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Pistons.com editor Keith Langlois sat down with Joe Dumars in the wake of Michael Curry’s hiring to succeed Flip Saunders and Detroit's loss to Boston in the Eastern Conference finals.
Allen Einstein (NBAE/Getty)
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Langlois: When last season ended you talked about “complacency” and last week at the press conference to announce letting Flip go, you said this year’s team got “way too content.” I didn’t see the same warning signs this season that maybe you could last year. Did you see anything or was it something that manifested in the playoffs that concerned you?
Dumars: There are two things you’re looking for that help you made decisions like this. One is, you’re looking for contentment, which I thought was a problem last year. The other thing you’re looking for – which is just the opposite – is you’re looking for a burning desire to get it done. Last year I talked about contentment, but I also said that you have to have a burning desire to win. This year you didn’t see as much contentment, but you certainly didn’t see the burning desire, “I have to do whatever is absolutely necessary to win.” And I didn’t see that. And consequently, to me, we lost for the third straight year in the same exact manner. My thing is, after three years of that, in pro sports, this is not high school, this is not college, in pro sports you don’t have these opportunities all the time. Three straight years of losing in exactly the same way to me, was enough. I’d seen enough of that. We’re having to constantly fight contentment and make that an issue and, secondly, I need to see a burning desire from everybody that we need to win at all costs and when I didn’t see that this year, it was time to make a change.
Dumars: I would say, no, that would not be … I would feel comfortable if I had to put Michael out there to deal with the guys as is. But that’s not the point, either. The point is we’ve gone six or seven years with the same group, and I don’t care who the coach is, that’s a long time. From a team standpoint, you have to be willing to change your team at times. You can’t sit back and be afraid to make changes with your personnel. I’m basing it not so much on the coaching situation as just six or seven years with the same core, in pro sports, you run the risk of running that core until there’s nothing left, until you get to the point where you can’t change it.
Dumars: I think that’s a valid point you make, but I just don’t think that it applied to these guys. I think we have pushed as hard as we could for guys to do more, to step up, to take it by the horns and make it happen. So I don’t think for a moment guys have held back because they didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. These guys have been together far too long for that. That might happen with a team that’s just been put together, as you speak of the Tigers. But there’s been too many years and too much of a relationship for guys to even be into that situation. That’s why I don’t think it applies to this particular team but it’s a valid point.
Dumars: You know, it was to be as strong as I could about how I felt. And to let people know we were serious about not being complacent, not resting on our laurels and not being afraid to make change. I don’t think there were any hidden message in what I said. I think I was pretty clear about exactly how I felt and how we felt as an organization, and whatever messages anybody else took out of that, so be it. But I’m telling you, we feel very strongly about not being a complacent organization that’s just going to sit back and allow the cards to be played out by others. We’re going to try to dictate who we are.
Dumars: I say this: I say that when you start letting a player’s contract dictate how you deal with him as a player, you’ve lost. I say that when you allow guys to determine if and when they’re going to play hard, you’ve lost. Those are the basic tenets of coaching and dealing with your players and that can’t change. Whether a guy is on a one-year deal or a five-year deal for $10 million a year. You have to coach that guy to get the most out of him and the only way you can do that is to be honest and direct and fair with that guy. And if you try to do something different than that, then you’re going to have problems. Michael means what he’s saying. He’s saying it because he knows people will remember what he said, but he’ll follow up on it. You’ve seen other coaches around the league coach guys like that. When they don’t play, not afraid to take them out of the game. He’s cut from that cloth. What he’s saying is that he hopes to become a coach – and he feels like he’s going to become a coach – where that’ snot an issue. It may be for a short period of time, but long term he wants that to be a non-issue with a team that he’s coaches.
Dumars: Well, he’s the first guy I’ve known. Most of the time people hire people they have a history with and they’ve know. I sat in three different press conferences and the three guys I sat by ended up being good coaches for us. But I didn’t know them. I was just hiring them based on their track records and with Rick Carlisle based on gut that he could be a good head coach because he had never been a head coach. That’s all I’m saying – it’s the first guy I’ve sat with at a press conference that I know going in exactly what to expect. The other guys I knew, but you never can tell until you start working with a guy every day. If you feel a comfort level from me, it’s only because I have such a long history with a guy.
