I'm going to try to defend him. If it creates a :SHIT STORM!: then so be it.

He's a rookie and he was expected to come in and coach THE most uncoachable bunch of players I've seen in a long time.

JoeD threw oil in the water with the AI trade. Not Curry's fault.

Curry did change lineups. He tried. He put Rip on the bench, didn't work and he reversed it. He put AI on the bench, AI didn't like it, AI was let go.

JoeD signed Kwame for him and also expected AJ to step up. Is that Curry's fault that AJ didn't improve?

JoeD traded away CBill. What would Curry's record have been if we kept CBill?

I can't think of anything else.

holding players accountable for their actions and performance? what happend to that?
plus he lacks some fundamentals, what offense are we running actually? we got like 4,5 points worse this season putting up points, Curry has no idea how to run an offense, i believe we never had as many isolation plays as this season...
Dumars deserves some blame too, at least when you put a rookie coach in charge you get him some GOOD, experienced assistant coaches like DelHarris,Bickerstaff in Chicago, and not only keep Cowens and add some stiffs

I should give him an F, but I'll be charitable and give him a D- since:

1) We made the playoffs. He could've fucked up worse.
2) He was dealt a fucked up hand with Chauncey for AI.
3) He's not paid a lot, and not under contract for long.

Still, I see no sign that he knows what to have the team execute out of a timeout, or in 4th quarter close-game situations. It was my concern from the get-go, based on watching what he was doing. The closest I've seen to him acquiring coaching insight this season is letting Bynum with the really REALLY hot hand play, despite some doofus instinct to yank him for Stuckey. Too little, too late. We need a real coach.

I give him an F-. I absolutely loath Michael Curry. I have never seen a team perform so badly coming out of a time out. We seeming play rec. ball as the offense is a mystery. The players won't play for him. His line-ups and use of the bench is a joke. He has not f$%#ing clue what he is doing. How many half time leads have we lost in the first few minutes of the third? It's because the other coach makes adjustments. Curry doesn't even know how to spell adjustments. Add to all of this the thing that frosts my ass the most is that I have never....EVER heard him taking the blame for anything. He isn't just a bad coach, he's and arrogant and ignorant asshole! This team will be a joke until we get a coach who at least has a clue.

He just sat around while his team got slaughtered.

Hell, even that coach of the girls HS team that got bitched 100-0 showed some fire.

I love the fact that the AI trade is supposed to be an excuse for Curry.

The GM acquires a guy that has been league MVP/scoring champ God knows how many times and our briliant coach CHOOSES to play the same fucking way we did with Billups!

WTF?

Joe fundamentally changed THE major part of our team and our Coach FORCED a square peg into a round hole.

Curry's stupidity in this situation wasted the majority of the season, forced Rip to come off the bench, which created an issue within the team and with our best player. Then, to make it worse Curry still wouldn't adjust the offense to suit Iverson.

WTF?

You bench the guy our offense revolves around and once again plug Iverson into that spot - yet refuse to change the offense!

In the end Iverson was yanked and Rip was reinserted in the starting line-up but after the season was essentially pissed away. The whole situation certainly contributed to Iverson's refusal to come off the bench.

Iverson probably thought if Curry couldn't figure out how to use him as a starter how the fuck could Curry work out how to use him off the bench.

This entire episode is just the tip of a massive iceberg but speaks volumes about his ability to adjust when it's painfully obvious to all that adjustments need to be made.

Lord knows he deserves to be removed from duty and put out to pasture, the sooner the better.

At one point, Curry had no real choice but to play AI like AI. Rip and Sheed were out, and Stuckey was hurting.

And AI still stunk up the court.

I can't blame AI blowing layups on Curry.

No, but you can blame his disinterest, lack of effort ad total disregard for his team mates on a Coach that had no idea what to do with him UNTIL he was forced to change the team because of injury.

The fact that Curry stuck to the formula is the problem - any moron can tell you that Billups and Iverson are completely different players. WTF was Curry thinking?

He din't have a training camp, but by the time January rolled around the team should have adjusted. They're fucking veterans. Instead we stumbled along AIMLESSLY while Curry stood there watching.

