4 Ways Trajan Langdon is already much better than Troy Weaver
Fans of the Detroit Pistons will enter next season with cautious, even skeptical optimism.
And you can’t blame them.
We’ve been sold this bill of goods before, the talent evaluating guru who is going to turn it all around, who finally has the magic formula to get the Pistons back to where they belong.
Trajan Langdon is the latest carrot to be dangled in front of the donkey.
The skepticism is warranted after four years of Troy Weaver, who talked a big game but never delivered, a modus operandi Langdon is actively trying to avoid.
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So far, so good, as Langdon has differentiated himself from his predecessor in several ways.
#1: Trajan Langdon is not selling a “restoration”
One of the biggest mistakes Troy Weaver made as GM was using the word “restoration” in one of his first press conferences, as it was a word that would haunt him throughout his time in Detroit.
It was like he skipped a step rhetorically, selling fans on the idea that the Pistons could be the “Bad Boys” again, that the “Goin’ to Work” vibe could be resurrected in a city that hasn’t seen a playoff win since Flo Rida and T Pain were at the top of the charts.
It was a classic case of overpromise and underdeliver, as it turns out building great teams with sustainable winning isn’t as easy as Jack McCloskey made it look.
I don’t think Troy Weaver knew what he was up against.
He talked about a “restoration” as if it were a foregone conclusion, but conducted business as if he had a world of time to do it, as if he were building a pyramid instead of a basketball team.
Langdon hasn’t given us any of that nostalgic heroin (The Bad Boys ain’t walking through that door) and instead has preached patience as the path toward sustainable success.
He could have come in and torched the roster, or made some big, risky move towards short-term gains, but instead did the right thing, took a measured approach and didn’t make any silly promises.
This is smart politicking even though some of the more impatient fans may not like it.