Joe Dumars plans to resign from his post as president of the Detroit Pistons after 15 years on the job, The Detroit News reports. The News says Dumars could resign as early as this week.
Dumars, who won two championships as a player for the Pistons, has been a key decision-maker for Detroit as an executive since 2000. He helped build the team that won the 2004 NBA championship and reached the finals in 2005 by acquiring Ben Wallace and Rip Hamilton in trades and signing Chauncey Billups. But one of his biggest mistakes came at that time when he drafted Darko Milicic second overall, passing over stars like Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
Though the Pistons had a run of seven straight seasons of at least 50 wins, they haven’t won more than 30 games in the last five seasons (they’re currently 28-49).
One of the big reasons why Dumars will resign is because he has not seen eye-to-eye with new owner Tom Gores. The two have disagreed about head coaches, and the owner of course makes the final decision.
It’s hard to say whether Dumars will get another shot elsewhere. He did such a fantastic job building the team early in his tenure, but the Pistons were such a disaster afterwards and have cycled through so many coaches. In many ways, his career arc reminds me of Ben Howland’s at UCLA.
