Joe Dumars No Longer Pistons President

An anonymous source reports that three-time NBA Champion Joe Dumars is no longer the President of the Detroit Pistons.

This news comes as no surprise to many Pistons fans due to the fact that Dumars has missed the playoffs once again. Dumars will likely take on an advising role with the franchise.

The Pistons went 29-52 and finished eleventh in the Eastern Conference despite preseason hopes that Dumars’ offseason additions to the team: Josh Smith and head coach Maurice Cheeks could turn around the franchise’s luck.

Ironically, it was the Pistons’ poor performance this season that saved their first-round draft pick. The team needed to finish in the bottom eight in the league in order to prevent their pick from going to the Charlotte Bobcats due to a deal Dumars made that did not pan out.

Dumars’ divorce from the position means the end of an era in Detroit. The close of this era marked by mixed performance in the draft (failures like Darko Milicic and success like Andre Drummond) and five straight years absent from the postseason is instrumental in moving forward. Dumars has been with the team as a player or in the front office since the day he was drafted in 1985.

This past season, evidence of Dumars’ impatience and perhaps need to win was clear when he fired first-year head coach Maurice Cheeks halfway through the season. Assistant coach John Loyer served as interim head coach after Cheeks’ dismissal.  Though Loyer’s first game as head coach resulted in a win against the San Antonio Spurs, the Pistons struggled to finish strong and fell out of playoff contention.

With news of Dumars’ departure comes speculation over who will replace him. Whoever is next in line will have a lot on his shoulders including finding a new head coach and navigating the talent in the upcoming draft.

Hopefully, for the fans’ sake, the next in line will not pick a bust amongst this talent-filled draft class.


Colin Jackson is a multimedia journalist for Impact Sports.