Dude can not Coach. Get the fuck off the sideline.

Sure there's the AI trade or the fact that he didn't have an assistant who knew how to write up a playbook. Of course he did get to hire an assistant or two, didn't he?

He gets off the hook for nothing in my book. He has no strategy, no concept of strategy and his in-game coaching is just terrible. The fact that my dad can tell how awful it is should be enough of a sign.

And, here's the thing: Isiah is a pretty bad strategist and in-game coach, but he can get certain players to play well and sometimes even gets the team to work. Curry? Not once.

This whole we still got into the playoffs (which I'm happy about of course) is a bullshit argument when defending Curry (and Joe). We had a mediocre team and that's what we got. Personally, I thought we had slightly better than mediocre talent which is where Curry the fucktard comes in.

AND he should lose points for that damned upholstery suit. Actually, all his suits sucked.

Even the News started taking shots at how dumb Curry is by the end of the season.

Sure there's the AI trade or the fact that he didn't have an assistant who knew how to write up a playbook. Of course he did get to hire an assistant or two, didn't he?

He gets off the hook for nothing in my book. He has no strategy, no concept of strategy and his in-game coaching is just terrible. The fact that my dad can tell how awful it is should be enough of a sign.

And, here's the thing: Isiah is a pretty bad strategist and in-game coach, but he can get certain players to play well and sometimes even gets the team to work. Curry? Not once.

This whole we still got into the playoffs (which I'm happy about of course) is a bullshit argument when defending Curry (and Joe). We had a mediocre team and that's what we got. Personally, I thought we had slightly better than mediocre talent which is where Curry the fucktard comes in.

AND he should lose points for that damned upholstery suit. Actually, all his suits sucked.

In an attempt to defend Curry...again... His suits are pimpin! That blue suit would even get LDB laid if he had one.

a dick?

^ Good point Fool. The blue suit would get him laid, if he could...

F. Seriously awful.

I'm afraid there's nothing to give him but an F. Even if the guy might have had coaching potential under other circumstances (and I'm actually pretty sympathetic toward his circumstances), failure is still failure.

But in order to explain why he failed, I think we need to come up with a definition of success for him, which we really haven't yet. So here are the things I would have liked to have seen from Curry to define him as a success:

1. Integrate AI into the team
2. If AI fails to integrate, integrate AI with some ass-splinters
3. If the management fails to accept a pissy AI who has ass-splinters, say sayonara and salvage credibility
4. Oversee at least a small amount of development in the young talent
5. Efficiently use the best talents of the bench
6. Find some way to keep Rasheed focused and engaged
7. Maintain the team's defensive strengths

There are only 2 items I can say where I found any level of success at all - #2 only happened at the ass end of the season, long after it mattered anyway, and #5 was only very marginal and could have been done better by any half-competent coach.

#4, #6, and #7, however, were cataclysmic Hindenburg-level failures. Stuckey and/or Amir and/or Maxiell may never achieve their full potential now; Rasheed is going to go out from his career as a Piston like a burnt man; and the tough defense that made this team punishing even when they lost has been completely jettisoned in favor of a lazy jack-up-shots mentality. All of these things can be attributed specifically to Curry's tenure as head coach.

I want to be nice to the guy. He had a huge challenge in front of him in his first year as a head coach. But in these circumstances he's either going to get an A+ or an F, and he did not get an A+.

What I don't get is that he was nothing more than a defensive specialist when he played and yet this team looks lost on defense. WTF is his strength exactly?

What I don't get is that he was nothing more than a defensive specialist when he played and yet this team looks lost on defense. WTF is his strength exactly?

Curry was overrated as a defender when he played. He was brought in with the thinking that he was a gritty coach who would gain the respect of the team as an ex-player. What happened was that the players found out quickly that Curry was a clueless fraud as a head coach and the team has been lost ever since.

Curry was such a good defender that we put Tayshaun on TMac.

How true.

Oh, I agree his defense is way overrated. Back on TOS I was ripping him a new one I hated him so much as a player (not as much as Diddy, but still).

