Dating back to the Allen Iverson era — which was here and gone about as fast as A.I.’s first step — cracks in the chemistry of the Detroit Pistons infrastructure have effectively ended what was one of the NBA’s most consistent runs of success over the last decade. While the A.I. situation drew more national attention because of the big names involved, the Pistons’ issues over the last couple of seasons have been just as damaging. Now it’s just getting out of hand. Read More »

All eyes will be on Allen Iverson tonight as he makes his season debut for the Grizzlies. After sitting out the first three games of the season and the entire preseason due to a partial hamstring tear, everybody from the fans to NBA teams are all anxious to see what the Answer still has left in the tank. Read More »

Right after “Take advantage of any opportunity for free food,” one of the golden rules of this whole journalism thing is that you have to let both sides tell their story.

Over the last year, a lot of people have been telling Rip Hamilton‘s story for him. Read More »

Eighteen years too late, I watched Pistol: The Birth of a Legend for the first time this summer. Mostly the story of Pete Maravich‘s teenage years, partly a ball-handling instructional tape, the movie came to mind when I found out Allen Iverson was signing with the Memphis Grizzlies.

In Pistol, Maravich is a middle-school prodigy playing on a high school varsity team where the coach doesn’t like his style (too “Black”) and the older players don’t like him for being so good so young. Glued to the bench despite his talent, Pete just wants a chance to play, and when he finally gets it, predictably becomes a superstar and leads the team to glory. Ultimately, all that time he spent not playing was a colossal waste of time rooted in old-school values and silly stubbornness. Read More »

Before getting into what was a busy first day of NBA free agency, let’s talk about Joe Dumars and his sudden firing of Pistons coach Michael Curry. You can’t really say it was “out of nowhere,” because few teams fell apart quite like the ’08-09 Pistons fell apart, and Dumars has proven that he’s not exactly patient. (It’s a miracle he didn’t trade Amir Johnson two years ago.) But it was just two months ago that Dumars admitted he’d fired previous coaches too soon, promised to be more patient with Curry, and even took some responsibility for putting Curry in a tough situation with the Billups/Iverson trade. What happened to that? Read More »

The Detroit Pistons announced today that they have fired head coach Michael Curry. Can’t really say that this was a suprise – last season was an absolute mess in Detroit on so many levels. The team was 39-43 and got swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Cavs. Read More »

In a Wednesday press conference to confirm that Michael Curry will be back coaching the Pistons next season, team president Joe Dumars admitted he hasn’t been patient in the past with Detroit’s coaches, something he needs to do with Curry.

“The fact that we made so many changes for a first-year coach, I had to step back and be a little more patient than I have been,” Dumars told reporters. “During the season I said to myself, ‘What affect is this having on him as a first-year coach.’ I tried to put myself in his shoes.” Read More »

I really never thought we’d get to this point. In recent days when headlines have popped up around the sports blog-o-sphere, I thought that the media was kind of blowing the Allen Iverson-to-the-bench issue out of proportion. But it turns out that he really is as upset as writers say he is. That doesn’t mean that AI is being a baby, though. This dude cares so much about playing his best and winning, he’s worked himself into a dither. Read More »