Expectations and acquisitions

I have a tough time envisioning this Joe Dumars being interviewed in his office wearing the George Costanza sweatshirt he's always in now.

I envision it looking a lot like the OKC Thunder.

Isiah was a full blown sail...but on a ship with a focused and narrow route. His mates were tried and true, ready to weather any storm. This is the journey JD remembers...and still tries to follow to the letter. JDs feathers are unattractive and offer little else. His brush is trying to paint a picture which has long since vanished. He has lost his vision. He sees others sailing by, but does not follow. His crew leaves for a more defined path on another vessel. JD now is forced to hang onto a failing, but experienced crew. The mutiny has come and gone.............and things have only gotten worse...but feathers now...only bring comfort...not purpose.

Well, the Pistons have sucked for a couple of years now so...
OKC comes to mind due to the fact that they're an emerging team that drafted a couple of star players and surrounded them with young complimentary players. Yes, they sucked for a while. Then Sam Presti took over and put a plan in place. In three years, he had the youngest team in the league in the WCFs.
He did it by getting himself a younger, hungrier roster that complimented each other.

But at least we have an old stick.............

OKC is a bad example. They sucked, got a great ping pong ball and an even greater player in Kevin Durant. Just think, Port picked Oden. Can you imagine a frontcourt of ALdridge, Z-BO and Durant! WOW! That being said, imagine if tomorrow you picked up the paper and Joe traded Tay for Durant, INSTANT CONTENDER! But Durant is/was special, there's not a Durant in every draft, just because you get a high draft pick doesn't mean you'll get a franchise player. This years draft is DEEP and has some real game changers in it, if there was ever a year to suck with a low payroll, THIS is the year to do it, which is why why we should have let Tay WALK and played hardball with Rodney and offered him the 1 year qualifier.

I agree with you KG.
But OKC/Seattle traded players for picks for a lot of years to get guys like Harden, Westbrook, Ibaka.
...And they've wheeled and dealed a lot of additional picks to bring in other pieces.

Maybe teams like OKC aren't the ideal example of the "roadmap".
...but they certainly are an example of the "destination" that I'd like to see the Pistons get to.

NONE of those guys matter if they're playing with Tayshaun Prince as opposed to Kevin Durant. A perennial MVP candidate changes everything. Again, trade Brandon Knight for Derrick Rose..............If the draft has "that" guy in the draft, JACKPOT! We still need "that" guy. But that's why I like Philly, they don't have "that" guy, but they have a collection guys who play hard and get it done, it's the best road map to follow until you can somehow/someway get "that" guy.

Agreed.
...but on the flip side, Kevin Durant would be racking up scoring titles on a lottery team without all of those other dudes. -It's a 2 way street.

The more you stockpile good contracts, upside players and draft picks; the better your chances are of aquiring a "JACKPOT" type guy. When you have a team of players/contracts that nobody wants, other GMs stop taking your phone calls.

I totally agree that we need "that" guy. Hopefully our 2012 pick will be "that" guy!!!

I just hope that Westbrick and Durantula are able to at least equal their run of last season.
OKT have so much positive on their roster.........

Durant is probably the best player in the league right now. There are a whole lot of teams that would look young and exciting with him on the roster. If you were to put Durant on the Pistons instead of Prince, then this team would be one functional big man away from contender status.

I've watched handful of D-League games this year. They're fun. You see some hustle and some guys that you haven't seen for awhile. I don't see ANYBODY in the D-League who can be part of our core going forward, at least not anybody who isn't currently attached to another NBA team. I just don't know who the names of these "future stars" in the D-League. Lin played some D-League last year, but I believe that he was attached to GS.

You can fill out a roster with some D-League guys, but you're not going to build a competitive team from D-League cast offs. OKC didn't build it's team with D-League guys. Aldrich, Collison, Durant, Harden, Sefolosha, and Westbrook were all lottery picks. Sofolosha and Aldrich were aqcuired, and the others were available because OKC sucked. Ibaka was their own first round picks. Guys like Perkins and Cook were other teams' first rounders. I'm not seeing how the Pistons adding a couple of D-leaguers even remotely resembles OKC. Just because you want a serious player from the D-League, doesn't mean that a serious player is in there.

We're all hoping for "That Guy" in 2012.

J if your replying to me (I assume you are but am sorry if you're not), I never said that we should troll the D-League for "future stars". What I was trying to say is that I'd rather watch a bunch of cheap-a$$ scrubs get smoked every night than watch our current crew of expensive scrubs get smoked every night.
I'm not delusional enough to think that the D-League is full of Jeremy Lins just waiting for a 10-day shot to come on up and throw down some 20-10s for the Pistons.

OKC got to where they are by sucking. - Yeah, that's correct.
Guess what? the Pistons have been doing their share of sucking for the last 3 years!
...and there's no end in sight!

Our highest paid guys happen to be the guys that are most underperforming their contracts. I'm no freaking Jerry West but THAT'S a recipe for disaster! The Pistons' highest paid guys all suck and all have un-tradeable contracts. ...that's not a very bright future!

Investing 25% of your cap on a guy that is past his prime and a guy that never reached his prime is not a smart move. I haven't seen a lot of teams wearing out Joe's Crackberry in hopes of swinging a deal for the great Tayshaun Prince and the eternally up and coming Rod Stuckey. Why RE-sign these guys?

...What's that definition of insanity again???

We should have been trimming payroll.
Trading players for picks.

Making the "investment" more attractive and making the ballace sheet look better.

JD keeps players around. Tay gets an additional 4 years...........

Yet, he brooms coaches like they're viruses. Flip is the longest.......at 3 years.

Makes no sense to me.