ESPN.com: Pistons fire Michael Curry as head coach after only one season.
The Detroit Pistons have fired Michael Curry as coach, the team announced Tuesday.
"This was a difficult decision to make," Pistons president Joe Dumars said in a statement. "I want to thank Michael for his hard work and dedication to the organization. However, at this time, I have decided to make a change."
Curry was named coach on June 10, 2008 and was 39-43 this past season.
The Pistons were swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers in four games.
As always, Joe Dumars moves fast. Curry was a brave hire last season, a first year coach on a veteran team that contains guys he used to play with, and it went pretty badly. The Pistons went from a contender to a sub-.500 team under Curry, and got worse as the season went on, with a 13-20 finish. He lost the team, benched his best player because he thought it would be a good idea, never worked out how to use Allen Iverson, developed no offensive system, and alienated Richard Hamilton to the point that, as recently as yesterday, stories of their rift were appearing. The firing seemed inevitable.
There are possible ramifications for Chicago here, though, and I don't mean the faint whisper that ex-Bulls coach Doug Collins is in the running for the job.
Whether we like it or not, Ben Gordon is a free agent. And, whether we like it or not, stories of Detroit's interest keep cropping up. They have the second most cap space of anyone, and a trigger happy GM not afraid to go out and get what he wants. It also doesn't help that Gordon's style of play is not too dissimilar to that of Dumars, which might please Joe on some kind of trippy spiritual level.
However, one of the saving graces that we Bulls fans had was that Detroit already had Rip Hamilton at shooting guard. Hamilton is arguably the Pistons' best player, and he got a three year contract extension partway through last season that should keep him as a Piston for a while yet. He plays the same position as Gordon, and can't readily slide over to small forward as Tayshaun Prince is the incumbent.
For as long as this Curry vs Hamilton saga continued, there remained the possibility that Hamilton would be traded. But the tussle is over, and Hamilton has won. It looks as though he's staying, and that news hopefully brings with it one less potential starting shooting guard for a team with cap room. For those who want to re-sign Ben Gordon, this news is your friend.
(It will also help if Dumars realises that Ben Gordon doesn't pair up particularly well on Rodney Stuckey. We still have a few hours left to convince him.)
Furthermore, Vinny Del Negro's harshest critics can use this firing as an example of a General Manager who is not afraid to fire a first year coach if they don't see any direction or improvement to justify giving them a second season. Whether we should agree with that is another matter, though.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Tags: ben gordon, chicago bulls, detroit pistons, free agency
Are you serious? Comparing mini-me kobe wannabe (not positive) no defense Ben Gordon to the best defensive guard that had the Joradan assignment in the Bad boy days Joe Dumars? Are you blind? That is one of the dumbest comparisons ever
Underzied high scoring combo guards best suited to the off guard position? Yes, yes I see a vague comparison. The comparison does not extend to defense, though........which is why I didn't mention it.