What are the Pistons thinking?

[IrishHand]

Rick Carlisle is a young, cheap coach (salary of $2M for next year). In his first year as a head coach (last year), he won the NBA Coach of the Year award after leading the unheralded Pistons to a phenomenal year. This year was more of the same. Despite trading their marquee player for a far more limited jump shooter (Stackhouse to Hamilton), the Pistons continued their winning ways and made it to the Eastern Conference Finals. Yesterday, he was fired.

I've followed the NBA for a long time, and this is the most surprised I've ever been by a coaching change. I'd have been less surprised if Doc Rivers was fired from the Magic, since I think he's done less with more than Carlisle did with the Pistons the past two years. Amazing...

[Easy E]

who the Pistons evidently think can put them over the top.

[Sooga]

Yea, I thought Carlisle should have won Coach of the Year again. You look at their squad you you wonder how they can win any games, let alone have the best record in the conference. I mean Rip is a good player, but certainly not someone you could rest your franchise on. Before a few months ago, Billups was just an above-average guard. And as great as Ben Wallace is, let's face it, you need to put the ball in the basket to win games. And that's basically all they have. Tayshaun Prince is coming along, but really, this roster should NOT have the best record in the East, yet Carlisle took em there anyway. And now he's gone. If another team doesn't pick this guy up, I don't know what's going on in the NBA.

[Simon Diamond]

Dumars/Carlisle press conference (http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/Rick_Carlisle_and_Joe_Dumars_P-76799-50.html)

I think it is crazy that Carlisle got the sack (considering his achievements), but I think it is clear what the Pistons agenda is - they want Larry Brown at the helm.

Professional sport seems full of these strange scenarios where successful coaches are dismissed - Real Madrid, perhaps the most illustrious soccer team in the world are reportedly preparing to dismiss their coach, despite the fact he guided them to the European title the year before. The team seems destined to finish second in their domestic league this season (after failing to retain their European crown), which is just the ammunition the directors of the club need to get rid of him. Of course there are other high profile coaches at other big clubs in Europe, lined up to replace him...

Back to Rick Carlisle, he can consider himself very unfortunate to be unemployed after guiding his team to Conference Finals and best record in the East. Most coaches would be after a pay rise for such a feat!

Simon

[Clarkmeister]

I am also puzzled, but I was puzzled when the Bulls fired Collins because he "couldn't get them to point C" and replaced him with a little known assistant coach.

[IrishHand]

There's no Jordan on the Pistons. There's no coach in the league who could have gotten that group of mediocrity to win more than 50 games last year. Brown could coach his butt off next year and they'll win...oh...50 games.

In regards to Larry Brown - my problem is this: his staple is getting teams to overachieve by playing together and working hard on defense. What do the Pistons think Carlisle has had that team doing for the past two years? My other concern from their perspective is that Brown does not have a great track record handling rookies, and Darko will be a far more important part of the Pistons organization than Brown is - especially considering Brown will be gone in 2-3 years.

[Dr Wogga]

....idiot steinbrenner fired the late Dick Howser after winning 103 games, but committing the mortal sin of not winning it all

[IrishHand]

For an idiot, he's got an awful lot of rings.

[Dr Wogga]

....steinbrenner in those days was a bully, an idiot, you-name-it. The reason the Yanks have gotten better coincided with his 2nd suspension from baseball. During this period, the Yanks for the first time in almost 2 decades had front office STABILITY. Gene Michael's guidance and PATIENCE (something steinbrenner lacks completely) with the farm system has been the catalyst whereby the organization has reaped the rewards or rings as you call them.

