Joe Dumars: Pistons will make moves this summer
by Greg Johnson | The Grand Rapids Press
Thursday February 19, 2009, 9:00 PM
AUBURN HILLS -- Joe Dumars and the Detroit Pistons didn't make any deals before the trade deadline passed Thursday, but the president of basketball operations promised some action come summer.
"Given the fact we have to play a season next year, I think I need to use that money," Dumars said of the expected $20 million or more the Pistons are expected to have available under the NBA salary cap.
"If we weren't going to play next year I probably wouldn't do anything with it, but I think we're going to tip it off next year so I'm going to try and put a (good) team on the floor."
Dumars said options will be plenty in the summer, and that could mean a trade or trades. He laughed when asked if he might wait for the much-ballyhooed free-agent class of 2010.
"You can't wait," he said. "You can't sit here and two years down the road hope we get somebody. You have no idea what could happen. We're not going to shut down. We're going to keep going."
Dumars said he was on the phone a lot during the last 72 hours before the deadline, but nothing came close to tempting him.
He said he had given other general managers his parameters, which included not wanting to add any money to the current under-the-luxury tax position ($450,000). In addition, he didn't want to disrupt the expected cap space this summer.
"That alone will probably knock out some of the phone calls you are going to get because people know what they are going to present," he said. "You can see a lot of the deals (prior to the deadline) were where people were just getting off money."
Pistons coach Michael Curry said he never paid much attention to the trade deadline as a player, and didn't as a head coach this week.
"I try to deal with the things I can control," he said.
Rasheed Wallace, the subject of several trade rumors, listened as reporters filled him in on the trades that happened just before deadline. He said he had not paid attention, though his wife had reminded him of the deadline and a cousin called asking what he knew about the Shaquille O'Neal to Cleveland rumors.
http://www.mlive.com/pistons/index.s...ll_make_m.html
