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Stan Van Gundy was brought into put out a dumpster fire and, well, his work with the firemop ain’t over yet. [ Follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball ] SVG enters his second full year in Detroit having failed to fully extricate his team out of the clutches of his president predecessor: Piston legend Joe Dumars. Dumars brought Detroit a title in 2004 and several years of championship contention in the years after, but by and large his work toward the end of his administration was disastrous. Disastrous in terms of his personnel choices, but also his freedom in steering the ship while past ownership decided to move on, and when new ownership was still getting its feet wet. To borrow another image, Dumars salted the soil badly with his last all-in attempts at building a winner – adding lefties Josh Smith and Brandon Jennings in 2013 to a team already featuring Andre Drummond alongside a litany of uninspiring draft picks. Smith never fit in, and he lasted all of two months with Van Gundy before the team paid him to go away – he’ll be paid over $5 million over the next few years (provided he doesn’t earn anything more than a minimum-salaried deal with a new team) by the Pistons as a result of the team’s decision to use the stretch provision on him. [ Yahoo Fantasy Basketball: Sign up for a league today ] Because sports are filled with obvious storylines and annoying hero/villain credits (Smith did work his tail off in Detroit, he just did not fit in with the roster that both Dumars and Van Gundy built), the Pistons went on a 9-1 run with Smith off the team. By midseason it seemed as if a playoff berth in Van Gundy’s first season was a fait accompli, but the group finished a full six games out of the (quite miserable) Eastern playoff bracket. That late-season swoon was ushered in by the midseason loss of Jennings to an Achilles tear . The lead guard was playing the best basketball of his career in his sixth season (and second with Detroit) before the setback, and though he’ll be back by the time 2015 is through the Pistons still felt a need to find a starting-level point man. That led to the acquisition and eventual re-signing (at a “for him?” -style rate of five years and $80 million ) of former Thunder reserve Reggie Jackson. Jackson was immediately given the starting reins and matched Jennings’ per-minute work almost to the number (with a few extra assists thrown in there), and in spite of the team’s lacking record the group did score quite well with Jackson on the floor. Jennings (who has been supportive of Jackson throughout), meanwhile, has just one season left on his contract and sadly might only provide an approximation of his previous production for 50-odd games. Jackson will have the ball in his hands, but this has clearly become Andre Drummond’s team. The big center is due for a massive extension, and he’ll be asked to play the part of a franchise player in his fourth season. This was always Van Gundy’s intent, but the setup was made all the more clear when scoring big man Greg Monroe was allowed to leave via free agency for no return. Even with Monroe’s move to Milwaukee the Bucks remained over the cap, and though Van Gundy (and general manager Jeff Bower) have had two full offseasons to try and emerge from the remains of the Dumars Administration, this team still feels a step or two short of turning the corner. Even in the East. Van Gundy has his big man, he’s brought in some floor-stretching forwards and he’ll have an intriguing tandem in Jennings and Jackson to work with eventually. What he doesn’t have is a playoff promise. And for Pistons fans that have waited six (and counting) years for the Pistons to crack the bracket in the terrible East, patience should be running out. 2014-15 in 140 characters or less: We’re running … we’re running out of Js to blame. Did the summer help at all? Not as much as you’d like, especially with the seeming mandate to remove all traces to the Joe Dumars Era. The Pistons more or less signed off on Greg Monroe leaving the squad in 2014 when they failed to come up with a contract to his liking. Though Van Gundy persistently told the media that he would love to have the scoring forward back, Monroe just didn’t play well alongside Drummond, and his ability to pass and score failed help in Drummond’s rather worrying year in the low post in 2014-15. The move didn’t net the Pistons any cap space, but they did save room under the tax for Jackson’s extension and Drummond’s eventual max contract.
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