The Last 1,800 Words on the Pistons Draft

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Dumars

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
July 2, 2013

Anyone reading this article already is well aware of the abomination that is the Detroit sports media.   But an item I have seldom discussed in this space is just how bad the “journalists” who cover the Pistons are in comparison to the rest of their awful cohorts.

If the Detroit sports media is Stage 4 cancer, the Pistons beat members are an oncology patient being sent home from hospice and the priest is on the way to read last rites.

Vincent Goodwill.  Vince Ellis.  Matt Dery.  David Mayo.  Keith Langlois.  I mean, when the BEST one amongst the group is the dude who plead guilty to a four-year felony for possessing marijuana and manufacturing up to 20 plants …. well ….. ya probably got problems.

I am going to be honest with you.  I didn’t want to write an article about the Pistons passing on Trey Burke for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.  I got all of the poison out of my system™  (Dave Lampert) on Draft Night via Twitter.

But then the sycophants who cover the Pistons for a living got involved and I lost my shit.  The Two Vinnies went to social media and started defending Joe Dumars’ first round pick like they were Clarence Darrow in “Inherit the Wind.”

And of course everybody’s favorite two-face shill Ratt Matt Dery had the company line toed as always.   These lemmings were attempting to judge Dumars’ latest decision in a vacuum and not as the cherry on top of a shit pie we have been served for the last six or seven years.

Thursday night was just a perfect storm for an F-5 tornado to take shape.  Let’s take a quick walk down memory lane on the events that led to this boiling point of frustration.

First, Pistons fans were subjected to Joe D.’s failure to ever improve the championship team in the years subsequent to 2004 so that group could win a second title.

This is the same GM who when he finally dismantled the 2004 core, traded the one guy nobody wanted to see go in Chauncey Billups instead of Richard Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace or Tayshaun Prince.  Three players whose act had already started to wear thin.

Instead, he dealt the most likable member of the “Going to Work” era Pistons for a broken down, malcontent in Allen Iverson whose highlight in the Motor City was spitting at blackjack dealers …. at the Motor City Casino.  (I know he was actually banned at MGM and Greektown, but give me some damn poetic license here.)

And hell, by the time Dumars traded Billups for AI we were so happy that SOMETHING, ANYTHING was going to change that we mostly accepted it not unlike the Jews in the Concentration Camps heading off to the gas chambers for a much needed shower.

Then came the Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva debacle.  Not to mention the team’s horrible penchant for playing unwatchable basketball for 75 games only to ratchet up the intensity in the last couple of weeks to ruin potential draft position.

(Which if they didn’t do it again THIS YEAR the franchise would have drafted Ben McLemore and we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.  And please save me the Joe Dumars is too moral and righteous for tanking it to acquire a better draft slot.  This is the same guy that gave Rob Parker $5,000 when he should have known better and if the HISTORIC Boston Celtics can tank then so can a team owned by a venture capitalist who once had an affair with his brother’s wife.)

So that is where we were at on Thursday night as David Stern walked to the podium to announce the team’s first round pick in 2013.   What is left of this (apathetic) fan base was just meandering around looking for something to grab ahold of in an admittedly weak draft.

And we wanted Trey Burke.  And instead we got Caldwell-Banker.  Pistons fans on Twitter and Facebook went apeshit.  The losers who actually drove up to team headquarters to hear the pick announced booed lustily and things “turned ugly” according to Drew Sharp.  (Which might just have meant that Not the Sharpest Drew stuck his face and bald grill into the fan area.)

And what followed from the shills who cover this team was utterly amazing.  I am going to give you some of the rationale on how these shills defended the Papal pick and my rebuttal.

Let’s start with Vinny GoodShill himself and this doozy:

If any point guard actually were that good, no way would he have lasted long enough to be on the radar of the Pistons, who had the eighth overall pick.

Okay.  So, if Trey Burke was that freaking good then he never would have slid down to the Pistons at eight? Is this guy aware that when Brandon Knight slid to the Pistons at the NUMBER EIGHT selection in 2011 he acted like Joe Dumars had just pulled the wool over the rest of the league’s collective eyes?!?!!??!

And productive point guards never last that long in the draft, right? I mean, I had to go all the way back to 2009 when the Milwaukee Bucks lucked into Brandon Jennings with the TENTH pick.   In fairness to the Goodshills of he world, Jennings is at least a half an inch taller than Trey Burke.

