and then you let them get too old and you can’t make changes. I would have done the same thing if I was in that position. We sit and talk basketball all the time. It’s great because at times, he tells me things and we go over different things and then I ask him, “Why would you do this or what’s your thought process behind that?” And then he explains it. It’s been great. I’ve always considered myself a great listener and a learner. When you’re those two things, it gives you an opportunity to constantly grow. I think I’ve grown even in this past year being here. My desire to learn is one of the greatest things I bring to an organization. Everything changes and you never stop learning. If you do, then you’re going to stay stagnant or you’re going to go down. I’m learning from him. As shown by him giving me the opportunity to be a head coach, he feels confident in the things that I believe in and the things that I stand for. We’re on the same page with everything that we do. Some things I may say, he may ask my why? That’s the great thing about Joe. He never says, “You shouldn’t do that or that’s not good.” He always just asks, “What’s your thinking behind that?” So that forces you to really think about it and then when you think about it, you’re like, maybe that wasn’t the best decision. It’s been great.
Curry: No. I don’t think it’s going to be an awkward situation. He’s told those guys that throughout the season, so they knew. Guys either want to be here or they don’t. I think the guys really want to be here. I think I can do things and I know myself and my staff will do things to give them the best chance to stay here. The way we prepare, the way we take advantage of having the best strength coach in the business in Arnie Kander, and the way we practice every day, I think that will give us a better chance of playing more consistent and at the level we need to. At the end of the season, you have two type of feelings. If you don’t win the championship, you’re either disappointed or you’re frustrated. The difference the last three years is everyone around here has been frustrated instead of disappointed because they felt the team could have done more and probably gone further. That’s when you become frustrated. You’re disappointed when you say, man, I wanted to get to the Finals and I wanted to win a championship, but we got beat by maybe a better team at this time. Like when we lost in Game 7 of the Finals. We weren’t frustrated, but we were disappointed at the finish. If you’re going to have one of those feelings, you’d rather be disappointed than frustrated.
Curry: Amir Johnson has to be more consistent every day and I think we have to coach him more consistent. What I mean by that is, he’s not a guy who can take two days away from the gym and come back and still be playing at the same level. As you saw when he played, he played four games in a row and he played really good. If you don’t play him for two games, he doesn’t go all the way back down but he takes a step backward. We have to find a way to make sure we give him consistent minutes and a consistent role so he can grow. Hopefully, once he starts to grow and get that consistency, he’ll realize how valuable he can be for us as a team.
Curry: Stuckey can take a big leap. With increased minutes, we want to put things in place to make sure he can stay aggressive when he’s out on the court. The biggest thing for him this year was trying to figure out when to be aggressive and when not to be aggressive. Sometimes he erred on not being aggressive. We want him to err on the side of being aggressive. Be overly aggressive and let us calm you down. That’s sort of our thought process with Stuckey.
Curry: Arron is great. He’s one of the few guys that I just thought never had a bad game. The way he prepares every day, he’s going to be a model where he doesn’t stand out so much by the way he prepares – we have to get everyone else preparing that same way every day. The way he prepares, the way he competes every day, every day in practice, he is the poster boy for the way we have to be.
Curry: See a little of myself in Arron. At his age, he is so much further down the line at that age skill-wise and mental focus and understanding. I got a lot of that as I got older and into pro ball, but he’s there from day one with that. He’s going to have a good year for us.
Curry: I think Max can be even better. If our team stays status quo as it is today, I think a lot of times the guys you have Max with and the things you focus Max on … Max can score the basketball. But when we put in Max in situations in which that was the primary thing he was doing, he didn’t do it as efficiently. We’re going to work on him so he can become more efficient in that role, but when he’s in the role of being active, being aggressive, being an enforcer for us, the scoring comes as well. The scoring comes second-nature for him. He knocks down jumpers, he gets put-backs and he finishes plays around the basket for us.
Curry: I really like Cheikh Samb. He’s a big guy who can really shoot the basketball, has a really good feel for the game. This is going to be an important summer for him. Cheikh will probably be starting off – I hate projections because I always ended up playing more than I was projected to play – but if he’s a guy that starts off as our fifth-slash-sixth big, he’s a guy that every time we get a chance, we want to try to get him on the court. This will be a big summer league for him and he’s been around here working out every day. There’s nothing but growth. He’s another young guy that’s talented and he works hard, as well.