I'm just saying that was all he could do was "play defense" and he can't even get our team on the same page defensively. I remember long articles about how vocal he was out there and crucial to directing traffic on defense.

HAHA, what a load of crap.

Did you wave your arms wildly in the air whilst posting that?

Nope, but I am now in hopes you are distracted and don't see the holes in my posts.

01011001011001010111001100100000011010000110010100 10000001100100011010010110010000101110



http://www.roubaixinteractive.com/PlayGround/Binary_Conversion/Binary_To_Text.asp


01010100011010000110100101110011001000000110100101 11001100100000011101000110100001100101001000000110 01110111001001100101011000010111010001100101011100 11011101000010000001110011011010010110010001100101 00100000011001010111011001100101011100100010111000 10000001010011011010000110111101110101011011000110 01000010000001100010011001010010000001100100011001 01011001000110100101100011011000010111010001100101 01100100001000000111010001101111001000000100110101 00001100101100001000000111010001101000011001010010 00000110111101101110011001010010000001100001011011 10011001000010000001101111011011100110110001111001 00100000011000100110100101101110011000010111001001 1110010010000001101101011000010110111000101110

:D

.... . .-.. .--. .. -- ..-. .- .. .-.. .-.. .. -. --. .- -. -.. -.-. .- -. - .-. . .- -.-. .... -- -.-- -... .. -. .- .-. -.-- -- .- -.

Very nice, Mxy.

Tony (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.): How do you think Flip Saunders would have fared coaching this team? Will Michael Curry be held accountable or will he be given a “free pass” given the chaos of the just-completed season?

Langlois: Would Saunders have had any better success figuring out how best to incorporate Allen Iverson? We’ll never know, but my guess is the overriding reason the Iverson experiment failed is that Iverson’s skills have eroded to the point that he’s no longer an impact player. He did not score with anything close to the degree of efficiency the Pistons needed from him and it’s tough to put that on the coach. Iverson didn’t have much to do with Iverson taking all those high-degree-of-difficulty shots around the rim. I don’t think “free pass” applies, but Joe Dumars knows the circumstances under which Curry worked this season – rookie point guard, failed Iverson experiment, significant injuries, slippage from Rasheed Wallace as he starts to slow down – and understands why the record wound up 39-43.

Ahem. (http://www.wtfdetroit.com/forums/showpost.php?p=320019&postcount=71)

Think about this, and be honest.

How much worse would this team be with either Mike Abdenour or Arnie Kander coaching the team?

It would be no worse IMO and possibly better. Players might play harder...

Re: Curry

01000110011101010110001101101011001000000100110101 10100101100011011010000110000101100101011011000010 00000100001101110101011100100111001001111001001011 10001000000000110100001010000011010000101001000011 01100001011011100010000001101000011001010010000001 11001001100101011000010110010000100000011101000110 10000110100101110011001111110010000000001101000010 10000011010000101001001001011100110010000001101000 01100101001000000110110001101001011010110110010100 10000001001110011001010110111100111111001000000000 11010000101000001101000010100100100100100000011101 00011010000110100101101110011010110010000001000011 01110101011100100111001001111001001000000110010001 10111101100101011100110010000001110111011000010110 11000110101100100000011000010111001001101111011101 01011011100110010000100000011000010110110001101100 00100000011001000110000101111001001000000110000101 10111001100100001000000110101001110101011100110111 01000010000001110011011001010110010101110011001000 00011110100110010101110010011011110111001100100000 01100001011011100110010000100000011011110110111001 10010101110011001011100010000001001001001000000111 00110111010101110010011001010010000001101001011101 00001001110111001100100000011001100111001001101111 01101101001000000111100101100101011000010111001001 11001100100000011011110110011000100000011000110110 10000110010101100011011010110110100101101110011001 11001000000110001001101111011110000111001101100011 01101111011100100110010101110011

Good find, Joe

Mxy I have no idea WTF you posted.

From Bill Simmons, making fun of sideline reporters:


PISTONS-CAVALIERS (ABC)

Start of second quarter, Cavs 30, Pistons 25

My best sarcastic question for Detroit's Michael Curry: "How much do you guys miss Allen Iverson?"

