Think if you remove what I understand to be a disastrous McCollum extension, probably? The Pels have low key built a young core between Herb, Trey, Dyson, and Naji that isn’t overwhelmingly good? But that given where they were picked is potentially suggestive of a genuine development capability that other teams might lack.
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I’m w @telekinetic — don’t see any real reason to be excited about Langdon, but then I should reveal my biases, I would rather hire an obsessed kid from Colgate who can do cap management and pro personnel, generally speaking, versus a ball knower or a draft scout.
I suppose it is possible that Langdon’s record as a player allows him to recruit pro personnel well, but I don’t think NO did especially well in FA and even if he did have some extraordinary FA quality, I don’t think that’s a super meaningful differentiator for Detroit.
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Tayshaun Prince was my choice. Partly for his ties to the org’s better times. But mostly because I like what Memphis has done building gritty defensive teams in a smaller city.
I think the jury’s out on Langdon but I also think he looks like a solid hire. And him getting rid of Troy seems like a good move too.
Alvarado was a nice steal.
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Yeah. There were some games vs. the Pistons when I’d see Alvarado and wish we had him as our backup PG instead of Killian. He’s a pest and is speedy.
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This isn’t pro or anti Langdon, may be great, may not
But like the big thing is that plenty of good execs come from struggling FO’s and plenty of bad execs come from good ones (Troy Weaver!) and the difference between “having a large voice” and having THE decision aren’t the same thing and goi g back and saying “well getting this guy or that guy” and ascribing that to a secondary or tertiary exec isn’t how these things get done
I just kind of think it’s possible to know if he’s going to be good until we see what he does
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Sounds like Monty is out no matter what. The whole “evaluating the coaching staff” is a smoke screen. Apparently, some in the organization believed that Monty was trying to get fired this past season.
The top 3 coaching candidates are Chris Quinn from Miami, James Borrengo from NOLA and JJ Redick. We need coaching staff who can develop players and put them into better position to maximize their skillset.
Huh? He’s never had a job in coaching, has he? He went right from playing to an ESPN job.
He has never held a coaching job.
The logic is he’s a former NBA player who knows how to relate to the players and understands X’s and O’s from his playing days and studying other team’s scheme.
Either he’ll be really good or become a complete flop. No in between.
Redick was the prohibitive favorite for the Lakers job until Anthony Davis said he didn’t want JJ (because JJ didn’t have AD on his first team all-defense team on his podcast, not joking).
The guy you don’t want is Borrego. Retreads - especially retreads who were run out of town on a rail - aren’t always the best move
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I can understand the thought process, but would be surprised if it happened with Detroit. Trajan Langdon is in his first month of being in charge of a franchise. I can’t see him telling Tom Gores he wants to fire Monty and have Gores pay him $80M or whatever is left on the contract, and replace him with a guy who has never coached.
I don’t like retreads and for most franchises I think rolling the dice on a guy like Redick makes some sense. Detroit has been the worst franchise in the league for the last 10+ years though. They don’t have a roster full of guys who know how to play in the NBA and can offset a head coach learning on the job.
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FWIW Woj said Hurley has always been at the top of their list. Basically saying Shams had it all wrong
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I barely paid attention to Charlotte. I looked up Borrego’s record which is mediocre at best, but why was he run out of town on a rail?
There was a solid amount of reporting that his best team (the one that made the play-in) had completely shut him out and basically refused to defend
Likely, Charlotte’s complete immolation in the play-in in consecutive years had an outsized impact on this.
Mark Stein reported basically that he wasn’t respected in the locker room
My take generally is that the number of coaches who can competently scheme a cromulent plan is pretty large (some coaches are notably creative and innovative but that’s a small handful), and for many the distinguishing factor are soft skills, the ability to keep the roster engaged and motivated, stars bought in, etc. That’s where he failed.
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Thanks for the background info on why Borrego failed at Charlotte.
The latter is probably why JJ is in the coaching candidate cycle.
The silver lining about having a roster/rebuild in shambles is that a coach really only needs to get buy in from Cade.
My wish for the Pistons: draft a Kentucky guard!
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Nah, this time we’re gonna draft another international prospect that’ll take a few years to develop, it clearly worked out with Sekou Doumbouya
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Ja’Kobe Walker is scheduled to workout with the Pistons. I hope the Pistons can find a way to move down, but Walker makes sense because of his shooting. Looks like a combo guard who can be 3 and D but can slide down to SF if necessary but he’s not big enough for it.