Detroit Pistons: Phil Jackson To Consult In Coaching Search
The Detroit Pistons may be trying to prove that there is such thing as a free lunch.
On May 2, team owner Tom Gores announced that Phil Jackson will serve as an unpaid consultant in the search for a new head coach. The position became vacant when Lawrence Frank was fired last month following a two-year stint and with one season still remaining on his contract at a reported $4 million.
So the coaching carousel continues to spin in Detroit as the franchise prepares to hire its seventh sideline boss since Joe Dumars was named team president in June 2000.
There has been some debate about whether Dumars was the sole decision maker in cutting ties with George Irvine, Rick Carlisle, Larry Brown, Flip Saunders, Michael Curry, John Kuester and now Frank. He likely received input from the previous owners (Bill and Karen Davidson) and from Gores, who purchased the team in 2011.
Will Phil Jackson provide a voice of reason for the Detroit Pistons? (Photo Credit: Keith Allison, Flickr.com)
But it is no secret that the Pistons front office has displayed a certain degree of dysfunction over the last 13 years, even from 2003-08 when the team was enjoying a run of six straight appearances in the Eastern Conference Finals. They won a championship in 2004 and reached the NBA Finals again in 2005, but lost a thrilling seven-game series to the San Antonio Spurs.
Brown, who also lasted just two seasons, was let go following the 2004-05 campaign, despite a regular-season record of 108-56 and those two straight trips to the NBA Finals.
The Pistons made their fourth, fifth, and sixth straight appearances in the conference finals under coach Flip Saunders (2006-08), but he was let go after that run and the team hasn’t been the same since.
In recent years, Dumars has stockpiled talented players through the draft, including Greg Monroe (2010), Brandon Knight (2011) and Andre Drummond, but the additions of Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva via free agency in the summer of 2009 did not go as planned.
The Pistons have now gone four seasons without advancing to the playoffs, having employed two head coaches in that span (Kuester and Frank), with a miserable record of 111-201 to show for it. Along those lines, it is very surprising to me that Dumars remains as team president, assuming he has been primarily responsible for coaching changes, trades and free-agent signings.
Either way, the timing of Jackson’s involvement with the Pistons seems appropriate.
Heading into 2013-14, the team has more than $35 million in salary commitments and that amount could dip as low as $12.6 million in the summer of 2015.
Dumars deserves credit for creating the financial flexibility to rebuild the Pistons into a contender, but perhaps he has done all he can for the franchise.
It is a good sign that Dumars agrees with Gores’ decision to turn to the Zen Master for advice on the coaching search. Furthermore, I think it’s fair to say that Jackson, who has won an NBA-record 11 championships, can provide some valuable input into identifying the right coach to turn things around in Detroit.
However, this is not the first time that Gores has turned to outsiders for advice on a coaching search as former NBA executive Dave Checketts was used in this capacity prior to the hiring of Lawrence Frank.
But if it turns out that Jackson is able to help identify the right coach, something that will be evident when we look back on it after the 2013-14 season, then this may be the start of something new in Detroit.
Perhaps Gores’ next move would then be to bring in someone to advise Dumars on potential free-agent signings and trades.