Dumars and the Pistons cannot afford for this draft class to be a bust

June 29, 1:44 PMDetroit Pistons ExaminerDave Ryan

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(SAID ALSLAH/Michigan Daily)

Widely considered one of the top general managers in the NBA, Joe Dumars has had a fair share of highs and lows after nearly ten seasons on the job. Even though most of his long-time supporters will point out the '04 NBA title in his defense, it's becoming exceedingly difficult for Pistons fans to agree with some of Dumars' recent acquisitions. After last Thursday's NBA Draft, a night where the Pistons came home with three players who play the same position, I find myself extremely frustrated about the direction of this team.

But aren't you starting to feel the same way? We've already seen Dumars kill off a good portion of his fan base with the Chauncey Billups deal, and then alienate others at the thought of wasting most of our free agent dollars on Carlos Boozer this summer. There's even a good chance that Tayshaun Prince or Rip Hamilton gets dealt in the coming weeks (heck, maybe both?). Are you actually happy with this type of direction as Pistons fan? I know I'm not.

That's why on Thursday night, with time ticking away on Detroit's first round selection, I couldn't stop biting my fingernails. I knew how important this particular pick was, how crucial it could be for the speed of development as a team, and how it would set the tone for the new era of Pistons' basketball. And yet, despite this, a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach persisted, one that made me feel as if we were going screw things up. So when David Stern finally announced Gonzaga's Austin Daye as our pick, I shook my head, grabbed the remote and promptly turned off the television.

Don't get me wrong, I turned it back on in time to catch the second round, but it's almost as if I wanted to forget the previous moment even happened. I wanted an Earl Clark, a Terrence Williams or a James Johnson. I wanted a can't-miss athlete who can suit up and play right now, and one who doesn't come with painfully obvious red flags attached. Instead, with Austin Daye, it appears like we have everything I was hoping we'd avoid with our first round pick.

If you sat on the couch and watched the NBA Draft yourself, you probably heard the word "potential" mentioned hundreds of times. Some guys have lots of it, while others apparently don't have enough. This is why, as far as I'm concerned, potential is the most ridiculous word in the NBA vocabulary. I don't even care that general managers will literally go crazy over it. Why does every single prospect have a pre-determined amount of potential when they enter the league? This isn't some video game where individual player ratings are spelled out on a numerical 1-100 scale. Last time I checked this was real life, a magical place where things like this can't be measured with a convenient rating system.

And yet, Joe Dumars just couldn't help himself with Daye still on the board. Too much potential to pass on, right? Why in the world would Dumars really skip over the next Tayshaun Prince? Oh wait, that's right, how about this one: we've already got Prince under contract! The only way this pick even remotely makes sense is if Prince is a 100% lock to be traded, which is understandable, but it still doesn't justify the move. My biggest problem here is that Daye isn't even close to being NBA ready. Heck, Prince himself was more capable of playing right away even as a rail thin prospect. The difference between the two seems minor, but it's much larger than most would think. Prince helped carry a good Kentucky team through the SEC back in 2002, while Daye floated around, flashing his "potential" when called upon for an untested Gonzaga squad this past year. One actually went out and did "it", while the other only hinted at what "it" might be in a few years. Especially during a rebuilding stage, those high risk, high reward players like Daye should be the furthest thing from what Dumars wants to add.

The main reason I wasn't too worked up about the Daye pick initially was because of our three second round draft picks to start the night. I considered these to be more of a cushion for that first rounder. I reasoned that even if we ended up with an undesirable player at #15, then at least we could stockpile young talent later on. The Pistons held picks #35, #39 and #44, so at the very least I figured we'd end up with Daye, a big man, a scoring wing and a developmental point guard. That, in a sense, was my best case scenario at that exact point in the evening.

As would become the trend for the entire night, my hopes and projections were pretty far away from the actual results. Georgetown's small forward DaJuan Summers was our pick at #35, and another small forward, Sweden's Jonas Jerebko landed at #39. Things got even stranger when we took Arizona's sliding first round talent Chase Budinger at #44, and then promptly traded him away for a future second round selection and cash. By the end of the night, Detroit had amassed three small forwards, and done so with a quick glance towards the versatility shown by the Orlando Magic en route to the NBA Finals this spring. Consider that Daye would be our resident Rashard Lewis, Summers our Mickael Pietrus and Jerebko our Hedo Turkoglu, and we'd only be a Ron Jeremy away from becoming the Midwest's version of Orlando-Lite. Of course this mindset is borderline delusional to expect these players all to develop into NBA starters, but it might not be far off what Dumars was trying to accomplish.

I don't want to sound like I'm blatantly bashing Dumars and the Pistons here, I'm just not sold on the moves that have been made to date. A rebuilding mode is something that not many of us Detroiters are used to seeing out of their basketball team, so it's frustrating to see moves being made that half of the fan base doesn't agree with. Even though it's questionable as to how big of a role our rookies will have this upcoming season, I'm not sure we can afford to swing and miss on each one of them. If Daye ends up as a bust and we still end up trading Prince away, I'm not sure that will be something we can quickly recover from. I'm a big fan of Summers however, and I actually consider him to be more valuable right now than Daye is for the style of basketball we intend to play. Knowing that it will take at least two years to get a full grasp on how talented these three players are, it's about time to cross your fingers and hope that Joe D got things right.