Then there was this little nugget of wisdom from everyone who covers the Pistons for a living:

If Trey Burke played for UCLA or USC nobody would have wanted him.  This was just uneducated Michigan fans who wanted their hometown boy to play for the Pistons.

This is just about the biggest horseshit part of the entire saga.  There has always been a pretty solid separation of “Church and State” when it has come to Michigan and Michigan State fans desiring a Detroit team select one of their   athletes.

When Drew Stanton was taken by the Lions in the second round of the 2007 NFL Draft, it was SPARTANS fans who were the most aggravated.

Michigan fans didn’t bitch at the Lions when they passed on Tom Brady round-after-round.

And when a local product actually has gone high in a draft like Charles Rogers out of MSU, it was celebrated by BOTH U of M and State fans alike because that player was considered the best available option at that slot.

There wasn’t a Pistons fan alive who wanted the team to take Tim Hardaway, Jr.  And where was the clamoring for Josh Bartelstein with the #58 pick?

And here is the dumbest part of the Wolverine angle.   Every diehard Michigan State fan I know was just as heartbroken about Burke not coming to the Palace as Michigan fans.   How do these imbeciles account for THAT?!?!?

Then there was this gem:

Well, Joe just told us that he had to make the tough choice.  He just did the same exact thing as Donnie Walsh when Indiana took Reggie Miller over Steve Alford in the 1987 Draft.  

What?!?!!? There is absolutely NO corollary between this pick and Miller/Alford.   Reggie was the #11 pick that year.  Alford was #26!!!!!

Hell, AFTER the Pacers took Cheryl’s little brother, another FOUR shooting guards were selected before Whitey McWhitesalot was picked.

Trey Burke went with the next PICK and then was traded for TWO first round selections!!!!!

And the last time I checked, nobody in the WORLD suggested that Alford should have gone before Reggie.  Can you say the same thing about Burke and Caldwell-Pope?????? Burke was considered a lottery pick who might go as high as #2 to Orlando.  Pope was a fringe lottery selection.

To summarize, there is absolutely ZERO comparison here.

In Dery’s blog post defending Joe Dumars he quoted an NBA official who said:

“Minnesota was dying to team him (Caldwell-Pope) up with Rubio because he doesn’t miss from the outside.”

A little fact checking by “The Weasel” would have uncovered that Caldwell-Pope actually missed 62.7% of his three-pointers in 2012-3 and I am not an NBA expert, but I am pretty sure the pro three-point line is a few feet farther away than in college.

Then there was this straw-man argument from the assorted Joe Dumars propagandists:

You don’t take a guy because he is the popular pick who might fill some seats.

This was never the primary argument amongst Pistons fans who wanted Burke.   It was about ninth down on the freaking list.

The truth is when you have a totally apathetic fan base and a popular player at a POSITION of NEED who just happened to play his college ball 54.5 miles away from your home arena SLIDES to you at the #8 pick, you turn your draft card into the heel commissioner as quick as you can and don’t look that gift horse in the mouth.

Unless you don’t think point guard is a position of need because the LAST GUY who slid to you at #8 is the answer even though he has spent two years demonstrably showing you that he isn’t.

The most insane part of the Alan Dershowitz-esque defense of Dumars by the Two Vinnies is that they don’t even get anything out of it.  Joe NEVER gives them a scoop.  Hell, Dumars doesn’t even parcel out the breaking news to his own website through Keith Langlois like the Lions do with Tim “The Size of” Twentyman.

Nope.  Every single Pistons scoop is broken by a national writer like Adrian Wojnarowski or Marc Stein.  And you know why? Because Dumars is a star-fucker.

So, Ellis and Goodwill are just giving the appearance of being on the take from Dumars like Parker without the actual fringe benefit.   What a couple of jackasses.

The only logical media member who commented on the Burke passing was ESPN’s Tim McCormick who Tweeted out the following on Thursday evening ….

Oh, right. I forgot. McCormick went to Michigan so his opinion is worthless and he is just another uneducated slapdick. And the Pistons won’t even have a 2014 first round pick if it isn’t in the Top 8 because Dumars had to ship it to Michael Jordan so “His Airness” would take the horrid Ben Gordon contract off Joe’s hands.

And knowing this moronic franchise, they will probably be in the Top 8 all season long until around the end of April when they go on a meaningless five-game winning streak to lock up the #9 selection.

And Dery, Ellis, Goodwill, Langlois and Snoop Lion will just chalk it up to bad luck again.