Dumars: I think Michael is going to have a learning curve, just like any first-time, young coach. And that’s fine. I’m OK with that. But he’s a smart guy, he’s a dedicated guy, he’s a guy who’s highly driven and ambitious. And whatever learning curve he has to go through, I’m confident that he’ll go through it and learn from it really quickly and make the adjustment. That’s why I feel really good about him. There’s going to be a learning curve. I don’t care who you are. If you’ve never sat in that seat before, you have to go through that learning curve and he will. And I’m OK with that.
Dumars: Yes. We sat down – formal in the sense that we sat down and talked abou the job and what would be expected and how he saw things. But not formal in the sense I sit there and grill him on timeouts and what play would you run here and how would you do this? It was more about philosophy.
Dumars: No. I’ve known him for so long. A lot of what we talked are just things that just reaffirmed what he and I have talked about over the years in terms of basketball.
Dumars: Coaching is a lot about personality. It’s your personality as a coach. Just as to sit in the seat that I sit in is a lot of my personality. Either you have the propensity to take risks and do the unconventional, or you don’t and you’re going to go the conservative standard way that everybody else does things. I like to think I came in and never worried aobut how everybody else was doing things. I was going to do things the way I saw it. You can expect the same thing from Michael.
Dumars: Only if that’s what he feels comfortable with. That’s what every young coach is told he has to do. If he’s comfortable with that, I say do it. Absolutely, do it. But don’t do it because that’s what everybody is telling you, that’s the standard, typical way that it’s always been done so go ahead and do it. You have to hire people you’re comfortable with. Mike would like to have Dave back because he’s comfortable with Dave, not just because Dave has coached as a head coach two times before and has a tremendous amount of experience. I think he’s comfortable with Dave, he likes Dave, he respects Dave and that’s the reason he wants Dave back.
Dumars: He talks to me about who he’d like to see and in one instance he asked me, would you recommend this guy? I don’t really know this particular guy that well. I know him, Mike, he’d do a good job for you. But this is mainly him seeing who he’s comfortable with. Because he has to work with these guys, I don’t. He has to work with these guys on a daily basis. He has to be comfortable with whoever he’s hiring.
Dumars: Yet to be determined with Lindsey. But we still, long term, would love to see him here in Detroit in the organization, but right now, Linz and I have to sit down and talk about his future and what he’s going to do.
Dumars: No, they’ve shown genuine interest. Because they know how serious we are, I think that’s created a situation where there’s been legitimate conversations. I haven’t been getting any bogus phone calls, I should say.
Dumars: Well, if history in this organization serves us right, I think there is. I think you can have three really, really great guards play together and have extremely high success. If history serves us right.
Dumars: They’ll be good shooters because they work so hard at it. These guys put hours and hours and hours in on their shooting. Both of them know for their games they have to really, really, really perfect that part of their game. These guys work extremely hard at it and you’ve seen it over the years where guys come in, in terms of their range and consistency, and the next thing you know, a few years down the road, these guys are just deadly shooters. And that’s what we see for these guys.
Dumars: Exactly. Chuck Daly was not a big fan of the 3-point shot. Early on in my career it wasn’t really a big part of our game. But I think Chuck became more open to the 3-point shot and so, consequently, once he did it became a bigger part of my game. Because I’m just trying to do what the coach wants at that point of my career. You’re right. It became a bigger part of my game than it ever was early in my career.
Dumars: Those games he had in Orlando and in Boston, I watched him do that at little Eastern Washington and watched him play like that in big moments for them. So it wasn’t that I hadn’t seen that kind of play from him before. You know he’s capable of doing that, it’s just a matter of can he translate that to the biggest stage possible? I’ll go back and say this. Two of the three instances that you just mentioned were on the road in the playoffs, Game 4 in Orlando and Game 5 in Boston. You’re talking about two NBA playoff, high-intensity road games. These weren’t regular season or preseason home games that he did this in. So to answer your question, it gives you something to build on with this kid that you know he has something in him, that he’ll rise at some of the biggest moments for you.
