Who should be next Detroit Pistons head coach?
Stan Van Gundy is gone. Who is most qualified to be the Detroit Pistons next head coach?
As Detroit Pistons fans gaze forlornly upon the NBA playoffs, much like Adam and Eve gazed upon the Garden of Eden after they got kicked out for eating that apple, we’ve learned that coaching is kind of important.
Coaching is why Quin Snyder was able to take a roster that wasn’t supposed to make the playoffs this year and reach the 2nd round with a rookie as his best player.
Coaching is why Dwayne Casey was swept by Ty Lue. Wait.
Here’s a good one. Coaching is why Brad Stevens, head coach of the Boston Celtics, is one game away from the Eastern Conference Finals. The guys with the most minutes played on his team are Terry Rozier, Al Horford, and Jayson Tatum in that order!
I could go on and on about Stevens’ ability to take his roster and functionally turn it into a toolbox of players that provide an answer to every solution. Unfortunately, unlike apples full of evil, Brad Stevens does not just grow on trees.
The Pistons have to pluck their coach from the used coach tree. So here’s a list of available coaches with NBA head coaching experience, oh, and Jerry Stackhouse for fun.
David Blatt
David Blatt never really got a fair crack at the NBA coaching thing.
He signed up to be the coach of a young and rebuilding Cleveland Cavaliers only to be blindsided by a LeBron James sized meteorite.
LeBron is a human ticket to the NBA finals and deserves and demands control over whatever team he is on. For a rookie head coach it might not be the best learning experience.
He made the NBA Finals in his first year as an NBA coach.
Sure, he had the best player in the league who basically coached himself along with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love but he was there.
Blatt seems an unlikely pick but could be a potential candidate. The Cavs were 30 – 11 at the time of his dismissal and many coaches voiced their displeasure.
They also praised Blatt’s coaching, including San Antonio head coach Gregg Poppovich.
“All of us in the business know it works,” Popovich told The Orange County Register, “He is a heck of a coach, circumstances often dictate what happens to certain coaches that have nothing to do with their record.”
Rick Carlise was similarily perturbed, “It just leaves you with a bit of an empty feeling. Because Blatt’s a great guy and he did a great job there.”
It’s rare you see so many coaches voice their disapproval of a firing. David Blatt might just be worth another look.
Jerry Stackhouse
Jerry Stackhouse has two things going for him. He once averaged 29 PPG in a Pistons uniform and the legendary Elton Brand recently endorsed him.
Per raptorsrepublic.com, “I expect Jerry Stackhouse to get a professional coaching job or a top head coach college job if he wants it very soon. His players respect him, he knows how to win. I know executives are aware of him and they’re taking note.”
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Well, if Elton Brand says it, it has to be true.
In 2017, Stackhouse led the G-League Raptors 905 to a championship while winning Coach of the Year.
I’m actually not sure if that’s good because who is really watching the G-League consistently? Who was voting on this? Elton Brand?
Stack has potential, and might be the third best guard on the team, but with the Pistons current roster and cap space situation, they shouldn’t take a chance on an unproven coach.
Mark Jackson
Well, I just mentioned Jerry Stackhouse as an option so I’ll give Mr. “Mama There Goes That Man” Mark Jackson a few words.
Mark Jackson most recently coached the Golden State Warriors but was fired and then replaced by Steve Kerr.
Joe Lacob, Golden State Warriors owner, via SBNation, cited minor reasons for the decisions such as, “Look, he did a great job, and I’ll always compliment him in many respects, but you can’t have 200 people in the organization not like you.”
So no one liked him but have you ever seen The Wire? No one likes McNulty but he was still sometimes, when he wasn’t drunk, an effective member of the police force!
To his credit, Jackson did steadily improve the Warriors over his tenure. He started with a 23 win team and eventually handed a 51 win team over to Kerr.
Unfortunately for Jackson’s coaching career, Kerr took that same roster, retooled a stagnant offense, and won an NBA championship without the weird religious stuff and alienating everyone he came into contact with.
He’s a good defensive coach, but not creative on the offensive side. Sounds familiar. I’ll pass. Mama, there goes that man.
Mike Budenholzer
The final candidate is Mike Budenholzer and is my personal preference for Pistons head coach.
He holds the most impressive resume of the available coaches. He won coach of the year in 2014 and was an assistant coach under Greg Popovich from 1996 until 2013.
His greatest achievement of all might be making the Toronto Raptors believe Demarre Carroll was worth $58 million.
Budenholzer earned his COTY award in 2014 by leading a somewhat rag-tag group of players to 60 wins. That was an Atlanta Hawks franchise record. That team was a beautiful melody of ball movement upon the rhythm that is modern basketball.
They were disposed by the basketball buzz-saw LeBron James, but LeBron is an anomaly. He effectively negates any sort of coaching advantage or disadvantage so I’ll give Coach Bud a pass for that.
Besides coaching and acting as GM for one of the most over-achieving teams in recent regular season memory, he was also responsible for hiring 2018 Coach of the Year candidate Quin Snyder.
Mike Budenholzer has the pedigree, the experience, and the ability to hire the right personnel.
After watching Stan Van Gundy try for four years to create an offense without the least bit of creativity, Coach Bud would be a breath of fresh air and ultimately the man most qualified to be the Detroit Pistons head coach.