:langlois:


Joe Dumars Q&A - Part I


Pistons president Joe Dumars sat down with Pistons.com editor Keith Langlois on Thursday to answer questions about the summer’s activity – and inactivity – and his thoughts as the Pistons prepare for training camp in just more than a month. Here’s Part I of the edited transcript of their conversation:


Keith Langlois: Let’s start with this, because I’m sure you haven’t been able to get a haircut or fill up your tank this summer without someone asking you when the trade’s coming or what’s going on, so where are we with that? Are you at all disappointed or frustrated that nothing has happened when you went into the summer pretty emphatically saying you wanted to get something done?
Joe Dumars: You know what? I’m not disappointed and I’m not frustrated. I’m never disappointed or frustrated when there’s nothing on the table to pull the trigger on a good deal. When there’s no good deal to be made, you can’t get frustrated and disappointed and force yourself to do something that’s not smart. I’ll reiterate what I said early on after the season was over. That we would be open to doing any deal but I’m not going to give players away and make a bad deal. I understand the way the world works now. I understand the way the media and fans hear and decipher what they want to. So when people ask me what about the big trade, my response is always the same: What big trade is that? What I said was I would go out and try to make a deal if there was one to be made, but don’t look for me to give anybody away. What was presented over the summer were deals that would have had us giving players away. That wasn’t going to happen. I said that during the press conference. I’m sure that got lost in translation. People hear what they want to.


KL: Do you think that maybe because you were so emphatic and public that other teams thought, he’s desperate and would take 50 cents on the dollar?
JD: That happens no matter what you say, whether you say anything or not. That’s the process of trade calls. You’re never going to get the first call where it’s a sweetheart deal and you feel, wow, we have to do this and you jump on it. It’s just the process. So I’m never worried about that aspect of it. That’s not how it works. It’s hard to explain, but that’s not how it works. The reason you see so few trades in this business is that both sides can’t get what they want out of the deal. When you do see a big trade, it’s news. There’s a reason for that. It has nothing to do with any kind of declaration you’ve made publicly. If that was the case, you’d see a lot more deals done. Most people try to be a little more coy about it and a little more secretive and still can’t get deals done.


KL: We’re a little more than a month out from when training camp will open. I know the Rip Hamilton-Jerry Stackhouse trade happened late, but are we getting kind of close to the window closing and you say we’re going to training camp with who we’ve got or are we already at that point?
JD: I think that I would be very surprised if anyone called at this point to offer the type of deal I was open to and had been open to doing. I don’t expect that call. So therefore, I expect us to go to war, if you will, with the guys we have on this roster we have right now, with the 14 guys we have now. And I say that just because I don’t expect to hear from anyone at this point about the size of the deal we were talking about doing.


KL:Michael Curry said about a week after he was hired that it was your call on the roster, but he would be perfectly happy if it came back just the way it was. He was kind of looking forward to working with those guys. Has the fact he said that and the fact you guys are of like mind and have had a whole summer to talk about it, has he influenced you at all to maybe not be so anxious to trade as you seemed to be in June?
JD: Once again, that’s not how it works. If there was a deal to be done, I would have pulled the trigger. The reason we haven’t done a deal is there was no good deal to be made. If there was a good deal to be made, we would have done it and we would be moving forward right now. Michael and I are of like mind. And the way we’re of like mind on this issue is I feel very comfortable going to battle with the guys we have coming back, just as he is. But that wasn’t going to stop me from pursuing to see if we could get better and make a deal. The way it works is, you work it and you work it and you work it and you grind away to try to make a deal. And when you can’t, you look at your team and you say this is not bad to go to war with right here. That’s basically how it worked over the course of the summer.