Dumars: He can develop into that. But when you’re putting a team together, you have to put the team together with some guys for specific roles. It can’t be that everybody you get is a starter. You have to acquire certain guys for certain roles and know they can do it at a high level. With us right now, that’s what Arron is. He’s a role player we know has a certain NBA skill and that skill is he can defend, he brings high energy and right now offensively can streak shoot and make shots. For me and for us, everybody you acquire can’t be a star, can’t be an All-Star, can’t be a starter. That’s not how you put a team together. And so with Arron Afflalo, that’s what we see him as.
Dumars: I think there’s a good chance you’re going to see him as part of that. We’ve always been high on him. We didn’t just become high on him. He’s a guy we have a lot of confidence in as a young player, just as we have confidence in Afflalo and Stuckey, we have the same kind of confidence in Amir Johnson.
Dumars: I think you’ll see a lot of the same stuff with Cheikh Samb next year – some D-League, some here, kind of back and forth. We want him to get some game-time experience and where he’s going to get that the most from is the D-League. But we also want him competing here at this level against these guys, too, because that’s going to help him get better. So just to keep him here year-round, only practicing, doesn’t make the most of him. And just to send him to the D-League and not having to go up against our guys is probably not best for him, so we’re going to give him a mixture of both, for sure.
Dumars: That was the whole point of drafting him. When you draft guys in the 50s, second round, 7-1 guys, they are projects. And you start seeing glimpses of those projects and what you do is keep them on the plan of D-League, practicing, game situations and so we like him. We think he has somewhat of a future. We don’t know how much or exactly what he can be, but we sure like a lot of the stuff we’re seeing from Cheikh Samb right now. Another year of D-League and practicing, we see we’re going to see some leaps and bounds with him.
Dumars: Yeah. He’s a tough kid. He’s a very tough kid. He’s a mentally strong kid. And two other things I would say. Extremely motivated to be good – this is not a kid who’s causal about it – and just a crazy work ethic. Just a tremendously crazy work ethic. Usually you don’t envision 7-foot guys, 7-1 guys as gym rats. Usually you think of guards and little guys, but he’s a 7-1 gym rat. Stays in the gym, constantly in the gym. He’ll play you right now, one-on-one, if you walk out on the court with him. I don’t care who you are, he’s going at it and he wants to go at it with you. We like that about him.
Dumars: Oh, yeah. You’ll see four guys for sure from our roster – Cheikh Samb, Amir Johnson, Stuckey and Afflalo. Then look for the draft picks and a few other young guys.
Dumars: He probably could. But I’m not sure. We’ve talked about bringing him back. When you’re in a situation like this and you’re talking about possibly doing trades like we are, you have to wait until you see what your roster is like before you start filling in spots. That’s the position we’re in right now and that will be the message that’s delivered to the agents for all of these guys. Once we have a clearer view of what our roster is like, then we can make those decisions.
Dumars: That’s once you find out what your roster is like. But the fact we have the ability to use the entire mid-level is a great chip for us going into this free agency. If we had gone into this summer without the ability to use the full mid-level, like we want to, that just limits what you can do. I like the fact we’re in position – doesn’t mean we’ll use it – but the fact we can is a huge chip for me when I’m sitting here putting a team together.
Dumars: You’re seeing a lot less of that. It would have to be a special circumstance for that to happen. When you look at the mid-level now, most teams look at it with the idea that they’ll break it up. That’s why you rarely see the full mid-level to one person. It’s a chip you have that you feel like you can get two pretty decent players.
Dumars: That’s one of those things, same thing with Walter Herrmann. We would love to have him back, but two things about that. One of those is him. If he wants to play another year and two what our roster looks like and how it affects him.
