“Please don’t give him anymore acid.”

In a fairly recent Bill Simmons article, he compared 50 quotes from the movie “Almost Famous” with 50 moments of the NBA offseason. The Pistons came up once. The quote? “Please don’t give him anymore acid. Thank you.” He goes on to refer to the “he” as Joe Dumars. Ouch.

The explanation:

To Joe Dumars. In the span of 14 months, he hired the wrong coach (Michael Curry), overpaid the wrong bench guys (Kwame Brown and Amir Johnson), traded the wrong star too early (Billups, who would have netted more than just an expiring cap figure near the deadline), extended the wrong star too early (Rip Hamilton), overrated the wrong young guy (Rodney Stuckey, who might not even be a point guard), threw away the wrong season (2008-09, when the East was more wide open than we thought), then made it up to Pistons fans by saying, “I just spent $94 million on two guys who will never make an All-Star team!” Shouldn’t you be worried when your top five guys (Ben Gordon, Charlie Villanueva, Hamilton, Stuckey and Prince) are all perimeter guys who don’t rebound, play inside or make other guys better?

That stings just a bit for Pistons fans. However, if you have been following SmokingPistons on the regular, you already know where I stand in regards to this: hand-in-hand.

What Dumars has done with the Pistons since 2000 can only be matched by the Lakers and Spurs, and both of those teams have an incredible, perennial All-NBA first-teamer. Although really Dumars’ stretch of success could be shortened from 2000 to 2005 because he hasn’t done much positive since then aside from letting Ben Wallace walk away. The amount and size of the mistakes he’s made since 2005 is unbelievable. Rather than re-hash them all, just look at the above. That doesn’t even mention firing Flip Saunders, hiring a second straight rookie head coach and another free-agent center that doesn’t play a lick of defense.

I’m not saying that he needs to go. I think after you win a championship, you should get about five bad seasons before you’re job security is even considered. But after that fifth season, if your roster still looks hopeless, it’s time to go. Dumars has had one of those seasons, and as it stands, I think he could be due for a second one. Apparently Simmons agrees.

Tags: Bill Simmons, Joe Dumars, Pistons decline