Hahahaha. If we had Chauncy, we would still be bad. I would take Joe D over most GM's We are rebuilding and we are getting young pieces. Stucky, Daye, The Jonas Brother. We will be back before you even know it.
He's in year 1 of rebuilding from a top notch team he put together that was seriously aging. I don't blame him a bit for a single move he's made, and those big salaries of Prince and Rip are suitable to trade for quality younger players. Billups doesn't have that much gas left in the tank and I don't see the issue with selling him when his value was high. While he had the cap space, he signed two of the best available FAs - otherwise the team would be a LOT worse than it is now. With Chauncy, they might be a 1st round and out kind of playoff team. Without him and with the moves Dumars made, they might have been a 1st round playoff team as well, but with some upside. It's not his fault that Gordon, Prince, and Rip suffered seriously long injuries for most of the season.
Well I think he deserves a lot of blame for at least one of those two moves: Trading Billups or spending the resulting cap space on Gordon/Villanueva. You'd criticize him for the Billups trade if you think he gave up on that veteran team too early. You'd criticize him for this year's spending spree if you think he invested too much cap space in a questionable core. I tend to lean towards the latter. I think he would've been better served keeping the space instead of feeling compelled to spend it.
This summer they'll have $4.3M in cap space and $16M below the LT threshold. Next summer, they'll be $15M under the cap and another $11.5M under if they don't guarantee Rip's contract another season. The cap will be decreased, of course, so factor that in. CV is 25, Gordon is 26. Their core is fine, and their suckage is mainly due to injuries to 3 of their top 4 players.
And there is no way that Lebron or Wade would come to Detroit. I think CV and Gordon was the best option, and if we suck good enugh we could win the lotto John Wall
Denny you can speak about Gordon with much more authority than me, having seen him play all those years. I'm fairly convinced that Villanueva won't live up to that contract though. He's a talented player that never got the guidance and stability he needed when he first entered the league. He got away with it because of his natural talent, but all that's done is make him so confident that he doesn't think he needs to improve his work habits. I think he's going to play out the rest of that contract as a more talented Al Harrington. We'll see what he does with that coming cap space.
CV makes $6M this season, and under $8M his final season. Barely over MLE for a 6'11" guy who averages 13/6 for his career and who can knock down the 3 ball. I don't think he's overpaid - $6M is a hair over MLE. Gordon would be the 4th highest paid player on a lot of teams, so his contract isn't all that outrageous either. He's a career 20 PPG scorer. There are only 16 20 PPG scorers in the entire league this season. Detroit hasn't had a full complement of healthy players this season, and they wouldn't be very deep even if they were healthy. They had to sign old/over-the-hill Ben Wallace to give them a guy who could play C. But when they get a decent roster together, they're going to be tough.
I tend to agree with John Hollinger to a certain extent. I think that trading Billups for Iverson was an awful decision and I think it was made just for the sake of making a move. Iverson is/was/always will be a terrible player and Billups is still lighting it up. I also hate that he signed Gordon. He is such a one dimensional player and while he is a great scorer he doesn't play any defense. I still think he's a decent GM and I with a little luck this rebuilding process will work out, I just don't think thus far he has made very many good decisions.
