Dumars, Pistons need to stay the course

Would Amare Stoudemire look good in a Pistons uniform? (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

The roof at the Palace of Auburn Hills is about to collapse. The Detroit Pistons are watching the end of one of the greatest runs in team history fall apart before their eyes.

The Pistons have rolled off seven straight 50-win seasons that includes six straight trips to the Eastern Conference Finals, two NBA Finals appearances, the 2004 NBA Championship and 259 straight sellouts, which ended this past Wednesday night.

But since the Pistons haven’t made the NBA Finals since 2005, and watching the likes of Boston, Cleveland and Orlando pass them by, Joe Dumars did what every General Manager dreads and began to break up the machine he'd built.

Joe went about it in a different way though. He didn’t throw away all the pieces at once. He calculated and designed a way to rebuild this team while attempting to keep it elite at the same time by shipping Chauncey Billups to Denver in exchange for Allen Iverson.

This gave Detroit the superstar they’ve coveted, allowed second-year guard Rodney Stuckey more playing time, and gave them two huge expiring contracts in Iverson and Rasheed Wallace, which will free up an enormous amount of money for them to be a major player in the monster 2010 free-agent class that includes Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, Steve Nash and LeBron James.

It looked like Dumars had done it again, proving he was indeed the smartest GM in basketball. But then things started going wrong. The lineups weren’t working. First-year head coach Michael Curry was put in the undesired position of sitting one of his two All-Star guards -- Iverson or Richard Hamilton -- on the bench, and the team began losing at a pace we haven’t seen here in Detroit in almost a decade, at one point falling all the way down to the sixth seed in the East.

And that’s when panic began to set in with the fans. Did we make a mistake trading Chauncey? Do we need to make another move? Can we trade Iverson or Wallace?

My answer to Joe and the Pistons is clear, NO! No, you didn’t make a mistake, and no, you don’t need to make another move. Stay the course and let it play out.

This team was getting older by the minute and was not going to win with Billups. Sure they may have had another 55-win season. Sure they may have gotten to another Eastern Conference Final. But they were not going to win the NBA title and Joe made the right move breaking it up when he did.

There are all kinds of rumors out there involving Wallace and A.I. One has ‘Sheed heading to the Spurs. Another has the Pistons being a player in the Amare Stoudemire sweepstakes.

Dumars is not a stupid man. He knows that this team is not going to make a run at the title this season. The only way the Pistons trade Wallace to San Antonio is if they get more expiring contracts and draft picks in return. And there is no way Phoenix is unloading a phenomenal 26-year-old power forward like Stoudemire for a couple of aging vets with favorable contracts. The Pistons would have to include draft choices and possibly combinations involving Hamilton, Stuckey, Jason Maxiell and Tayshaun Prince. Is Stoudemire worth all that knowing there is talent as good as his, if not better, that will be available in the next year that won’t cost the team all those players? I think not.

Detroit Pistons Examiner Shannon McKeown wrote an article on how Bosh could be available via trade now. If true, then that is the one deal that would make sense since he is a player Joe is targeting for 2010. However, there are conflicting reports whether the Toronto Raptors are seriously considering trading Bosh. And Toronto does have another year to attempt to trade him before he becomes a free-agent, so their asking price may be higher today than it will be six months from now.

Wallace and Iverson, much like the Pistons, are no longer the players they used to be. But Dumars cannot waiver. He and the organization need remain focused on the long-term plan. Take their lumps this season, free up the money from Iverson and Wallace’s departure, build around Stuckey, Hamilton and Prince, and set their sights on 2010.

In short, stay the course.