Pistons hire Stan Van Gundy

[Nick Kaufman]

To be their coach and head of basketball operations.
 
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10930909/detroit-pistons-hire-stan-van-gundy-coach

I don't like the Pistons roster,  but I like Van Gundy and I think he's going to do a good job. I am surprised he didn't take the Warriors job although it was rumored they were keen on him.
 
 

 

[MakMan44]

Van Gundy had previously been considered the leading candidate for the Warriors’ head coaching position, though talks stalled when Golden State proved unwilling to grant him full autonomy over all basketball decisions.

 
http://www.hoopsrumors.com/2014/05/pistons-coach-president.html

 

[radsoxfan]

Van Gundy must REALLY want full control over basketball decisions.
 
I think I'd prefer to coach a team with Steph Curry in the Bay Area over this version of the Pistons in Detroit 100 times out of 100, regardless of who is buying the groceries from here on out.  

 

[Devizier]

I bet Van Gundy feels that he could have done a much better job building the Dwight Howard era-Magic than Otis Smith did.
 
... or not.

 

[Brickowski]

My guess is that SVG's experience with Dwight Howard is the reason he wanted full control.  Also, SVG isn't a players' coach like Jackson, so I'm not surprised that he walked away from the Golden State job.
 
That leaves the Cavs, Jazz, Lakers, Knicks, Wolves and Warriors with vacancies.   I wonder who goes where.

 

[Infield Infidel]

Yeah it makes sense he want control. He also got dumped by Miami 20 games into a season when Shaq was injured. They won the title with Riley, but they went to game seven to the ECF the year before with SVG so it's not out of the question they win with him. 
 
He's never had a losing season, and went to one finals and 3 ECF. 

 

[radsoxfan]

Yeah it makes sense he want control. 

 
I agree it makes sense.  I'm just saying personally I'd prefer to coach a good team that's moving to San Francisco instead of a crappy team in Detroit.  
 
Total control wouldn't be THAT important to me.  Of course, Van Gundy feels differently. To each his own.  Maybe I just hate Detroit. 

 

[Brickowski]

The reports are that Steve Kerr has spurned the Knicks and will be coaching that good team in San Francisco on a 5-year, $25M deal.

 

[moly99]

With Van Gundy aboard I think they will end letting go of Moose.
 
I feel really bad for disliking that archetype of player, but you can't build your offense around a post up guy any more. You need your big men to either work the pick and roll and set screens or stretch the floor. And on the other side of the ball Monroe is a minus defender who doesn't protect the rim.
 
They would have to take too much garbage back in a salary dump with Josh Smith, so it makes more sense to try and get rid of another one their other bad contracts (IE Brandon Jennings) and pick up a second round pick in a sign and trade with Monroe.

 

[the1andonly3003]

if there is a way to package Gerald Wallace into this...

 

[luckiestman]

With Van Gundy aboard I think they will end letting go of Moose.
 
I feel really bad for disliking that archetype of player, but you can't build your offense around a post up guy any more. You need your big men to either work the pick and roll and set screens or stretch the floor. And on the other side of the ball Monroe is a minus defender who doesn't protect the rim.
 
They would have to take too much garbage back in a salary dump with Josh Smith, so it makes more sense to try and get rid of another one their other bad contracts (IE Brandon Jennings) and pick up a second round pick in a sign and trade with Monroe.

 
 
Is the causality correct on this? I'm asking because I want to know, not disagreeing. When I was watching Dwight Howard against the Blazers, it seemed like you could build an offense off the right post up guy. For example if you dumped late 90s Shaq in the league, I think that could work. I thought the lack of post up was because those types of players are hard to find so coaches found an alternative. Maybe I have that backwards

 

[Grin&MartyBarret]

With Van Gundy aboard I think they will end letting go of Moose.
 
I feel really bad for disliking that archetype of player, but you can't build your offense around a post up guy any more. You need your big men to either work the pick and roll and set screens or stretch the floor. And on the other side of the ball Monroe is a minus defender who doesn't protect the rim.
 
They would have to take too much garbage back in a salary dump with Josh Smith, so it makes more sense to try and get rid of another one their other bad contracts (IE Brandon Jennings) and pick up a second round pick in a sign and trade with Monroe.