KL: I’m pretty sure I know the answer to this question, but I think it bears asking anyway. You’ve got to be really tough to make it to this level of basketball and to compete in six straight Eastern Conference finals, so I think you’re comfortable with the psyche of your team, but are you at all concerned that because you basically told these guys that we’ve gone to war with you the last three or four times and now haven’t gotten it done and I want to change the mix, that you’ve planted the seed with them that maybe he doesn’t think we’re good enough to get it done?
JD: That’s not how it works. Hey, listen, I love these questions, because I don’t mind answering the questions, because so often when you sit in this seat, you really have to deal with misinformation and lack of knowledge of how it works. You can go back and replay the press conference. “I’m open to moving anybody. There are no sacred cows. We haven’t gotten it done and I don’t like the way we’ve gone about our business. There wasn’t enough of a sense of urgency. I didn’t see desperation to win and if I can make a big deal, I will.” But in my conversations with Prince and Rasheed and Chauncey, I think those guys have made some public pronouncements of we want to try to come back and get it done. So I don’t worry about the psyche of the guys coming back, because they want to come back. They want to prove, Joe, we can get it done. So that’s not a bad position to be in. Now, the opposite of that is, if I said what I said during the early summer and the guys didn’t want to come back, then you would be concerned about it. But these guys have told you and they’ve told other people, we want to come back, we want to keep this together. They’re not saying that to come back if their psyche is not right. There have been other situations where things have come up and they’re like, you know what, they need to move me. And that’s not happened here. Because these guys understand that they’ve been supported here for a long time, big time. Whether we got it done and won championships and got to the Finals or not. And after five or six years, there’s some accountability to that. That’s all that’s happened. Myself, coaches, players, we hold ourselves to an incredibly high standard. We keep pressing. When a guy says he doesn’t want to be here, then that’s when it becomes an issue. But that’s not the case and those guys have said it publicly.


KL: What’s been the tenor of the conversations you have had with guys like Chauncey and Rip? Have they done any lobbying to stay?
JD: No, no lobbying to stay. I feel like I have such a unique relationship with all of those guys. They’ve been here for such a long time. When you have a relationship with people that’s built on truthfulness and honesty, you can have any conversation you want. That’s the relationship I have with these guys – truthfulness and honesty. I’ve had some absolutely great conversations with Rip, Rasheed, Chauncey, McDyess, with Prince before he left for the Olympics, obviously with all the young guys. Chauncey and I were on the phone a long time last night talking about different things. This has been a good summer from my perspective, because the complacency that I’ve taken issue with, the lack of urgency that I’ve taken issue with, has been front and center in a lot of conversations I’ve had with guys and it’s straightforward, no cute language, here’s the deal. It’s been a very good summer for me from that standpoint. There is no gray area about where we stand right now.


KL: What can those guys tell you, or beyond words even, what can they do to convince you that that won’t be an issue going forward?
JD: The only thing anyone can do at this point is talk to you about it. There’s nothing you can do in July or August from an actionable standpoint. The only thing you can look for at this time of year is taking responsibility and acknowledging. If you think there is an issue with something, the only way you can correct it is acknowledging it and take responsibility for it. I’m happy to sit here and say I’ve had conversations with all of these guys and no one – not one guy – has tried to shuck responsibility. Every single guy has stepped up and said you’re absolutely right. I understand when people are not privy to those conversations, you hear all kinds of wild theories about this and that. It is what it is. But every single guy understands the standards that we’ve set, we’ve not reached our goal. I have to say this, though, before people get too outlandish in their thoughts. I’m really, really, really proud of what these guys have done over the last six years and that can’t get lost. I’m disappointed we haven’t reached our ultimate goal, but I would sure hate for people to think that these guys haven’t been tremendously successful. What we’ve done here over the last six or seven years is unprecedented. I appreciate it and I’ve told that to each and every one of those guys. I appreciate the battles you’ve been in. But we didn’t get to where we ultimately wanted to get and that has to be disappointing for you, me and everybody else. But don’t ever think I don’t appreciate it. You guys have gone to war for years here now and you’ve battled and you’ve won and you’ve won divisions and you’ve been to the conference finals six years in a row and nobody else has done that. Don’t misunderstand how much I appreciate that. And I hope fans and media and everyone else around here appreciates it, because I do. It’s not lost on me. And too often it’s taken for granted. And that’s not right. Point blank, that’s not right.

Well, that pretty much says it all.

Hard to read without color specific answers.

Hard to read without color specific answers.


