2013-14 NBA Thread part 1

Lebron's 61 points on 33 FGA > Kobe's 81 on 48 FGA.

 

This is total IIRC so I could be off but from the time the franchise moved to Detroit (late 50s?) until Jack McCloskey arrived at the beginning of the 80s, it won one division title and that might have been its only winning season during the span. I know Ray Scott was the coach so it must have been in the mid-70s.

So, there have been long, dark days before. It seems to me Dumars needs to go and his replacement hire the coach.

 

Do Detroit fans like him?

 

No.

 

14 times 61 points has been scored in the NBA. 41 times 61 points or more have been scored in the NBA.

The number of times someone has scored more than 81 points in a game? Once.

81 > 61

 

Who? Isiah or Dumars?

The answer is 'yeah,' they like them both in the sense everybody loves HOF players who were central cogs of championship teams, but nobody at all has any delusions whatsoever that either is even remotely competent in running a franchise. The utterly unanimous consensus now is that Dumars has got to go.

If Gores were to hire Isiah as GM it might generate some exceedingly momentary goodwill in that if the team got off to an incandescent red-hot start people might get briefly excited (especially if he somehow managed to hire a marquee coach), but if, as is astronomically more likely given Isiah's record of uninterrupted utter disaster as a GM, the team started out by plunging down the elevator shaft, the few remaining ticketholders would stampede for the fire escapes, never to return, and you would see "crowds" of less than 1,000 at The Palace, and the moving vans pulling up to the back door within a season or so.

Remember, Gores owns The Palace free and clear. The Pistons aren't bound by any lease to anybody. They could pack up the truck and move the franchise tomorrow morning if they felt like it.

 

Is Tom Gore aware that there's no requirement that the Piston GM be a former All Pro Piston guard?

You know, there really are some other qualified candidates out there. I just can't believe any sane owner would look over the field of potential candidates today and conclude "you know, I think Isiah's the best we can do...."

 

I dunno; there's no real concrete indication the Isiah rumor is the real deal and not just columnist/beat writer jerking-off.

Some say Gores is superficial and makes decisions on public-relations factors: he certainly cannot be ignorant enough not to know Isiah bombed Hiroshima-style as GM of the Knicks and signing him as GM would be in fact a PR fiasco.

In any case if signing Isiah fails, Dave Bing is also available, having just retired as mayor of Detroit.

 

On the one hand, I give Phil Jackson maybe two years with the Knicks and it won't end well. On the other hand, there isn't anyone else out there I can think of who might be able to stand up to Dolan and do what needs to be done. Jackson doesn't meed the money. Really won't need the aggravation - the leverage will all be on his side.
The Knicks are still a huge mess. And figure Jackson will get more bad press from the NY media over the next couple of years than he has in his entire career.
Best case scenario, he brings in some quality people who are able to stick around after he leaves and help the team turn the corner.

 

I doubt it. After the miserable 14 year run the Knicks have had, he'll be taking over squarely in "nowhere to go but up" territory.

Jackson is a master of timing these moves. Quit the Bulls at the perfect time when the best player ever had just retired, took over the showpiece franchise right at the perfect time when they had the game's two most talented players peaking simultaneously, stepped away at the perfect time right when one of those guys left, stepped back in at the perfect time, and then out again right when they got too old and the remaining superstar started to break down physically.

I'm sure he's calculated his odds here as well. Nothing he can do to make that franchise more of a laughingstock than it's been in the last decade-plus. And any improvement and he gets hailed as the guy who turned it around.

 

Hope the Thunder and Rockets meet in the playoffs after last night's dances.

 

I know OKC won, and that would be a heck of a series. I love Westbrook and think he's a great player, but I'm shifting toward the bandwagon that the Thunder would be better off moving Westbrook, though. They played out-of-this-world when he was hurt, and they've been struggling since he returned. If they could trade Westbrook for a good pass-first PG, they'd be the Finals favorite I would think.