In my opinion Pistons will still be top 4 in the East but i have a feeling they wont be the same without Brown... How do you guys think Brown leaving will effect the Pistons next year?
I was thinking about this also. Im not sure how the coaching change will affect their play. I didnt really watch to many T-Wolves games so I'm not to familiar with his coaching style but maybe Flip Saunders can keep the team playing strong.
I have always looked at it this way. A coach is simply an extension of his team. Look at George Karl, Pat Riley, and others. Pat and George both struggled in there final years with their teams. Pat with the Heat and Karl with the Bucks. Was it just, because they woke up one day, and could not coach? Of course not the team simply did not have the talent to be successful any more at that point. In some case obviously you could state that it is exact opposite it is true that sometimes a coach can come in, and pull out the full potential a player brings to the table, but in the end of things one common aspect is needed. Talented players and the Pistons have that. They still have all their core players from the championship team with Prince, Billups, Wallace, Big Ben, and Rip all returning. So they lost Larry Brown it is a significant lose, but people are acting like Flip is a scrub coach. When in fact he has been a good coach for the better part of his career. He has a winning record as a coach, and did manage to coach the Wolves past the first round when the team gave him the players to work with. I am not sure weather the Pistons will win their division this year. I honestly am predicting they will. They are the conference champs, and that automatically gives them the advantage over the Pacers in my mind. However, if they do not win it I am sure people will blame it on the fact that Larry left. When in reality it will not be the complete truth. It will most likely be (should it come to that), because of the improvement the Pacers made not any step backwards that the Pistons took at least not in my mind. Even if they don?t make it back to the finals I will not say it is, because of Browns departure there are a hell of a lot of teams in the Eastern conference shooting at them right now the Nets, Pacers, Heat, just to name a few. While last season in reality it was just the Heat, and the season before that it was simply the Pacers.
Pistons still have maybe the best starting 5 in the NBA in terms of both sides of the ball. Those guys are experienced enough to know what It takes to win games and championships. The defense will still be strong and with Flip's offensive coaching style the Pistons offense should improve. The Pistons are still title contenders and are still the team to beat in the east. You don't win back to back east championships without being great. The same players are there and Flip being coach instead of Larry isn't going to change much. There are two other very good elite teams in the east being Miami and Indy but both have question marks on their side. Will the Heat have enough around Shaq and Wade? will Shaq's age continue to catch up with him? same goes for Eddie Jones. How will losing Reggie effect the Pacers? he was their glue. Some many questions that will be answered in due course.
