This has been expected for some time now—following yet another disappointing season in Detroit, longtime general manager and Pistons legend Joe Dumars will hand in his resignation. Per the Detroit News:
Dumars has told multiple sources within the NBA that he plans to resign — possibly as soon as this week — after a busy offseason that included the signings of high-priced free agents Josh Smith and Brandon Jennings and led to an underachieving 2013-14 season. The Pistons, who many experts picked to return to the playoffs in the Eastern Conference, are 28-49 and out of playoff contention.
Pistons owner Tom Gores had expected before the season that the team would return to the playoffs.
Gores fired Dumars’ hand-picked coach, Maurice Cheeks, after just 50 games, making it one of the top-five quickest firings in the last 20 years. After Dumars tried to save Cheeks’ job, according to an NBA source. It became clear the two sides, bound together by circumstance, were headed for divorce.
Compared to his contemporaries, Dumars has been reluctant to be front and center with media as Pistons president of basketball operations and has been quieter than usual recently, perhaps another signal that his time with the franchise — 29 years of work as a player and executive — is coming to an end.
Dumars, a Hall of Fame player who was drafted from McNeese State in 1985, is the only person aside from late owner William Davidson who has had a role in every Pistons championship.
Dumars took over in 2000, one year after retiring as a player, and immediately began making changes, culminating in an NBA title in 2004 and a return trip to the Finals the next season.
Both (Steve and Stephen A. Smith) agree, next to Jerry West, there hasn’t been a basketball figure as successful from the playing side to the executive side as Dumars — and he leaves behind an indelible mark on a segment of fans that won’t think of successful basketball in Detroit without him coming to mind.
“He’ll be loved forever. Like Michael (Jordan) and Scottie (Pippen) in Chicago, Magic and Kobe (Bryant) in Los Angeles,” Steve Smith said. “In Detroit, it’ll be Isiah (Thomas) and Joe Dumars, when you think of Pistons basketball.”