Question No. 1 from Lisa Salters: "Michael, big first quarter for LeBron James, what kind of different defensive looks were you giving him?

Answer Curry gave: "Well, I thought a few times, we allowed him to drive past his initial guy and the help defense was there a little late. A couple times on the post-up, we stayed home on the bigs, once he started to back down, and we should have gotten there a lot quicker, so, we gotta be alert and get there when he has the ball, put our guys in a bad position."

Answer I wish Curry had given: "It doesn't matter. We are going to get swept."

Question No. 2 from Salters: "Still, just a five-point game, what's your mindset as far as letting LeBron get his and keeping the other guys in check?"

Answer Curry gave: "No, we don't want to let LeBron get his. Uh, we want to be able to, when, there's a situation in which he's in a back down, make him pass it back out to the least threat on the court and close back out to that guy, but we can't let LeBron have five six dribbles on the post on nobody."

Answer I wish Curry had given: "It doesn't matter. We are going to get swept."

Tidbit we learned from this exchange: The Pistons don't listen to Michael Curry.

If Bill Simmons knows it, everyone knows it.

After reading that and other quotes from Michael Curry I have to ask: Is english a second language to him?

HE'S GOT A MASTERS DEGREE

HE'S GOT A MASTERS DEGREE

Where? Dumbass U? It's a shame that someone with a college degree could speak so badly. He should get his money back!

After reading that and other quotes from Michael Curry I have to ask: Is english a second language to him?
Yes. His first language is Binary.

^solid

Give him a chance, he's just starting to put his imprint on this team...

http://www.acclaimimages.com/_gallery/_images_n300/0156-0706-2505-3053_fingerprint_with_a_magnifying_glass_revealing _binary_code.jpg

More grades for Curry and the rest of the team:

http://www.freep.com/article/20090429/SPORTS03/90429008/1051/Expect%20a%20major%20shake%20up%20with%20the%20Pis tons

From that link:


Michael Curry

D+

Handled the Iverson situation about as well as you could expect. Also showed he doesn’t have a lot of ego and refused to be baited into public spats with players frustrated over playing time or other issues. But player grumblings about too many changes and confusion over game plans must be addressed. He deserves another year, though.

Midseason: C

Pink text = causes me to vomit.

Solid addition to the color scheme.

I'm shocked that Ledezma didn't use it first.

I figured it was the color of Pepto, so it can represent my nauseation.

How can anyone....I mean ANYONE in their right mind think that Curry deserves another year? He didn't do anything right. He shouldn't get to keep his job plain and simple.

Only reason you keep him is if you sit on the cap space waiting for Boozer and the rest of the FA's. You might as well let Curry coach this crap team if you do that. Actually, even then I'd rather have Lambs in here and see if he could at least get the guys playing hard again.

Only reason you keep him is if you sit on the cap space waiting for Boozer and the rest of the FA's. You might as well let Curry coach this crap team if you do that. Actually, even then I'd rather have Lambs in here and see if he could at least get the guys playing hard again.

I understand your thoughts but I disagree. We have all of these youngsters with potential and they got worse under Curry. We can't waste another year of their development.

That's why I said the last sentence. I'd still fire him.

Re: End of Season grade: Coach Curry


A+!!!

It's interesting that Joe cited "too much change to be his fault" as his rationale.

So since Joe is about to overhaul the roster, doesn't that give Curry the same free pass next year?

You'd think so.

So there was change. That doesn't excuse the fact that they were lost on defense most of the year. I can understand some offensive confusion and even the AI/RIP bench fiasco. But there is no reason they were lost on defense (if you can even call it playing defense). That has jack shit to do with change IMO. It has to do with being incompetent.

The AI/Rip thing was inexcusable, IMO.

You've got an older rental player and a younger guy you just gave an extension to, someone that has been with you for years and is a star (or near star) caliber player in his own right.

Yet you send the younger, locked-in star to the bench.

Stupid.

We made big changes in 04 and actually got BETTER as the season went on. "Change" is such a copout.

