LLTP/Joe D interview (conducted 8/26/09)

[Glenn]

Q&A with Joe Dumars



Pistons president Joe Dumars sat down with Pistons.com editor Keith Langlois on Wednesday to discuss the busy off-season, the current roster and the season ahead. Here’s Part I of the transcript of their conversation:



Keith Langlois: You brought eight new players in and the roster stands at 14 right now. I assume the 14 you have is the 14 you intend to take to camp.

Joe Dumars: Yes, that’s who we intend to go to camp with. We will probably invite one or two extra guys to camp. We don’t expect to have more than 16 guys in training camp, preferably a guard and a big, and then we’re going to tee it up come Sept. 28.


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KL: Do you anticipate going into the regular season with 14 on the roster? I know in the past you’ve liked to do that, to leave that 15th spot open for roster flexibility.

JD: That’s the plan right now, to go into the season with 14 guys. Someone would have to make an incredible case for us to go in with 15, but that’s why you leave that spot open, in case someone makes that incredible case that you should keep him.


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KL: This is probably an oversimplification, but when you look, a year later, what the Chauncey trade achieved was to allow you to shrink and make as painless as possible the transition period. Now that you’ve used the cap space, did you envision being able to get as much done with it as you did?

JD: When we had cap space maybe eight years ago, we made a decision then – there was a question back then about going out and trying to sign one big name with that money. We made a decision back then that we wanted to come out of that free agency with multiple players. We made the same decision this year – we’re not going to go out and sign one max player and then tout that we’ve had a great off-season. As we entered the summer, we were not one max player away from being a contender, so it made no sense to go out and target one guy. We wanted to come out of this free agency with a minimum of three guys and we’ve done that with Wilcox, with Villanueva, with Ben Gordon, and to be in a position financially to also sign a veteran big like we wanted to, to also have Ben Wallace, as well. To come out of it with three or four players, that’s what we wanted to do in the first place. We believe talent in numbers wins. That’s what we’re going to continue to try to do.


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KL: As you sat there with cap space for a season, monitoring who was going to be a free agent, Ben Gordon was obviously a prominent name on that list. So I imagine you had interest in him all along. But as he has that phenomenal playoff series against Boston, was it, “Now he’s a guy I really want” or, even though there weren’t a lot of other potential suitors, was it, “He’s driving his price up and might be going elsewhere?”

JD: He was a guy we always had our eyes on, so that never changed. Watching him perform in the playoffs only solidified what we felt all along. In terms of ending up somewhere else, what didn’t change was the amount of teams that had cap space. That never changed. We felt like if he was going to make a decision to leave Chicago that we were positioned to be the team. That’s with all due respect to the other teams that had money. We just felt like we were the team that had a better shot at him.


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KL: What do you see in Ben? He’s always been a phenomenal 3-point shooter. Especially for young guys to shoot 40 percent from the line, that’s rare and he’s done that throughout his career. He showed last year that he’s also a dynamic player off the bounce, too. The rap on him is he’s a mediocre defender and he’s one-dimensional. When that dimension is as dynamic as he is offensively, do you say you can live with whatever shortcomings he might have?

JD: Absolutely. What he brings is a constant threat the minute he steps on the floor. What he brings is a guy that other teams have to prepare for. What he also brings is a guy that is not afraid to and has shown that he can make big shots when it counts. When you can acquire a guy who is a difference maker when it counts, I think you have to jump on that. He brings something that you and I talked about before, something we definitely needed – a guy that can make big shots, a guy that can stretch the defense and make 3s. With Jonas, with DaJuan Summers, especially with Austin Daye, with Charlie V, with Ben Gordon – there’s five guys we’ve added that can stretch the floor and we missed that last year. We missed having guys who could just knock shots down. We did not have enough of that. Ben leads the way on that. I think he is the primary guy that brings that to us of all the five guys we’re talking about. He’s the guy that can stretch the floor, can make 3s. He’s a shot-maker and you can’t have too many of those in this league now.


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KL: Let me ask you something that’s been a recurring theme from people who’ve analyzed the off-season, and I mean mostly media people now. You signed Ben Gordon, whose primary position is shooting guard. You’ve got Rip, who’s coming off the Hamilton-Iverson experiment, which didn’t go as you had expected. Why is this going to work where that one didn’t?

JD: First of all, Ben Gordon made a decision to come here knowing that Rip Hamilton is the starting two guard. Allen Iverson never made that decision – it was a trade and it happened and we went through the process of what we had to go through. So when the guy makes the decision himself, first and foremost that’s the biggest difference right there. He’s choosing, he’s saying I want to go and be in this situation. That jumps out at you first. Secondly, here’s a guy who made his name in this league coming off the bench and being a dynamic scorer. Here’s a guy who was the Sixth Man of the Year as a rookie. So there’s a fundamental difference between Ben Gordon and Iverson being here. Ben Gordon chooses to come here knowing what the situation is. Ben Gordon made his name in this league coming off the bench. So it’s fundamentally different any way you look at it.


