The Detroit Pistons fired their basketball czar, Stan Van Gundy, Monday.
Breaking: Stan Van Gundy and the Pistons have parted ways after 4 seasons, sources tell @wojespn. pic.twitter.com/USHCDsSV7P
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) May 7, 2018
The Pistons struggled under Van Gundy, who served as both coach and president of basketball operations.
“We have decided that this change is necessary to take our basketball organization to the next level,” Pistons owner Tom Gores said in a statement. “This was a very difficult decision and we did not come to it lightly. I am grateful to Stan for everything he’s done for the Pistons and for the City of Detroit. He rebuilt the culture of our basketball team, re-instilled a winning attitude and work ethic, and took us to the playoffs two years ago. He went all-in from day one to positively impact this franchise and this community.”
A new report, however, indicates Van Gundy was willing to take a lesser role, but Detroit wanted a clean slate. The report comes from Rod Beard of the Detroit News.
#Pistons SVG tells The News: "Tom (Gores) was looking to make change and I was willing to make pretty significant changes but even that wasn’t going to be enough. Tom decided at the end of the day that he needed to change the structure and the leadership."
— Rod Beard (@detnewsRodBeard) May 8, 2018
Interesting nugget: SVG tells me: "When it came down to this, I was perfectly willing to only go in one role and to give up the front office and go into (just) coaching. I didn’t fight to hang on to that at all. I was more than willing to just move over into the (coaching) role."
— Rod Beard (@detnewsRodBeard) May 8, 2018
SVG: "I’m disappointed that I don’t get to go a full year and coach them with Blake and hopefully with better health. To me, that was the most disappointing thing from a coaching standpoint. I really wanted to see that group together and wanted the opportunity to coach them."
— Rod Beard (@detnewsRodBeard) May 8, 2018
Pistons’ Future
Beard’s last tweet alludes to Blake Griffin, whom the Pistons acquired from the Los Angeles Clippers shortly before this year’s trade deadline. Detroit will have to figure out what to do with Griffin and fellow big man Andre Drummond.
Brent Barry is rumored to be in consideration for a role in the new Pistons front office.