I'm on the same side as you Glenn. But I can understand Joe giving him a pass on that (and letting him try it both ways). No pass on defense though.

Curry keeping his job is the biggest bunch of bullshit and Joe has all of a sudden lost his mind. Sure there were changes but does that explain why the younger players git worse? Does that explain why the captain of the team wouldn't talk to the coach? Does that explain why the team got worse at fundamentals like free throw shooting? Does it explain why we lost so many halftime leads because the other teams coach made better adjustments? Does it explain the team having virtually no D?

He almost had to retain Curry, though.

He hired and fired Carlisle.

He hired and fired Brown.

He hired and fired Saunders.

And when he really needed to get it right, he hand picked Curry, "groomed" him for a year, and then promoted him.

Curry is "his guy".

If Curry fails, the finger of blame points directly back to Joe, and he's going to delay that as long as he can.

Bingo!

:cogent:

He almost had to retain Curry, though.

He hired and fired Carlisle.

He hired and fired Brown.

He hired and fired Saunders.

And when he really needed to get it right, he hand picked Curry, "groomed" him for a year, and then promoted him.

Curry is "his guy".

If Curry fails, the finger of blame points directly back to Joe, and he's going to delay that as long as he can.

Like Wilson would ever point a finger at Joe though. Until an owner steps up, there won't be a lot of accountablility in the front office, imo.

I don't know that the coaching debacles have necessarily been a sign of incompetence on Joe's part. It could just be that, the way he sees it, the players are the immovable object and coaches need to work within that framework.

The problem is that this point of view is not producing results. The players are becoming obnoxious, overpaid underachievers; a lot of potential coaches have been alienated; the team is not winning games.

They way I see it, it is Joe's fault.

Carlisle was a good coach and was having success but Joe opted to go with Brown. We won so that was ok.

The Brown had his "flirtations" and was fired. Joe brought in Flip who was known to have dismal success in the playoffs. The team was built for the playoffs so I never understood the move. Joe then kept Flip around too long losing out on the ability to hire one of several very good available coaches. (I really wanted Rick Adelman(sp?)).

After Flip was canned, Joe brought in Curry. Curry is a fucking joke and there were a bunch of very good coaches available and anyone would have been a better choice!

Sticking with Curry is the worst mistake yet. I think that people are finally finding out that Joe is good with trading personnel but his draft results are mediocre and his coach selection/retention has been bad as of late.

Lots of critique, never a suggestion.

For Hermy, an actual SUGGESTION:

Joe needs to hire the right coach (one he can support), and define publicly the elements that constitute success for that coach. Then stand by that coach 100% as long as the coach feels he can be successful.

- This did not happen with Carlisle. Joe did not declare what he wanted from Rick and turned against him the minute there was a flashy alternative. I think he got shafted.

- With LB, Joe just made a mistake in offering him too long a contract. Who offers LB more than 2 years? Yeah, you can win with LB if his heart is in it, but it's only going to be for a season.

- With Flip, Joe inexcusably let him twist in the wind. Joe hired Flip, he should have stood behind him instead of letting the players shit all over him. If you don't think he's the right coach, don't hire him. If you do, let him run the team.

- With Curry, the wrong coach was obviously hired. There's no two ways around this - guy's simply terrible.

So, here we go: Hire JVG and tell the team this is it - you either get the fuck on board or you're not playing. Then put a little distance between himself and his players - they should be talking to the coach about game-related issues.

JVG, I assume

JVG, I assume
Edited for typo, yes

I'm fully on the "Hire JVG" bandwagon. Never going to happen, but I'd love it if it did.

I think Joe did want a team that could coach itself. I think we've talked about this before, and I'm pretty sure he flat out said it. His biggest success as a player was with a father figure coach who used psychology and let the team coach/police itself.

However I think Joe just didn't get the right player to lead the team. Chauncey was way too "Smoove". Would Isiah or Lamb ever have let a player dog it in the playoffs the way Sheed did those Flip years? No way. I don't know if we even have those types of players as much anymore. So while Joe may have looked at character I think he didn't find a guy who would do whatever it would take to win and would not accept anything less from his teammates.