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KL: It was widely reported the deal was struck on the first day of free agency. Both he and Charlie took the first flights here and were in your office that morning and deals were struck that day. So it probably wasn’t a hard sell. But did you have to convince him this would work or was he eager to embrace that right from the get-go?

JD: He didn’t have to sell me on it – but he did. About how this can work. “I can play with Stuckey, I can play with Rip, I can play with Will Bynum. He talked about, listen, I’ve played with Larry Hughes. I’ve played with Derrick Rose. I’ve played with Kirk Hinrich.” These are all different types of guards. So his thing is, “I can play with Rodney Stuckey, I can play with Rip Hamilton, I can play with Will Bynum. Joe, I’m adaptable. I can make it work, because I’ve done it. I’ve done it my whole career.” And he mentioned Chris Duhon as well over in Chicago.


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KL: I imagine you’ve talked to Rip about this. How is he anticipating this will work.

JD: Rip laughed when I told him that that’s the guy we were talking to. He said – after we had signed him, actually – he said, “Listen, you cannot pass up on a Ben Gordon. He’s too good to pass up.” And then he said, “Now he does know I’m the starter, though, right?” I said, “He knows that, Rip. He knows that full well.” We both laughed about it. He said you can’t pass on him, he’s a big-time player. There’s such a respect back and forth with these guys, guys like Stuckey and Will and Rip and Tayshaun, they respect what Ben Gordon has done because they’ve seen it, up close and personal, against us and against others. They respect what this guy brings.


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KL: Is it probably fair to say that he might not start, but he’ll probably be finishing a lot of games?

JD: Well, I have to be careful not to start coaching here, but he is one of the best closers in the game, so I would just say you’re probably going to want your closers on the floor when that time comes.


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KL: But Rip, too, has been a good closer, so I assume that means a lot of a three-guard type of attack, which at the end of games seems to be a little more palatable to players than at the start. I know Rip wasn’t crazy about being a starting small forward because he felt it did wear him out a little bit.

JD: That’s where you give your coach options. You give him different options to go small, as you just stated, or just to close games in the last two minutes, put the ball in Ben’s hands and let Rip play off the ball. Have Tayshaun at the three and put the ball in Tayshaun’s hands and let him initiate the offense for two minutes and have Rip and Ben on the wings. What you want to do is give your coach options and to have people on the floor who can attack the defense and put the defense in a tough spot.


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KL: That’s something that’s really changed in the NBA over the past five, six, seven years, even since you won the title – guys who can really attack in the NBA are more valuable than ever because of the NBA’s conviction on imposing sanctions on defense for touching people. You now have at least three guys in Stuckey, Will and Ben who are adept at that part of the game.

JD: Yeah, and you have to keep up with the changes that take place in the game. One other thing that’s worth mentioning is that who initiates your offense has changed, too. The old way is it always had to be your point guard initiating, and you don’t see that as much right now. You see LeBron James initiating for Cleveland, you see Kobe initiating for the Lakers, you see Paul Pierce in Boston, you see Turkoglu in Orlando, Brandon Roy in Portland. That’s changed as well. Whoever the guy you trust most to make plays, that’s who’s going to initiate the offense. Not just the point guard. Those days are over

Check Pistons.com on Friday for Part II of Keith's interview with Joe Dumars.

[Fool]

Summary

Keith: Joe, WTF are you doing?
Joe: No clue.

[Glenn]

Keith: Hey, as long as you don't fire my ass, WTF do I care?

[geerussell]

Since nothing was bolded, the only impression I came away with is that Joe looks like he put on a couple pounds this summer.


edit: Upon further reading, this one really jumped out at me. Keith should get a golden Larry King trophy for the most perfectly composed softball question of the year. All at once it pretends to address a controversial point, bakes in a positive outcome and spins a ready-made "Damn, I guess I really was pretty clever wasn't I?" answer. Well played.

KL: This is probably an oversimplification, but when you look, a year later, what the Chauncey trade achieved was to allow you to shrink and make as painless as possible the transition period. Now that you’ve used the cap space, did you envision being able to get as much done with it as you did?

[Black Dynamite]

questions were horrible "mostly" but not as bad as usual. I do appreciate Joe outright saying that Ben Gordon signed here to assume the role of super back up 6th man scorer(whether its 100 percent true or not, who knows). Honestly that's i wanted. In that cleveland game we played with Ivo and bynum tag teaming off th bench, i thought we looked like a damn good squad in spite of the loss. Unfortunately the only thing AI could talk about was his 18 minutes. I think this squad can work as a playoff team, title contender i'm not so sure yet.

[Kstat]

Yea, the important info here is that Rip and Ben know who stands where.

[Hermy]

Yea, the important info here is that Rip and Ben know who stands where.

If the happy laughy part is true that's super.

[Uncle Mxy]

Yea, the important info here is that Rip and Ben*2 know who stands where.

Fixed.

[UxKa]

Yea, the important info here is that Rip and Ben know who stands where.

My first thought was Wallace. Ben needs specification now

[Kstat]

BenX2?