Atlanta Hawks should steer clear of Joe Dumars

Dumars In Detroit

That Pistons team is considered to be one of the very few teams to conquer an NBA season and win a championship without a superstar. I’d argue that Rasheed Wallace was a star player, but nobody would proceed to suggest he was ever a superstar. 

This strategy or blueprint is what the Hawks tried to follow to a title when Danny Ferry came in as General Manager. That could be the reason they find Dumars to be an interesting candidate.

Don’t let yourself be fooled by the success of that collection of Pistons when thinking of Dumars. His full effort in Detroit has to be considered before drawing any kind of conclusion.

The Pistons have been a horrible franchise for over a decade now. It all started when he took Darko Milicic second overall in the 2003 draft ahead of Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh.

You could say, well that happens to everybody once. But, when you still have nightmares about Marvin and Shelden Williams, you are aware how costly missing on a pick like that can be.

From 2006 to 2009, many of those championship winning players struggled to eclipse even 30 wins under coach Michael Curry. Adding players like Kwame Brown and Antonio McDyess aided to the struggles.

In June of 2009, Dumars chose to invest in both Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva, convinced they would be the club’s stars of the future. He signed Gordon to a five-year, $60 million contract and Villanueva to a four-year, $40 million contract.

By today’s standards, those figures don’t look all that swollen, but back then, they were both a hot commodity in the free agent market. Those deals set the franchise back quite a bit.

Gordon, you might remember, was epic for the Chicago Bulls prior to joining the Pistons. He was coming off a 20.7 points per game season with Chicago. He was able to cash in on his potential and those performances, but his production fell off upon leaving the “Windy City”.

In his first year with the Pistons, he averaged just 13.8 points per game on 40 percent shooting. He would never come close to averaging 20 points again.

Villanueva had similar results. He was coming off a productive year with the Bucks, averaging 16.2 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. Once he arrived in Detroit, his health and career went down hill at warp speed.

He posted just 11.9 points and 4.7 rebounds per game during 2009-10 season. That’s actually the best he would do for Detroit, mind you. Much of the duration of his deal was spent on injured reserve. By the final year of his contract, he was a bench player averaging 4.8 points per night.