After last night’s Eastern Conference finals dismissal at the hands of the Celtics, Iced Antonio McDyess (baby) isn’t exactly going out on a limb in predicting Detroit GM Joe Dumars might break up the Pistons (“he’s not blind and the fans are not blind. What went on this year, I can just say we didn’t give it all we got.” The Detroit News’ Chris McCosky is a tad more specific, promising “it was the end, most likely, of Flip Saunders’ coaching tenure. It was the end of Lindsey Hunter’s playing career…and it might be the end of Rasheed Wallace’s time in Detroit.”
Wallace has one more season on his contract, and the plan has always been to let him play out that final year, even if his role is reduced.
But, for the second straight year, Wallace flamed out in the conference finals. Last year, he openly defied Saunders’ defensive calls in Game 5 against Cleveland, then got himself thrown out of Game 6.
This year, the season ended with earning a $25,000 fine from the league for bashing the referees after Game 5, coming late to shoot-around Friday morning and playing one of the worst playoff games of his career.
He managed just four points, missing 10 of 12 shots (0 for 6 from three-point range) and three turnovers.
Pistons president Joe Dumars gave Wallace a pass after last season. You wonder if he will give him another.
“You could say it’s a lot of things, but like I told the guys, at the end of the day, when we lose, we all look bad,” Richard Hamilton said. “We all look bad. We know what it takes to win and when we don’t do it, it’s on us.”
Fascinating to think that Flip Saunders — hardly an incompetent head coach compared to some of the characters currently employed —- might be looking for work this summer. Does anyone remember that time way back when (all of 4 weeks ago) Mark Jackson was actually considered a viable candidate by more than one team.
Take it from me… it could be worse than Flip (case in point, Doc Rivers), but it could be a whole lot better.
Whenever a team goes deep into the playoffs and come up empty a lot of speculation,innuendo, and expert opinions seem to follow suit. The Pistons pride themselves on being a hardnosed defensive team who knows how to win and play the game the right way. Well after watchig them this past season I made up my mind they would not win the East simply because they were lacking one key element that made them NBA champions in the past-Hunger. I would not single out one player such as Rasheed Wallace for the teams shortcomings or failures it was a total team effort on the part of both the players and coaches which created the end result. Too many times the players walked up the court,failed to play defense and left the middle so wide open that a child could have scored on them. There is an old saying.”If it aint broke don’t fix it.So why did the Pistons get into the playoffs and stopped using the rotation that got them there? Joe you have a lot to fix and atttitude and hunger is one and two.