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Joe Dumars Q&A - Part II

Pistons president Joe Dumars sat down with Pistons.com editor Keith Langlois last week to answer questions about the summer’s activity – and inactivity – and his thoughts as the Pistons prepare for training camp in just more than a month. Here’s Part II of the edited transcript of their conversation:


Keith Langlois: On the day in June when you said everyone was on the table, we were still early in the NBA Finals and it hadn’t yet become clear that Boston was a superior team to the Lakers. Did the fact Boston won that series with relative ease at all change your thinking on what happened in the Eastern Conference finals. This is another question where I suspect I know the answer, but did it at all change your thinking – that this was Boston’s year, they had these three guys come together, they were all very hungry? Did it at all soften your view of what happened in the Eastern Conference finals?
Joe Dumars: I never look at it like that. They matched up well against the Lakers. They beat them twice during the regular season. That was a great matchup for Boston. They deserved to be the world champions this year. They played with more energy, more focus and more sense of urgency than anybody else all season. They deserved to win the NBA championship. But that doesn’t excuse us for not playing with a sense of focus and urgency and with that commitment to try to win at all costs. Just because they were committed doesn’t mean it was their year. That has nothing to do with us and how we go about our business. You can’t look at it like that. All you can do is say they had the right kind of commitment, we didn’t. If you felt like you had the same commitment they had, the same focus, the same sense of urgency, and they still won, then you’ve got to say, it was just on them. But we didn’t come with the same thing they came with. That team was much more focused and hungry than we were. That’s unacceptable. You can’t accept that.


KL: Boston was remarkably consistent all year. They won games by double digits all year and when they played bad teams they beat them worse. Is that something that really does have to build over the course of the season?
JD: Yeah, and they did it the right way. They handled their business during the regular season. And that helped them get through some of those tough times during the playoffs before they got to us. They were in some tough battles in the first round, second round. But what they did over the regular season helped them get through some really tough times in the playoffs. And that’s why you can’t take the 82-game season as an inconvenience that you have to go through. You have to build up. We had the second-best record in the NBA. We were five or six games behind Boston. It just goes to show you, it’s how you do it. We were only a few games behind them, but they went about their business different during the regular season. So they were able to sustain and overcome some tough times during the playoffs and we didn’t. When we had an opportunity to capitalize, we didn’t. I’ll say it again. You can’t come back 1-1 from Boston and do what we did in Game 3 and tell me that you’re desperate and you’re focused and you’re locked in at all costs. No you’re not. They were, though. Because they had been like that all season.


KL: That was my next question. I know Game 6 was disappointing, but coming back 1-1 when they had yet to win a road playoff game, do you think you really let them off the hook? Is that the game that sticks with you all summer?
JD: It was the turning point of the series. Make no mistake about it. It was the turning point of the series. And that game was a microcosm of their season and a microcosm of our season. When they had to have it, they got it. When we needed to take care of business, we didn’t. OK. It’s real simple. That game is more about this – about mental. About your preparation, about focus, about hunger, about desperation. Are you willing to do whatever it takes to win? They were, we weren’t, consequently they take the series back, 2-1.


KL: What type of feedback have you gotten over the summer from your veterans about their anticipation and expectations for playing under Michael?
JD: They’re all excited about it. They know there’s a level of accountability. They know there’s a level of responsibility that comes with playing for him. They know there’s a level of professionalism and preparation that’s going to be in place every single day. The good thing about it is, unlike most coaching changes, players have to try to figure out what the new coach is all about. There’s a feeling out process here. They know what to expect from him. The good thing about him is there’s going to be a transition with him that’s going to be short in terms of what to expect. Players know when they sit down with me they’ll pretty much get the truth without a whole lot of fluff. They know that with Michael, too. They’ll be the same kind of conversations. He’s not going to dance around the truth. And it’s good that they understand it and all of them – that’s why you see guys like Prince and Chauncey say, look, we’d like to play for Mike – and the fact they know that this guy is going to call the shots they way he sees them and he’s not going to fluff it.


