Doug Karsch's Blog: Should Joe Dumars Be On The Hot Seat?

The answer is yes. For years calls have come in to the station ripping Joe Dumars as Piston GM. The biggest reason? His inability to consistently produce quality from the draft. I defended Dumars repeatedly because his job is not to impress you with who takes in the draft, his job was to impress you with the product on the floor. And what the Pistons did was impressive -- they went to six straight Eastern Conference Finals and Two NBA Championships. That's pretty impressive and Dumars deserves credit for keeping the Pistons relevant in the NBA for that period of time. That puts the Pistons in some rarified air along with San Antonio and the Lakers. But now it's clearly over.

And now finally the Pistons inability to find quality in the draft has caught up to them. Sure, Dumars might be handcuffed by an owner more interested in selling the franchise then building a winner, but the only thing the draft has produces is role players. When you couple that with questionable free agent signings and or good-trades-not-made ... we have what we have: a bad NBA team.

I always thought Dumars earned the right to try and rebuild the roster after the title winning nucleus expired, but his work since has to be questioned and the new ownership (when it comes) should take a long hard look, has Joe lost his touch or has Joe been a victim of circumstance?