 
Folks are writing off Josh Smith way too soon. He had a terrible year playing out of position, for a coach who didn't make any effort to reign in his shot selection. Van Gundy is the complete opposite in that regard, and I suspect will have a great influence on both Smith and Drummond. A front court of Drummond and Smith under Van Gundy has the potential to be devastating defensively, and though Smith's value is low right now, I think Van Gundy is a perfect coach for him. 

 

[HomeRunBaker]

 
Folks are writing off Josh Smith way too soon. He had a terrible year playing out of position, for a coach who didn't make any effort to reign in his shot selection. Van Gundy is the complete opposite in that regard, and I suspect will have a great influence on both Smith and Drummond. A front court of Drummond and Smith under Van Gundy has the potential to be devastating defensively, and though Smith's value is low right now, I think Van Gundy is a perfect coach for him. 

Van Gundy needed to have full control to take on a roster with Josh Smith as his 3. The obvious move as you say is to go to battle with Drummond and Smith to build around this defensive and physical presence. This is a great opportunity in Detroit they have some nice pieces and a 20-year old interior beast to build off.

 

[jon abbey]

Yeah, to me the main problem with that team was that they didn't immediately trade Monroe after signing Smith. Clearly those two and Drummond couldn't all play together, it was obvious before the season and playing a season with all three made it even more obvious. 

 

[moly99]

 
Is the causality correct on this? I'm asking because I want to know, not disagreeing. When I was watching Dwight Howard against the Blazers, it seemed like you could build an offense off the right post up guy. For example if you dumped late 90s Shaq in the league, I think that could work. I thought the lack of post up was because those types of players are hard to find so coaches found an alternative. Maybe I have that backwards

 
The Blazers were a great matchup for Howard. I also agree with you on Shaq. But both of those are exceptional situations.
 
If you build your team around post-ups, you need to put four good shooters around that guy. And that means that either your post scorer needs to also be able to defend the rim (like Howard) or you need to find a stretch 4 who is also a rim protector (like Serge Ibaka.) Since Monroe is terrible defensively, his team would have to find one of the very rare guys like Ibaka or Garnett in his younger days to put next to him to build a functional team. When you consider that the pick and roll has a higher scoring average anyway, it just isn't worth the effort.
 

 
Folks are writing off Josh Smith way too soon. He had a terrible year playing out of position, for a coach who didn't make any effort to reign in his shot selection. Van Gundy is the complete opposite in that regard, and I suspect will have a great influence on both Smith and Drummond. A front court of Drummond and Smith under Van Gundy has the potential to be devastating defensively, and though Smith's value is low right now, I think Van Gundy is a perfect coach for him.

 
I agree, which is why I think they will end up letting Monroe walk rather than make a desperation trade to dump Smith.

 

[Devizier]

Josh Smith is the modern day Antoine Walker.

 

[Blacken]

Josh Smith is the modern day Antoine Walker.

He's much better than Antoine Walker.

 

[HomeRunBaker]

He's much better than Antoine Walker.

Certainly much different. Smith is a defensive game changer which of course Antoine was not. This was a wasted year for Smoove......he's always going to look terrible playing the 3 on both ends of the floor. Horrible roster construction by Dumars last year.....and it cost him his job.

 

[jon abbey]

Horrible roster construction by Dumars last year

 
I don't know if this is quite the right term. It was a similar situation to Houston, the GM signed a big man (Smith/Howard) despite already having a very solid player at the same position (Monroe/Asik), and then didn't follow through by actually trading the original guy (Monroe/Asik) and playing both together was unworkable/disastrous. This might be because big men have never been less valuable than they are in today's game and the GMs expected to get more value back, but the non-trades really hurt both teams IMO.

 

[Buster Olney the Lonely]

Did you guys here about the Pistons trading away their first round pick this year to get cap relief from Ben Gordon's contract two years ago? Holy mackerel.
 

 
Stan Van Gundy's job of rebuilding the Detroit Pistons got a little bit more difficult after Tuesday night's NBA draft lottery.
The Pistons and Van Gundy, who was named coach and team president last week, lost their first-round pick to the newly renamed Charlotte Hornets when the lottery didn't give them one of the top eight picks in next month's draft.

 
http://www.mlive.com/pistons/index.ssf/2014/05/detroit_pistons_lose_first-rou.html