KL: I know the bullets haven’t really started flying for him yet, but he has been a head coach for a few months and you’ve had the chance over the course of the summer to see him assemble a staff and work with them and coach in the Summer League. What have your impressions so far been of him?
JD: He has a presence. He has a presence on the floor. First and foremost, you’ve got to walk out there and have a presence with your team. If you have a presence with your team, then you can walk out there and get their attention. If you have their attention, then you can get them to do what you want at all times. That’s what I’ve seen, that’s what I’ve expected and that’s what I will continue to expect from him as the coach. That he will have a presence, that he will have a voice and guys will respect that he’s not going to waver on basic things that we believe in – accountability, toughness, play to win, sacrifice, all those things that are clichés that everybody uses but only a few teams live by day in and day out. They understand that he’s going to live that. I’ve seen that. I know that to be him as a person and as a coach and I think you and me and everybody else will continue to see that from him.


KL: Kwame Brown was the major acquisition of the summer. It sounds like that came together pretty quickly. Talk about the process and your expectations for him.
JD: Here was an opportunity – we’ve gone from Elden Campbell to Dale Davis to Chris Webber to Theo Ratliff – and here was an opportunity, for the first time, to get a big guy like that at 25, 26 years old. And where we’re at right now as a team, it was time to make that kind of acquisition with a guy at that position. A young guy to take a chance on to see if we can get the best out of him. It was time for us to pursue that position with a young guy and we were fortunate that a young guy like this was there that could come in and play a role for us. That’s what we’ve said to him. We’re asking you to come in and do the things these other bigs have done – defend, rebound. We’ve never asked any of those other big guys to come in and score for us. We’ve asked them to defend, rebound and have a presence in the paint, and that’s what we’re asking him to do. And I’m happy we’re in this position now where we’re not going with a 38-year-old guy to come in. We have Rasheed and McDyess, who are veteran big guys, and where we are as a team, it’s time to make that transition to younger guys who can bring a little more energy and pop to that position.


KL: I assume you still see Rasheed and McDyess as your two starters at the power positions.
JD: I don’t want to lock in to that right now. Mike and I have had some conversations about that. He has some ideas about that. It’s not locked in stone that you’ll have those two guys as the starting frontcourt.


KL: As it stands now, you have five legitimate frontcourt rotation players. I know you don’t tend to worry about that sort of thing, but is there enough room to have five frontcourt guys in the rotation?
JD: Absolutely. Really, I think that’s a legitimate question, because we’ve not really done that here. But just because we’ve used three guys, maybe four, doesn’t mean that’s the only way to do it. There are other teams using four guys every night and somebody gets in foul trouble and the fifth guy definitely plays. What we’ve done over the last three or four years is use three guys and maybe a fourth. Rasheed and Dice are another year older and so there’s room and minutes to keep those guys fresher. To do that, you have to play more people at those positions. To keep those guys fresh and not wear them down, then that means less minutes. If it means less minutes for them, then you can play five games up front and that’s how we see it.


KL: If all five of those guys are giving you what you expect them to give you, is it possible that the way they’re used might fluctuate from night to night depending on the opponent?
JD: That’s a good question and the answer is that Mike and I have talked about this and what we’ve said is we’re in a position to match up on any given night however a team comes out there. We really like that kind of versatility. You’re not locked into just hoping something works. We can match up with really big teams, with athletic teams, with skill teams. To be able to have five different types of guys gives you the opportunity to match up 82 nights a year with whatever a team throws out there.

He's not even hiding the fact that he's basically coaching the team.

I hate to use the word puppet but that's really what is called for from a coach in this situation. Without superstars to make up the gaps, coach and GM have to practically be soulmates to get the most out of the personnel provided.

Of course since one guy is the boss, soulmates is just a nice way of saying the coach has to drink the GM's koolaid.

KL: What type of feedback have you gotten over the summer from your veterans about their anticipation and expectations for playing under Michael?
JD: They’re all excited about it.

LMAO

KL;dr

i don't have issue with it. joe knows how things should be done and if it takes him having a 'puppet' (although i would not use that word as i think curry is more than that) then at least the coach will take the right approach with the team that joe has assembled.