Detroit Pistons: Grand Rapids Drive A Breeding Ground For Success?
By Adam McGee
It has been a summer of great change for the Detroit Pistons, and one that was long overdue for the franchise. As an organization, the Pistons have seen a re-shuffle take place from top to bottom, all in the hope of giving the Pistons an identity again.
It has been a painful few years for Detroit basketball fans, finding themselves in the relative NBA wilderness. The team of 2004 that managed to bring a championship back to the Motor City seems like only a distant memory. In a quest to bring their team back to relevance though, Detroit’s ownership has made a series of moves this summer that set the foundations for a stronger, much improved organization into the future.
Joe Dumars, once a hero of the city as a player, and initially as general manager, has vacated his role after years where he oversaw some of the most baffling personnel decisions in the entire league. From the coaching point of view, interim coach John Loyer wasn’t retained following the end of last season, and became the latest in a line of coaches who failed to make an impact in Detroit.
This left the Pistons searching for the men who could fill arguably the two most important positions in the whole franchise. What Detroit needed was new ideas, a long-term vision, and somebody decisive enough to execute such plans.
Many feel they have succeeded in their search too, as the man chosen to be the brains of the Pistons as a whole was no other than respected coaching veteran Stan Van Gundy. Van Gundy comes in to coach the Pistons with a career winning percentage of 64.1 percent in the NBA already on his resume, while the depths of his knowledge about the game mean it’s not too difficult to understand Detroit’s decision to make him President of Basketball Operations.
Van Gundy has clear philosophies on how basketball should be played, and more importantly, what makes a team successful, and his goal is to surround himself with like minded thinkers to create a culture and style of play that can be instantly associated with the Pistons.
One of Van Gundy’s first moves towards this goal was to bring in his long time friend, Jeff Bower as GM, but the most significant move of all could prove to be a more recent one.
With the NBA hoping to develop a true minor league, or development system, below the NBA, a greater emphasis has been placed on the D-League and the way in which it currently functions. This has led to the league’s desire for teams to have single affiliates within the Development League, and Detroit is one of the lucky few to have just that luxury.
The recently founded Grand Rapids Drive gives the Pistons and Stan Van Gundy the luxury to hone, develop and nurture skills and talent in a more forgiving environment, before bringing it to the NBA stage proper. The Pistons are determined to take the possibilities granted to them by their partnership with the Drive seriously, and nothing signals that more than Van Gundy’s most recent appointment.
Otis Smith, former general manager of the Orlando Magic, has been appointed as the head coach in Grand Rapids, immediately bringing some real NBA pedigree and credibility to the team. Van Gundy holds Smith in particularly high regard from their time working together with the Magic, and it seems like the lines of communication will be pretty constant between them over the coming years.
You might think, what exactly is the advantage of investing so much thought in a D-League set-up? But there are a number of reasons why it could pay off in a big way.
It’s not uncommon for rookies, and other young players to be sent to the D-League by their team. The difference is, in the past, the two parties rarely worked in tandem. If a coach was trying to develop a player’s skills to play in a high tempo, fluid, ball-movement based offense, sending a player to the D-League could have resulted in them playing in a system that was much more isolation based, resulting in the whole experience being counter productive.
The same applies to defense, a key component of a Stan Van Gundy team. The D-League currently has a reputation for a lot of loose and reckless defensive play, but if Van Gundy and the Pistons have the Drive set up to be a template of their own team, they can assure their youngsters don’t pick up as many bad habits.
It’s still the very early stages for both Stan Van Gundy and the new look Grand Rapids Drive, but there is definite potential and cause for optimism on how their partnership can flourish. Only time will tell if it could be the start of a master plan to help bring the glory days back to Detroit, but as foundations go, the Pistons now have some pretty solid ones.