The Yankees of the post-Reggie Jackson era / Dave Winfield era, never won squat. The main factor for that drought was idiot george's circus and merry-go-round of lunacy. He had a tremendous manager in Dick Howser, but actually fired him after winning 103 games! Dick Howser wasn't flamboyant enough, not a headline maker or drunk like Billy Martin - just a solid Xs and Os mbaseball guy who paid his dues and had the respect of his players. No george steinbrenner is an eff-ing idiot, just that he's a rich idiot. Winning doesn't change that. How could anyone justify paying 6 (8?) million annually for pitchers like Sterling Hitchcock who only pitch an inning or 2 a week - usually in blowouts! The yankees have turned into the Harlem Globetrotters, buying anything and everything in sight, and trying to turn the rest of MLB into the baseball version of the Washington Generals.

I would love to see MLB have a hard cap like football and then see how many rings idiot george gets. And keep in mind, this is coming from a die-hard Yankee fan. Rings don't determine if someone is an idiot or not IMO. I submit to you that people like Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys, Bob Kraft of the New England Patriots, Bobby Knight in college hoops, Lou Holtz in college football are idiots also. They all have "rings", but they will always be jerks. Steinbrenner is no different.

[IrishHand]

You seem to be using "idiot" and "jerk" interchangeably, when the two are completely different. There are a lot of jerks who are great players, executives, owners, etc. "Jerk" relates to likeability more than ability. "Idiot" implies inability.

Again...it's pretty short-sighted to label Steinbrenner as an idiot when his team has won a shockingly large number of World Series' during his tenure as Yanks owner. While the imense payroll is part of it, the relationship between MLB payroll and team performance isn't as staggering as you might expect. Effective management seems to be a much bigger factor (see A's, Twins, etc) than a gaudy payroll (Dodgers, Orioles, Rockies, etc). Also, it's pointless to point a finger at someone like Hitchcock and say "that's an awful contract" when most, if not all MLB teams have similarly ugly contracts on their payrolls. The few teams that don't are the more consistently successful ones (ATL, OAK, MIN), which relates more to the "good management" than "gaudy payroll" approach to winning. The primary difference between the Yanks and the rest is that the Yanks spend so much more than everyone else that they can have an awful contract or two and not be affected, whereas if Seattle, for example, had spent $15M annually on Griffey, that would have killed their ability to acquire other important (although cheaper) players.

As an owner, I'd say Steinbrenner is clearly prepared to spend whatever it takes to field a winning team. That's a major plus in an owner - a la Mark Cuban. He also apparently interferes a fair amount in staff hirings/firings and personnel decisions. Now...it can certainly be argued that during the 80s "his" moves weren't all that successful, but if you look at his period of ownership as a whole, it can't rationally be argued that he's anything other than one of the "top" owners in the league - whatever that means to you.

To quickly respond to a couple of the others - I too, think Knight is a jerk. He's also a great basketball coach. He's certainly no 'idiot', unless you think an idiot can win 20 games every year in one of the toughest conferences in D1. Same for Holtz, although I'm not sure how he qualifies as an idiot. He's a great college football coach - his record speaks for itself.

[B-Man]

I submit to you that people like Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys, Bob Kraft of the New England Patriots, Bobby Knight in college hoops, Lou Holtz in college football are idiots also

Bobby Knight is a lot of things, most of them not good, but he is certainly not an idiot.

Bob Kraft is an egomaniac, but as an owner he has been masterful. The Patriots were one of the worst teams in the NFL before he bought the team. From 1996-2002, they won the Super Bowl, went to another, and won three division championships. They were probably the second most successful team during that stretch, behind only Denver.

He made a mistake when his ego clashed with Parcells' and Parcells left... but he masterfully had his lawyers draft an amendment to Parcells' contract the year before that allowed the Pats to get 4 draft picks (including a #1 and a #2 as compensation). He also recovered well from his mistakes--Pete Carroll was not the answer (though he looks like he might be a fine college coach), but the Belichick/Pioli coach/player personel team has produced a championship (after only 1 rebuilding year) and a boatload of draft picks for next year's rich draft (following up all the picks they had this year). Kraft has been a hands-off owner since hiring Belichick.

How could you possibly call Kraft an idiot? Egomaniac, for sure. But also very shrewed.