Tom Gores’ NBA Inexperience has the Detroit Pistons at Rock Bottom
To preface this article, Tom Gores, for all his mistakes is not afraid to spend money. In this case, it’s not enough to overcome his constant tactics of overstepping his general managers and presidents of basketball operations.
Here’s a quote (Forbes) from Tom Gores in 2011 after purchasing the Pistons: “Over a year ago, someone brought the Pistons deal to me internally. We’re not normally in the business of looking at sports teams; it doesn’t fit our everyday profile.” This quote should have told us everything we needed to know. Gores bought a sports franchise and openly admitted that this was not his expertise. Clearly a great investment, but at what cost? If you win the mega-millions, then decide to buy a multi hundred-million-dollar company that you have little to no knowledge in, what’s the chances you succeed?
Almost immediately out of the gate, despite the terrible fit, Tom signed off on the Josh Smith (2013) signing. Dumars and Gores opened cap space by trading Ben Gordon and used it to sign Smith. A signing that seemingly put the nail in Joe Dumars’ coffin and had a Pistons legend exiled from Detroit. Not only that, but the signing also set the Pistons back until 2020, when Detroit finally got Smith off their books.
Hiring Stan Van Gundy was exciting, but only if you let him do his job. Gores nixed two trades (reported by Mitch Lawrence of Forbes in 2019) that Van Gundy had in place for Andre Drummond. Both of which would have almost certainly resulted in much more of a haul than what was acquired for Drummond before his value plummeted to its lowest point (Brandon Knight, John Henson and a 2023 second-round pick).
Stan Van Gundy who was then backed into a corner was basically forced to mortgage Detroit’s future and trade for Blake Griffin to pair with Drummond in order to appease Tom Gores. Griffin, who was one of the few players Gores was probably familiar with, due to the fact of living in Los Angles. We all know how this trade turned out for the Pistons. Buyout, setback another 4 years, paying a player to be on other franchises.
Hiring Troy Weaver, at the time didn’t seem like a bad move, but a lot of us would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that interview. Weaver’s unique speech habits had to of made that interview a treat. Was there really no one else more impressive in the interview process than Troy Weaver? Some credit to Weaver, he had absolutely no luck in the lottery for 4 years.
Gores hired Troy Weaver to make basketball decisions and then infringed upon his knowledge when he overstepped Troy to hire Monty Williams. Why does Gores continue to think his knowledge trumps lifelong basketball gurus?
It doesn’t get more out of touch, when the fans have suffered through a 28 straight losing streak, without any message from the front office or ownership. Then, a statement comes after we finally win a game, basically saying; see, we are fine. As well as when the fans called for him to sell the team. “They (fans) can say what they want, but that's ridiculous. Other than winning — and we should win more games — we do a lot in the community.” Wow, thanks Tom, but you didn’t need to buy the Pistons to make a difference in the community.
Why does Gores have his own version of Game of Thrones going on within his organization? Dwane Casey, Arn Tellum, Ed Stefanski, Trajan Langdon and Michael Blackstone. Why are Tellum, Casey and Stefanski still in the building? He is just going to overstep them anyway. Is this a board or committee that talks about basketball decisions? Let’s hope Trajan cleans house so he can run this team how he sees fit.
No owner is perfect, but Gores needs to put his ego to the side and allow these professionals to do their jobs. I know Gores must have a passion to see the Pistons achieve greatness. Here’s a quote (NBA.com) from Gores in 2013 that he needs to revisit:
“My biggest fear is to disappoint the fans,” he said. “I want to give them what they thought they got with me as a new owner, and I want to deliver on that. I know from growing up here, what I know about Detroit fans and Michigan fans is they’ll show up. You’ve just got to deserve them.”
11 years later, the Pistons are at rock bottom.